Call outs

1- All Weekend:

CALL OUT FOR FURTHER CONTRIBUTIONS to the XeroX Book Library @ Banner Repeater

XeroX Book Library

The XeroX Book Library at Banner Repeater is an accumulative project that is made up of a collection of contributions; a volume of individual copies of the XeroX book, each inscribed with its own specific legacy: the copy of the copy of the copy… and so on, mapping how it became a part of the library, that includes the specific photocopier id to each copy:

 XeroX

Copy of the copy of the copy:

Donald Smith, re-ordering

the page order to copy the

copy given by Jack Wendler

to Chris Rawcliffe

CANON

iR 105

THE XEROX BOOK, 1968

Curators / Editors: Seth Siegelaub /Jack Wendler.

With contributions of 25 consecutive pages each from conceptual artists: Carl Andre, Robert Barry, Douglas Huebler, Joseph Korsuth, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, Lawrence Weiner.

During the late 1960’s a growing sense of socio-political awareness meant that artists were increasingly aware that they operated within highly complex and sophisticated inter-related structures, that were indicative of not only the art world, but of society itself.  Institutional critique was borne of these self-reflective moments, drawing attention to the construct; the apparatus that supported the art world.

De-materialisation was at the heart of growing concerns borne of a desire for the art-work to avoid such immediate commodification than had previously been the case.

The intention for an artists book to come about by such (seemingly) cheap and utilitarian technology, via the photocopy machine (Xerox), was exemplary of the desire to produce something with an emphasis on the ideas it held, free of the demands made of the market, that perhaps through these strategies might bypass commodification.

Unfortunately, de-materialisation did not evade the market for long.  Due to its often ephemeral quality it required documentation, sometimes the event itself being simply instructions of the work, often in the form of text, relating the event; a receipt of sorts, and one perfectly possible to purchase.  In this way the work started to require administration and began to mirror the increasingly administered-to world of work, one in which the sole purpose appeared to be an ever-increasing profitability through statistical analysis.

The Xerox book was produced as a lithographic print after all, and entered the market place seamlessly, regardless of its material form, borne aloft due in most part to its increasingly well-known contributors; the aura of the artist belying any attempt to de-mystify art via annulment of the aura of the object.

The Xerox book, in capturing the ethos of the time so very well, and through perhaps its failure to evade the market place, exemplifies many of the ideas still casting long shadows in contemporary art today borne of the conceptual period, projecting many shared ideals with earlier projects of the avant-garde.

The copy we first acquired was produced for the Jack Wendler archive exhibition at Chelsea space.  The Xerox book eventually reached its intended status within this thoughtfully curated presentation of Wendler’s archive, as a photocopied object, available for the masses to thumb through the leaves of a by now, legendary book.

A collection of these accumulates at Banner Repeater as the XeroX Book Library.  Contributors include Donald Smith at Chelsea Space, Adam Smythe at Eastside Projects, Urs Lehni at Rollo Press, Chris Rawcliffe at Pn4, Tom Mason  and Ami Clarke.

Further contributions to the XeroX Book Library are welcomed over the weekend, as well as on-going, please contact info@bannerrepeater.org.

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The reading room and project space is open 6 days a week:

8 – 11am, 4 – 7pm tues – thurs,

8 – 6pm fri,

12 – 6pm sat, 12 – 6pm sun (during exhibitions)

2 – All Year :

Artists’ Record Month @ X Marks the Bökship

Throughout September 2012 X Marks the Bökship will be stocking, playing and displaying records by artists.

Have you made one? Send a copy and details to:

X Marks the Bökship
210/ Unit 3, Cambridge Heath Road
London E2 9NQ
UK