Saturday, May 25, 2019

Jason Lazarus and Martha Rosler, 202-456-1111, Visual Studies Workshop: Rochester, 2018

the screen printed envelope holding both the accordion
and accompanying book
This is a really powerful publication that takes direct aim at the current administration in the White House.  I'll let Jason Lazarus explain what this accordion and accompanying booklet, with a wonderful and timely text by Martha Rosler, are about.

"Since the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States, I have been creating photograms. The text that repeats throughout these images, 202-456-1111, is the White House phone number, which began the current administration Disconnected.

I'm not sure if photograms is the exact term for these works. A friend called them chemigrams, but after looking it up, I learned that chemigrams are made in full light.

These are made quickly, like a protest sign, and in the dark. They are made with arms and standing on legs that have a rare congenital condition, arthrogryposis, the same one that NY Times reporter Serge F. Kovaleski—who 45 mocked on November 25, 2015—lives with.

The repetition of resistance requires very close scrutiny. The lives of the targets of this administration are infinite, complex, and irreducible. When we become students of these lives, as well as our own, the multitude of details we discover implores us to become fully formed and in formation with each other."

This is dynamite stuff, and combined with Rosler's pointed text, both the accordion and the book leave no doubt as to where this artists' outrage is directed. 

10 pages, double-sided, 10"(h) by 8"(w), when opened 6ft 8".


the accordion with envelope
the accordion


Martha Rosler's text takes up the whole reverse of the accordion



The 44 page book accompanying Lasarus' accordion reproduces Rosler's text as well as a series of works by Lazarus' centered around the telephone number of the White House, which is the title for this both this book and the entire work "202-465-1111."







Fritz Haeg, The Sundown Salon Unfolding Archive, Evil Twin Publishing: Livingston Manor, NY, 2009, ed. 500


In the year 2000, Fritz Haeg acquired a geodesic dome on a hill in Los Angeles and wanted to share this unique property with others. In spring 2001 he sent out an email to everyone he knew describing the house and announcing the beginning of Sunday Salons, which he anticipated serving as "a gathering place for the free exchange of ideas and art through events, happenings, gatherings, meetings, pageantry, performances, shows, stunts, and spectacles." The inaugural Sundown Salon took place on April 4th, 2001, with 100 people attending this first gathering. Between 2001 and 2006, 30 Sundown Salons took place and this very substantial accordion book is the record of what took place at these widely varying events, with a chapter devoted to each Salon. Photographs and visual documentation are presented on one side and texts & written materials about each Salon is on the reverse side. 

This is an incredible archival document of a really fascinating home-based project that took shape in many different and varied ways, and all of this activity is captured in this wonderful publication.

189 pages, 8.5"(h) by 8.5"(w), when opened its an incredible 133ft 10.5".









back of book

Charlotte Guillain and Yuval Zommer, The Street Beneath My Feet, Words and Pictures, 2017


Another beautiful collaboration between this writer and illustrator, exploring the world beneath our feet. A perfect marriage of image and text makes this a fun and educational accordion for the young reader to engage with.

10 pages, double-sided, 12.5"(h) by 10"(w) and when opened up 8ft 4". 







back cover



Charlotte Guillain and Yuval Zommer, The Skies Above My Eyes, Words & Pictures: Lake Forest, 2018


A really well produced vertical accordion that takes a journey through the atmosphere, and into space to show the young reader all the fantastic things that can be found out there, and also to get a sense of the vastness of space.

10 pages, double-sided, 12.5"(h) by 10"(w) and when opened up 8ft 4". 





back cover 



the back and front of the book