The Art Book Curated by Anna Wolf
untitled 4
The Art Book
Published by Mike Perry 925 Bergen St. Suite TBD Brooklyn, NY 11238 www.mikeperrystudio.com Curated by Anna Wolf www.annawolf.com Designed by Emily CM Anderson www.ecmanderson.net This book is typeset in Milo Serif by Mike Abbink www.mikeabbink.com Purchase from the Fontshop www.fontshop.com Edited by Amber Bravo www.amberbravo.com Copy Edited by Naomi Reis www.naomireis.com Interns: Sara King, Willow Williams & Niky Roehreke Printed in Canada by Westcan Printers Untitled 004: The Art Book www.untitled-a-magazine.com info@untitled-a-magazine.com The entire content is a copyright of Untitled 004 & the artists who made it possible. None of it’s content can be reproduced in full or in part without written authorization of the publishers. 2009 Untitled Magazine. All rights reserved. Every Reasonable attempt has been made to identify owners of copyright. Errors or omissions will be corrected in subsequent editions. Special thanks to Mike Perry for believing in this idea, and to all of the artists who submitted work and made issue #4 amazing.
The Art Book
Curated by Anna Wolf
6 Preface by Anna Wolf 8 Lobe Story by Samuel Milton Grawe 10 They’re All Gonna Laugh At You by Kate Williams 12 Byroni Lloyd www.bryonylloyd.co.uk
16 Keith Newton www.harpandaltar.com
18 Scott Massey www.nohawk.com
26 Charlie Duck & www.charlieduck.co.uk
Joel Garcia www.avolumecurve.blogspot.com
34 Anna Wolf & www.annawolf.com
Brigette Sire www.brigittesire.com
40 Andrew Ackermann 42 Erika Somogyi www.throughthetrees.net
44 Nicolas Haggard www.nicholashaggard.com
54 Porous Walker www.owltooth.com
60 Stephen K. Schuster
124 Georgia Kokolis
www.stephenkschuster.com
www.fredandassociates.com
66 Juan Betancurth &
132 Hannah Waldron
www.juanbetancurth.com
www.hannahwaldron.co.uk
Riley Hooker www.thisisourwork.net
70 Ahndraya Parlato www.ahndrayaparlato.com
76 Deanne Cheuk
136 Juan Betancurth www.juanbetancurth.com
140 Heather Culp & www.heatherculp.com
Francis Parrilli
www.deannecheuk.com
80 Aliki Braine
146 Jacqueline Di Milia www.jacquelinedimilia.com
www.alikibraine.com
86 Tom Bubul
152 Lizzy Stewart www.abouttoday.co.uk
www.dogchirp.com
92 James Mahon &
156 Løber Nøgen www.lobernogen.com
www.jamesmahon.com
Micah Lidberg www.micahlidberg.com/
96 Agnes Montgomery www.agnesmontgomery.com
164 Alex Witjas, www.alexwitjas.com
Meredith Jenks & www.meredithjenks.com
Kate Wolf kate.e.wolf@gmail.com
102 Ana Laura Perez www.analauraperez.com.ar
170 Ida Borg www.idaborg.com
106 Cedrik Bihr www.cedricbihr.com
116 Aurelia Lange www.aurelialange.co.uk
120 Hanna Terese Nilsson www.hannaterese.com
The Art Book— Preface by Anna Wolf
When Mike Perry asked me to curate this issue of Untitled, I was thrilled. I knew almost immediately that I wanted to make a book about fine art, partly in reaction to the last few issues, which were more fashion based, but mostly because the non-commercial aspects of photography are such a large part of who I am. As a photographer, I’m obviously drawn to pictures, but I’ve always been interested in the way in which words and images interact on the page. For almost as long as I’ve been taking pictures, I’ve been collaging and pairing images with words. The art and writing that fill these pages are the kind of works that inspire me to make what I make, and do what I do. Curating this issue was a slow, organic process despite the fact that I knew what I was looking for: Work that is personal, intimate, quiet, and sincere. I started by soliciting people whose work I was familiar with and moved on from there. I wanted to see new things and be inspired and excited by the process of discovery. The search led me down new paths and made me explore, in a deeper way, work that I might have only scratched the surface of otherwise. I asked Sam Grawe and Kate Williams to write introductory essays, not knowing what to expect, but feeling confident it would be insightful, funny, and loose. Both make me laugh out loud. Though they tackle ing perspectives on why some people make art, and why others don’t. When people look at these pages, I hope they feel as if they are discovering something precious and intimate, like they’ve opened a door to a new world. For me, these are the kinds of works to turn to when one needs respite from the visual information that inundates our lives; it is work made from the heart. Regardless of why these artists make work, I’m so thankful that they do, and I’m proud of their contribution to this issue.
Preface
6
7
The Art Book
By Samuel Milton Grawe
At this very moment, somewhere in the world, there are pods of dolphins someone’s apartment, apes preening, and pandas trying to get it up. From the tiniest microbes to the biggest blue whales, the giant bout of instinctual warfare we call life is an unrelenting cycle of killing, eating, and fucking. Of course, many of us humans have it easier. We don’t worry about getting eaten by big cats while we sleep. Instead, we fret over our sheets’ thread count. Our carefree lifestyle enables us to doodle in the margins, debate varietals of Bordeaux, and watch rare Steely Dan live performances on the internet. Some of us even get paid to do that sort of crap—we’re called “creatives.” So how did we get to be so creative anyway? I’ve never taken an anthropology or philosophy class, but I’m willing to wager it is our vast inner life—that varyingly brilliant and idiotic dialogue perpetually unfolding somewhere behind the eyeballs—that sets us apart from the rest of the animal world and makes us human. Not only that, we have an endless array of ways in which to communicate this inner dialogue to our fellow man (like right now). Somewhere, between the inner thought and the ability to translate that thought into some outward form, lies the creative act. For some of us it is a painstaking process, for others it is pure fluidity. Regardless of circumstance, we are all creative beings. In this respect, the history of mankind is very much a history of creative achievement. Every single thing that’s ever happened—from the first Australopithecus who decided going bipedal was interesting change of pace, to the guy who just launched a hummus-tasting blog—is the result of a neurological, electrochemical reaction challenging us to push the boundaries of possibility. Perhaps sometime in the future our descendants will be able to map these achievements—of science, architecture, literature, and so on—as elaborate data sets. Here’s the brain wave that invented ice dancing! Until then, the scope of creativity is boundless. Today it’s impossible to pinpoint why, for some humans, this process results in new cupcake flavors or seascapes, while in others, it becomes poison, weaponry, and acts of terror. Yes, creativity has a dark side, but can we say exactly what is good creativity and what is bad? To you and me, an and his ilk it feels like progress. In other words, everything is relative. The same evaluative process presumably takes place when weighing less drastic examples, and our subjectivity in appreciating one another’s creativity helps to define who we are and how we interact. Some of us go gaga for outsider yarn art, the Die Hard series, or Hummel figurines. In others, fires of passion are enflamed by slab serif typefaces, Miles Davis’s electric period, or geodesic domes. We’re all part of a complicated puzzle of likes and dislikes, and how we get along in this world depends a lot Foreword
8
Some of us flaunt opinions loudly, decrying the slightest deviation and attracting attention through sheer gravity; some quietly follow whims, leaving a scented trail for the curious to follow; some pour themselves into producing and sharing; others into hoarding and collecting. A magazine like this generally contains fragments of each—an amalgamated recording of electrochemical reactions occurring across a range of specimens at a specific a moment in time. What emerges is fashion, and it is fleeting— obsolete before the ink has dried. Yet we are driven to chronicle these creative impulses on the printed page and archive them on our bookshelves. And to what end? I find there is no better reason than to spark the next wave of creation.
9
The Art Book
they’re all gonna laugh at you 15 Reasons to Stop Making Art & Start Watching Tv By Kate Williams
Instead of writing about art—what it means, what it gives us, why it’s vital— I’ve made a list of reasons why most people don’t make art. This way, when you’re flipping through these pages, looking at and reading about all the art that someone else made, you’ll admire their work a little more because you will be reminded of everything they had to overcome to make it. 1. you can’t eat art. People must eat to live. If someone has art and nothing else, they will die. Of course, you could potentially sell art to get money to buy food for yourself or people who need it, but I just googled “Damien Hirst sells work to feed starving African village for the rest of eternity” and nothing came up. Art isn’t practical for anybody. 2. you can’t make money off of art. Mostly. There are some artists out there who make a ton of money, but you probably will never be one of them. If you work really hard for a year and make a lot of work and have an art show at the corner coffee shop, likely your friends will be the only people that show up. And they most certainly won’t buy anything because they are your friends, and they think you should give them a piece of your art because they supported you and came to your show. 3. you’re not good at it. Do you remember, in second grade, when everyone else was drawing dogs, and you drew a blue blobby thing with 15 eyes, green flames coming out of its head and an appendage that looked an awful lot like a penis? When you attempt to make art, just remember this: You’re not good at it. You couldn’t draw a bowl of fruit to save your life. 4. you’re not an artist. You are your job, and your job defines you. Therefore, when people ask what you do, you can’t say, “I’m an artist.” You have to say, “I work at Taco Bell.” Or, to be entirely honest, you have to say “I work the caulking-gunof-guacamole station at Taco Bell on 14th St.” If your business cards don’t say artist, then face, you’re not an artist. 5. you don’t live like an artist. Artists live in lofts. They take Zoloft or Prozac. Sometimes. Sometimes, though, they forget to take it, and take large doses of cocaine and heroin instead. They have sex—a lot of sex—and cheat on their girlfriends and are gay or bisexual. They destroy hotel rooms and are depressed and threaten to kill themselves. They often do because they are too sensitive for this world. You’re a pretty happy and well-adjusted person. Therefore, you are not an artist. 6. you don’t know the right people. You’ve never dated an Olsen. Hell, you don’t even know an Olsen! Interview magazine has never blogged about one of your openings, and you still have Foreword
10
to RSVP to parties because they don’t know you at the door. You don’t have any gallery connections, and since you didn’t get an MFA from Yale and no one in your family was a famous artist either, it’s unlikely you’ll succeed. 7. you don’t have time. Between work, exercise, cleaning, Lost, Facebook, drinking at the bar, drinking with people you don’t really like at the bar, shopping, and sleeping, you don’t really have time to make art. 8. you don’t have the space. To make art, you need a studio, preferably a large, well-lit place in a warehouse that’s close to a good bar and coffee shop so you can go there in your paint-splattered pants whenever you need to take a break. You actually do have a studio, but it’s a studio apartment and you share it with your boyfriend and the cat, and there’s definitely not enough room to make art there. 9. you don’t have the money. Oil paints and turpentine, stretched canvas and film processing are expensive. You need a Mac, because artists don’t use PCs, and even if you got a Mac, you still couldn’t afford all the programs you’d need to make art. 10. you’re tired. You were up late last night, and it’s been a long week at work. Tonight you’re just going to chill out, watch Bravo; you’ll make art tomorrow, when you’re not so fucking exhausted. 11. it’s not the right time in your life. You just broke up with your boyfriend, you just got a boyfriend, or you don’t have a boyfriend. If you weren’t so upset, weren’t hanging out so much,or were inspired by love, you’d be making art. You’re absolutely going to make some art, just as soon as you get the whole boyfriend thing figured out. 12. you have artist’s block. You’re just not inspired right now. You sat staring at the wall for a full 15 minutes last night, and inspiration never struck. When it does, all you’ll want to do is make art, so it’s better to not make art right now and wait. You should never make art when you don’t feel like it. 13. you have a blog. You started a blog to collect images to inspire your art, but now your blog gets a lot of hits and a couple of other blogs have mentioned it. Having a blog is way better than making art because nobody ever tweeted your art. 14. somebody has taken all your ideas. Every good idea you’ve had has been done before. Remember you had wanted to hang orange pieces of fabric throughout Central Park and call it“The Curtains”? Right. 15. they’re all gonna laugh at you. If you make art and show it to people, someone will undoubtedly hate it. Putting yourself and your work out there opens you up to criticism. It might reveal your weaknesses and show that you have some growing to do. You wouldn’t want that, now, would you?
11
The Art Book
Byroni Lloyd
this page / Sorceress, 2008, Collage
Byroni Lloyd
12
opposite page / Witch, 2008, Collage
14
opposite page / Obey, 2008, Collage this page / Mystic, 2008, Collage
15
The Art Book
Keith Newton
Keith Newton
16
claire Blue eye shadow, closed eyes, the sunlight on you is tame. The loose gold on your wrist the collar, your white socks the blindfold. The light underneath you where you lie grows wild in the grass. There’s nowhere else for us to go. The wooded island, the porch, the storm on the dark lake twines the lilies at the posts under the pier. You are innocent of sanctuary. The rain surrounds us. As alone as you are in a dream, as consoled. Climb the ladder in the morning into the trees. Reach down your handfuls below your skirt. The garden belongs to you.
17
The Art Book
Scott Massey
From the At One Time Severe Thematic Swampage series— Ink.05 (i don’t know), (a collaborative project with MK + DH), 2008, Ink On Paper
From the Ikea Gang series— O, 2008, Collage on paper
19
The Art Book
From the Ikea Gang series— K, 2008, Collage on paper
Scott Massey
From the At One Time Severe Thematic Swampage series— ink.02 (into the mountains), (a collaborative project with MK + DH), 2008, Ink On Paper
20
21
The Art Book
From the At One Time Severe Thematic Swampage series— ink.07 (broke), (a collaborative project with MK + DH), 2008, Ink On Paper
Scott Massey
22
23
The Art Book
Scott Massey
24
From the At One Time Severe Thematic Swampage series— ink.08 (you got me here) (a collaborative project with MK + DH), 2008, Ink On Paper
25
From the Ikea Gang series— B, 2008, Collage on paper
The Art Book
Charlie Duck &
Untitled, 2008, Graphite on paper
Joel Garcia
Charlie Duck & Joel Garcia
26
with blue eyes so vague and blank calling me into every direction but her own.
27
The Art Book
Untitled, 2008, Graphite on paper
Charlie Duck & Joel Garcia
28
My ocean bearings hold exposed to the white flocks above and deep tides below and now your useless stars have begun to fan my abandon at night. The brine waters swell and wither our memories to skin fold and furrow silhouettes of an era flooded I cannot leave behind. The sea owns this ardor to sink as I have, infinite swallows and retreats on shores that no paths cross. My love of you will not vanish or evaporate but become form again, those grey explosions and wind currents that storm in hearts alone.
29
The Art Book
Untitled, 2007, Graphite on paper
Charlie Duck & Joel Garcia
30
I have never held gypsy hands but imagine their shape when i see you.
31
The Art Book
i like to watch you undress and feel your skin touch mine before we sleep and the piles of clothes on the floor or the records in wrong sleeves against the wall and then the shoe box with cookie fortunes i see you if can’t feel your skin touch mine before we sleep in the piles of clothes on the floor or the records in wrong sleeves against the wall and then the shoe box with cookie fortunes
Charlie Duck & Joel Garcia
32
Untitled, 2007, Graphite on paper
33
The Art Book
Anna Wolf & Brigette Sire
spread/following spread Untitled, 2007, Mixed Media
Anna Wolf & Brigette Sire
34
35
The Art Book
Anna Wolf & Brigette Sire
36
37
The Art Book
spread/ Untitled, 2007, Mixed Media
Anna Wolf & Brigette Sire
38
39
The Art Book
Andrew Ackermann
Andrew Ackermann
40
The train aches toward the sleeping city, slowly chasing the rumpled evening. Out the window, unfolding, unraveling, the metered argument of telephone lines, scanned then daubed with trees, conversing in their rhythm with the long drawl of asphalt, then paired to a thought of you…you who I’d once tried to carve from my mind and bury in a title. But it is skin that has taught a lesson the mind cannot forget. Only when your ghost returnsto flesh are the days unmasked and the mutt of language wakes to gnaw the structured bone of longing. The melody of memory once tangled the tongue, mangled the chorus of voices, shaped itself around a single thought and the thought in turn shaped the mind until you stood before me not as an entity but as a object, resolved. Here, now, once again on speaking terms, inside the walls with these words: you are pure speech. My ears ring in your presence. You are the handsome configuration of emotion: a companion even in absence. Arms hooked, we watch the wind mat down the grass, then catch the farmer’s hat, blow it, until it lies at the Pale horse’s foot.
41
The Art Book
Erika Somogyi
this page / Untitled (Gold), 2008, Oil on Panel opposite page / Untitled (Blue), 2008, Oil on Panel
Erika Somogyi
42
43
The Art Book
Nicolas Haggard
spread / Untitled Nashville Series, 2008, Color and B&W negative
Nicolas Haggard
44
45
The Art Book
Nicolas Haggard
46
spread / Untitled Nashville Series, 2008, Color and B&W negative
47
The Art Book
spread / Untitled Nashville Series, 2008, Color and B&W negative
Nicolas Haggard
48
49
The Art Book
Nicolas Haggard
50
spread / Untitled Nashville Series, 2008, Color and B&W negative
51
The Art Book
spread / Untitled Nashville Series, 2008, Color and B&W negative
Nicolas Haggard
52
Porous Walker
this page / Choose Your Dracula, 2008 Paper and Ink opposite page / ShipShapeShit, 2007 Paper, Ink and Enamel
Porous Walker
54
55
The Art Book
Porous Walker
56
57
The Art Book
Photograph of a rainbow making itself, 2009 Antique cardstock, oil paint, ink
You Break it, You Bought It, 2008, Paper and ink
Porous Walker
58
59
The Art Book
Stephen K. Schuster
Stephen Shoots Back, 2008, C-print
Maeve with Neon Lights, 2008, C-print
Stephen K. Schuster
60
61
The Art Book
Stephen K. Schuster
62
Window at the Regent Hotel in Beijing, 2008, C-print
Sarah Checks Hair in Desert, 2008, C-Print
63
The Art Book
Hand on Window. Early Morning in Beijing, 2008, C-print
Girl Outside of Beijing Night Club, 2008, C-print
Stephen K. Schuster
64
65
The Art Book
Juan Betancurth & Riley Hooker
this page / Untitled 2, 2009, Photography and collage
Juan Betancurth & Riley Hooker
66
opposite page / Untitled 1, 2009, Photography and collage
67
The Art Book
Juan Betancurth & Riley Hooker
68
opposite page / Untitled 3, 2009, Photography and collage this page / Untitled 4, 2009, Photography and collage
69
The Art Book
Ahndraya Parlato
Ahndraya Parlato
70
Untitled from the Inscape Series, 2003–2008, C-Print
71
The Art Book
Ahndraya Parlato
72
Untitled from the Inscape Series, 2003–2008, C-Print
73
The Art Book
Ahndraya Parlato
74
Untitled from the Inscape Series, 2003–2008, C-Print
75
The Art Book
Deanne Cheuk
this page / Prismy, 2008, Mixed Media opposite page / Eagle Diamond, 2008, Mixed Media
Deanne Cheuk
76
Deanne Cheuk
78
opposite page / Mr. Squiggle, 2008, Mixed Media this page / Mess 2, 2008, Mixed Media
79
The Art Book
Aliki Braine
Aliki Braine
80
Draw me a tree‌ Black Out 3, 2006, Reworked B&W photograph
81
The Art Book
Draw me a tree… White Out 1, 2006, Reworked B&W photograph Draw me a tree… White Out 3, 2006, Reworked B&W photograph
Aliki Braine
82
83
The Art Book
Aliki Braine
84
Draw me a tree‌ Black Out 2, 2006, Reworked B&W photograph
85
The Art Book
Tom Bubul
#1: a man finished his wine around 7:30am At 7:30am I went to buy wine and razors from the grocery store. The wine came in a 1.5 liter bottle and was $9. It was a cabernet my dad would sometimes drink. It used to give me a headache, but not anymore. The woman in the grocery store didn’t ID me, presumably because nobody has ever tried to buy wine at 8am without being of age. She didn’t say good morning either. Her shift had just begun; I was leaving with wine. Outside, a man across the street dropped a brown bag and wiped his mouth. His stubble rasped his rough hands and I reached to feel my own third day morning face, and it felt slick and dusty with sleeplessness. The man’s bag made a muted glass pop when it hit the ground. There were no cars in the street. His face was dirty, his lips chapped and purple, from red wine, from sleeplessness. He saw me watching and flicked a quick salute, and as he brought his arm back to his side, pointed for a second at my own bottle hanging out of its plastic shopping bag. He hacked a coughing laugh to himself and spit. His hands filled his deep jacket pockets and he walked on. He raised his face and squinted into the morning sun, not needing to shield his eyes. In the wintergreen New England 8am I walked the opposite direction down the middle of the street. I could hear the river through the trees. A car drove by behind one of the hills. Somewhere far away, my dad was driving to work. …
Tom Bubul
86
#2: the two times i was disappointed by a cigarette halo I found Joyce’s cigarette halo many years after she lost it. When I knew Joyce we were sixteen and she was my fog. She glowed in the buzz of the dim donut shop and she smoked another cigarette. We drove up the mountain into the sundown. We passed turkeys and hitchhikers while she smoked. We drove down from the night, back to the donut shop. I went in to the dirty toilet and when I came back out, she squinted up at me from our booth. We sat together in the fog, she across from me. Men moved as thick, indistinguishable masses behind her. She smoked another cigarette. It sat on my skin and hugged me, thin and yellow. When I was twenty-two Joyce was long dissolved, gone into the gray daylight, but her halo belonged to DB, who was so small that she could use it as a hula hoop. Her hands were tiny and nimble, many times smaller than mine. Her feet were brown and smooth. I walked with her up to the top of a sundown Ohio hill, and sat with her in the long grass at the bottom of a pine forest, whose trees waved with excited branches. I looked downhill over her legs. Far away, I could see the bonfire, and just barely ringing her bare toes was the cigarette halo. She was rolling it around while we lay there. Far away, someone was using a tiki torch to light a joint, and I could hear two men getting into an argument. A year later, I threw my sleeping bag out across black gravestones and slept under an overcast sky. The trees, only barely disappointed, shrugged. A deer woke me up with a snort. Her head was next to mine. It was dawn and she was chewing the grass. I watched her breath twist out of her mouth and nostrils. Her eye caught mine and she bounded away, hooves loudly clapping wet dirt and stone, and in a moment she’d disappeared between the monuments. Dew rolled off my sleeping bag as I sat up. Through the fog was DB’s house, where she was sleeping, about to wake into the gray daylight. I looked down at the cigarette halo, soggy in the grass. …
87
The Art Book
#3 lauren I woke up on a hard Kentucky floor covered in cat hair with a dusty mouth and a fierce hunger. I’d slept in; everyone else was gone. Ashtrays were overflowing on the table, the whole room smelled like whiskey, the TV was still on. I left in shorts and flips. My tshirt stuck to my filthy body. Lexington was sunny and I was hung over. I wondered where I could go swimming and get an egg sandwich. I wondered how many more days I could do this. I wondered what was stuck in my hair. I was surprised to see Lauren awake and heading someplace in Lexington at 10am, because she’s dead. In 2005, she was stabbed many times by her boyfriend. Four years before that, we were eighteen, and we were friends. She was my French partner; she spoke great French. She was so good that we did a video project together for French once, and she did all the voices herself. Another time, I danced with her at a party, and then helped her get home. She drank every night and worked out every day. She was my friend Tim’s girlfriend. They fought; he hit her once. I’ve seen her cry many times. They had sex even while Tim’s roommate Stephen was in the room. I sat on Stephen’s bed with her once while Tim was out buying 40s and carrying them back in a gym bag. Rotating photos of Heidi Klum were Tim’s screensaver. In French one day she came in with her hair dyed black. The next day, she had had it stripped, so it was white blonde again, but burned out and dry. A pillar of sunlight shone on her while I spoke a foreign language. She looked exhausted. I saw Stephen in Philadelphia once. He’s a lawyer now. He was cleanfaced and looked comfortable. I wonder if he ever sees Lauren around. I was walking to my car somewhere in western Pennsylvania when my mom called to ask, had I heard of a girl Lauren, she was in my class, she’d been stabbed many times, and I wondered if it was Tim. I was sickened. I could imagine him doing it with tears running down his face, stabbing her with wide eyes while she cried and screamed. It wasn’t him who did it, but I wondered if he was sickened when he heard about it, because he could visualize himself doing it too. I haven’t seen Tim in years, but I see Lauren almost every month. She rushes across the Lexington streets and leaves as I walk into Savannah bars. I want to talk to her and see how she is, even though we never had much to talk about in any language I understood, but she always hurries away. …
Tom Bubul
88
#4 live free or die In Strafford, New Hampshire, there’s a store that sells beer and pizza, scoops ice cream, rents out DVDs, and on the second floor, sells guns. At summer camp, we know a guy who works there in the kitchen, so we go in to rent DVDs. When I walked past on my way to the post office, an older man in a gigantic Insane Clown Posse t-shirt with wraparound glasses and close cut gray hair stood by the side of the road. He was with an obese woman possibly between her late 20s and early 50s who wore a dirty, oversized robins egg golf shirt and graying khakis. The man had a thick neck, and dust from the road was beginning to cake on his sweaty back. The woman swung her pendulous arm at a fly. It was noon and they had nowhere to be. They were leaning against each other, looking out over the slow creek that ran through town. I could tell from their ears that they were smiling. Later that day, I left town in a rental van to return it to a giant lot covered in rental vans, the lot lit by the haloes of a hundred thousand well-paid angels and guarded by an old man in a Jeep, who wasn’t lethally armed. I drove around the fence for a while trying to find the entrance; it was late, and I was driving hesitantly, which he must have thought was suspicious. He watched me orbit his perimeter in his boss’s rental van for a minute before driving over to where I paused and flashing me with his brights. He called from his window to see what I needed, then told me to pull in ‘round the side. When I did, he watched me unload my trash from the van to my car, which my friend had followed me in. He got out of his Jeep and pointed me to the key drop without saying a word. He did all of this with a straight cop face and an unarmed pedestrian’s radiant helplessness and apathy. He lifted a hand in the air from inside his Jeep as I drove away but he didn’t wave it. I saw him drop it back to the steering wheel in my rearview as I left the lot. I felt awful as I drove off and he disappeared under the billions of lights. As if by returning the van I had disappointed him so profoundly by once more making him live out the familiar story. As if he had been waiting ages for the day when a boy might finally appear and hesitate with the intent to do something truly suspicious, and not just to return a van. As if he wanted to be tested, even without a weapon. As if he wanted to try to be useful under those lights, even once. Somewhere in a tropical breeze a palm tree is swaying for the couple by the river. Eventually the fly leaves the woman alone. The man in the Insane Clown Posse shirt brushes the dust from his back, and takes the woman’s hand. For the man in his Jeep, on the second floor of a convenient store just down the road in Strafford, someone is cleaning a gun. …
89
The Art Book
The story when we came up was that Matt and Chris’s dad Joe had his ass kicked by this kid who called himself Rambo, because Joe told Rambo that Rambo couldn’t hang out on the train tracks. “That’s what you get,” Rambo said, looking down on the bruised lawshoes. Rambo wears a faded white t-shirt and he rubs the blood from his knuckles,which aren’t even that sore. When I was seven years old and I found out about this, I was debilitated by the worry that Rambo would show up at my own screen door and knock. When I ask who it is, he says, “I’m Rrrambo,” rolling the R. I don’t know how I decided that he rolls the R. I would wish I had been born in a mythology we made up together, me, my cousins, my neighbors Matt never got that black eye, I know Rambo’s voice.
collared shirt with navy blue pleated pants and a fake blue tie that clasped in the back. My green LL Bean jacket and blue LL Bean backpack made uneasy material rubbing sounds against each other as I passed the large block-lettered dirty white Mötley Crü they’d sprayed over the rusty iron. I was on my way home from school, in uniform, panicked that they’d be up there on the tracks. I imagined Joe getting home from work and going pleated dress pants and well polished cordovan shoes, to tell the kids hanging out and smoking on the railroad bed in view of his house that they couldn’t do that, and that they couldn’t write Mötley Crü on the struts. Joe hadthinning gray hair and glasses. He is the face of all rational order all decency. Rambo punches him and rubs his knuckles, which aren’t even that sore. I was seven and I had never written a name on a bridge, or punched a man for telling me not to do something. I was amazed that Rambo did this, and that he escaped. I had never escaped, or known that escape was possible. Rambo squeezed this dream in his fist and left it for me to find in the lawless terror of Joe’s bleeding nose and black eyes. Now, Joe’s a judge, and I don’t know whatever happened to Rambo and his team, but I laugh whenever I go someplace I shouldn’t, or hear a bottle smash somewhere, or smell someone’s pot blowing in from the lawless September night street, because it could be them. In West Pittston, Pennsylvania, the bad kids won once, and it made me afraid to see, but only until I began to wonder what exactly was wrong with being on the traintracks in the first place. Maybe Rambo is still listening to Motley Cru, and he sometimes wakes uparound midnight and looks up and out the window from his bed, and wonders about the seven year old who heard his sweet and strong teen voice announce itself, rolling the R. Maybe he can still feel the fleshy plop of Joe’s cheek on the knuckles of his right hand, especially when he wakes up in the morning to go to work. … Tom Bubul
90
In Kokomo, the sun is always setting purple and pink, and there’s always a soft summer wind. Everyone moves breezily across the beaches is bright and clean and dry and tight and healthy red from another day asleep in the sun. All around is fine white sand that reflects the sky, and dunes that sing green and brown nighttime songs. Everyone smiles with bright teeth and their faces have deep wrinkles from so many days spent laughing. Somewhere there are distant guitars playing over a simple drum, and a woman is laughing high and long. Sea gulls flap thick feather flaps and call moist calls, flocking and diving and running in circles. A makeshift bar, a white tablecloth over a folding table, is set on a raised wooden platform. Plastic cups and bottles are carefully arranged on it, while a tall man in a white oxford and black bowtie stands behind with perfect posture, grinning just slightly, with hands clasped behind his back. People are dancing and drinking black wine, and their eyes are sparkling, and their skin is red and black in the torchlight. They will never stop laughing, they will never be told that there is just one more dance, and the soft summer wind will always blow for them. The men dip the women. They laugh and kiss and when they decide they’re ready, they all walk in pairs away from the firelight and into the night. ‌
91
The Art Book
Stoned Love, 2009 Photography and Medium Graphite
Micah Lidberg
Additional credits: Hair by Seiji at The Wall Group Styling by James Worthington DeMolet at Atelier Management
James Mahon & Micha Lidberg
92
Dress, OAK; Trousers, StĂŚrk; Feather head pieces (worn throughout), Jennifer Behr; Twine (worn throughout), B&G Hardware Brooklyn, NY
James Mahon &
93
The Art Book
Top, Unconditional
James Mahon & Micha Lidberg
95
The Art Book
Top, Vintage from Bess NYC ; Necklace, Speech
Agnes Montgomery
this page / Tightrope, 2007, Collage
Agnes Montgomery
96
opposite page / Ponytail, 2007, Collage
97
The Art Book
Agnes Montgomery
98
99
The Art Book
previous spread / Pool Party, 2008, Collage
this page / Lady and the Boat, 2009, Collage opposite page / Evenfall, 2009, Collage
Agnes Montgomery
100
101
The Art Book
Ana Laura Perez
this page / Dark, 2007, Collage on paper opposite page / Diamonds, 2008, Collage on paper
Ana Laura Perez
102
103
The Art Book
this page / Headscarf, 2008, Collage on paper opposite page / Snow, 2008, Collage on paper
Ana Laura Perez
104
105
The Art Book
Cedric Bihr
Bitten- Hokkaido Province, Japan, 2008, Gelatin silver print
Cedric Bihr
106
107
The Art Book
Cedric Bihr
108
Bitten- Hokkaido Province, Japan, 2008, Gelatin silver print
109
The Art Book
Bitten- Hokkaido Province, Japan, 2008, Gelatin silver print
Cedric Bihr
110
111
The Art Book
Bitten- Hokkaido Province, Japan, 2008, Gelatin silver print
Cedric Bihr
112
113
The Art Book
Bitten- Hokkaido Province, Japan, 2008, Gelatin silver print
Cedric Bihr
114
115
The Art Book
Aurelia Lange
this page / Heart Strings, 2008, Photography and digital collage opposite page / Teeth and Hair, 2008, Ink and digital collage
Aurelia Lange
116
117
The Art Book
Aurelia Lange
118
spread / We Are All Peacocks, 2008, Photography and digital collage
119
The Art Book
Hanna Terese Nilsson
spread / Office, 2008, Pencil
Hanna Terese Nilsson
120
121
The Art Book
spread / Office, 2008, Pencil
Hanna Terese Nilsson
122
123
The Art Book
Georgia Kokolis
spread/following spread Evening, 2007, C-Print (Models: Mick and Lindsey)
Georgia Kokolis
124
125
The Art Book
Georgia Kokolis
126
127
The Art Book
spread/following spread Evening, 2007, C-Print (Models: Mick and Lindsey)
Georgia Kokolis
128
129
The Art Book
Georgia Kokolis
130
131
The Art Book
Hanna Waldron
Hanna Waldron
132
opposite page / Kingdom, 2008, Ink drawing on paper this page / Waves, 2008, Ink drawing on paper
133
this page / Waterfall, 2008, Ink drawing on paper opposite page / Land, 2008, Ink drawing on paper
135
The Art Book
Juan Betancurth
Juan Betancurth
136
this page / Utopia, 2008, Collage
137
The Art Book
Juan Betancurth
138
continued / Utopia, 2008, Collage
139
The Art Book
Heather Culp &
Untitled, 2008, B&W C-print
/
Francis Parrilli
Serpent children from the times of sand and tree, twins under stars: wondering...
Heather Culp & Francis Parrilli
140
141
The Art Book
Heather Culp & Francis Parrilli
142
Untitled, 2008, B&W C-print
This is where we lost the blood, flowing through the brances of our bed— the leaves and lofty vows tell me how you lost us in the wood— sunbaked and broken, a token of your wiccan ways. come back (!), they say, play in the twilight.
143
The Art Book
Heather Culp & Francis Parrilli
144
Counted your arms, wrapped all a(round) us— lost it in a cloud. Two in time—my child, my mother wild— turn tiny worlds (a)round.
145
The Art Book
Jacqueline Di Milia
Lissy Trullie, 2008, B&W C-print
Tree Poem, 2008, B&W C-print
Jacqueline Di Milia
146
147
The Art Book
Tides, 2008, C-print
Conor Oberst, 2007, C-print
Helicopter, 2007, C-print
Jacqueline Di Milia
150
151
The Art Book
Lizzy Stewart
this page / He Built A House, 2008, Pencil and Watercolour opposite page / They were like Grizzly Bears, 2008, Pencil
Lizzy Stewart
152
153
The Art Book
Lizzy Stewart
154
We were like Deer, 2008, Pencil
Ulysees Grant, 2008, Pencil
155
The Art Book
Løber Nøgen
spread / From the series, Løber Nøgen—On the Wall, 2008, Inkjet pigment print, edition of 3
Løber Nøgen
156
157
The Art Book
LØber NØgen
158
159
The Art Book
previous spread / spread From the series, Løber Nøgen—in The Water, 2008, Inkjet pigment print, edition of 3
LØber NØgen
160
following spread / From the series, Løber Nøgen—on The Wall, 2008, Inkjet pigment print, edition of 3
161
The Art Book
LØber NØgen
162
163
The Art Book
Alex Witjas, Meredith Jenks & Kate Wolf
Alex Witjas, Meredith Jenks & Kate Wolf
164
165
The Art Book
Alex Witjas, Meredith Jenks & Kate Wolf
166
167
The Art Book
Alex Witjas, Meredith Jenks & Kate Wolf
168
169
The Art Book
Ida Borg
Pretty in Pink #2, 2008, C-print
Pretty in Pink #1, 2008, C-print
Ida Borg
170
Ida Borg
172
Pretty in Pink #5, 2008, C-print
Pretty in Pink #3 & #4, 2008, C-print
173
The Art Book
Ida Borg
174
Thanks for Looking! www.untitled-a-magazine.com