Art Work Newspaper — Just Cause: Bad Faith – Art Workers’ Activism and Organizing in NYC and Beyond, Interference Archive, NY, December 3 – 31, 2015
Download the press release: Just Cause: Bad Faith – Art Workers’ Activism and Organizing in NYC and Beyond
Art Handlers Alliance of New York and Interference Archive are delighted to present an exhibition of articles, ephemera, and artworks that collectively address a history of cultural workers’ organizing efforts and demonstrations as well as the recent investigations and concerns of artists and individuals working within the culture industry.
In looking at a history of cultural workers’ movements, AHA and IA are less focused on creating a tally of victories and losses, but more concerned with establishing a ‘how-to’ for present day cultural workers. The majority of artists do not have self-sustaining practices and must find alternative means to support themselves and their art. And despite a history of poor labor practices, many artists seek employment within the culture industry. The proximity to art, flexible scheduling, opportunities for behind-the-scenes experiences, and networking compliment their skills and education while supplementing their practices.
However, with these attractions comes an equal opportunity for exploitation through underpayment, discrimination, lack of transparency, and instability. The point at which these concerns outweigh the benefits is the point at which individuals find themselves acting as a collective to protect themselves and their livelihood. Rather than focusing on the accomplishments of specific organizers or artists, we have chosen to emphasize the moments when collective action has been taken, and when artists have recognized their jobs as not just a way of supporting their art practices, but as a subject to be critically examined and possibly improved by their art.
AHA-NY will host their monthly Art Handlers Happy Hour during the exhibition’s dates, and talks and performances are scheduled for Saturdays. Check both AHA’s and IA’s websites and Facebook pages for further details.
Acknowledgements: AHA-NY and IA would like to thank the following individuals, and organizations that have lent their support throughout the exhibition planning and without which the exhibition would not have been possible:
Contributing Artists: Jo-Anne Balcaen, Antonio Serna, Neal Vandenbergh
Contributors and Collaborators/Supporters: Art Handler Magazine, OWS Arts & Labor, MoMA Archives, Teamsters Local 814, W.A.G.E., Benjamin Ferguson, Rachel Higgins, Jennifer Hoyer, Chris Kasper, Greig de Peuter, Blithe Riley, Robert Smith, Stephen Sewell, Julian Tysh, James Whitman
Kione Kochi & Temporary Series — Poster series, 2015
One of the highlights of 2014 for Temporary Services was collaborating with the artist Kione Koche, who illustrated three different Temporary Services booklets: Against Competition by Marc Fischer, Publishing in the Realm of Plant Fibers and Electrons by Temporary Services, and Madison, Wisconsin: A City in Nine Objects by Madison Mutual Drift.
As an extension of the ideas explored in our booklet Publishing in the Realm of Plant Fibers and Electrons, we called on Kione Kochi to work with us once again to produce a set of Risograph posters that explore and celebrate the power and potential of self-publishing. These posters were first exhibited at the 2015 NY Art Book Fair organized by Printed Matter.
Each poster is printed on either Cream or Ivory color 67 pound cardstock. For this set of all six posters from our collaboration, you will get a mix of posters printed on both colors of stock. All posters will ship rolled in a poster box.
The full set is available through Half Letter Press
Interview with Temporary Services—CO LAB: Collaborative Design Survey, by Elizabeth Herrmann and Ryan Shelley, BIS Publishers, Amsterdam, 2015
A field once dominated by assembly line and one-stop agencies, design (and graphic design especially) has harnessed modern tech to produce a new working model of small, interdisciplinary, voice-heavy collaboratives. CO LAB offers a set of contextual essays on facets of collaboration, accompanied by original drawings from the punkish designer/ author/faculty collaborative ras+e, and concludes with a highly diverse group of case study interviews. Channeling Kurt Vonnegut, Jello Biafra, and Ellen Lupton, ras+e build a detailed case for the advantages of interdisciplinary design in a team context as a reflection of contemporary views of authorship, accessibility of tools, and a plethora of hungry, young makers with startup role models.
The rhythmic and relatable writing of the authors, coupled with the extreme diversity of their Q+As, aims to inspire both the students ras+e know so well, and designosaurs looking for a new way of working.
• Ras+e dissect why small, interdisciplinary design collaboratives are shifting the way the industry is constructed.
• Very thoughtful, full of ideas and yet lavishly illustrated
• With a foreword by Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips
Elizabeth Herrmann and Ryan Shelley are researchers, designers, writers and teachers. They lecture at University of South Florida St. Petersburg, and Bowling Green State University. They collaborate under the name ras+e.
Temporary Services & Half Letter Press publications — Ke (artist books and zines), Nhà Sàn Collective, Hanoi, Vietnam, November 13 – November 30
Ke is an exhibition of artists book and zine made by Vietnamese and international artists. The exhibition is inpired by “kệ.” — an attitude of ignoring and abandonment among youth in Vietnam toward what is called foundation and traditional. This attitude is often criticized as irresponsibility but at the same time it reflects a readiness of shift-making among young people in Vietnam. The ehibition features artworks in form of publication or book form. Although artists book has been a major pillar among movements of contemporary art, it is lesser known in Vietnam due to the lack of information on international art movements and the restriction of independent publishing in the country. This exhibition hopes to bring the work to Vietnamese audience to show them how artists – artwork – and audience can interact with one another in a non-traditional way, when the artwork could be in the hands of the audience and not in a traditional display method.
Time and programs:
Opening at 6pm on Friday 13 November, 2015
Duration: from Nov 13-30, 2015
Hours: from Wed-Sun, from 10:00-12:00am & 14:00-18:00pm at Nhà Sàn Collective space, No. 1 Lương Yên, 15F, Hanoi Creative City, Hà Nội.
Curatorial walk through (in English) at 1pm on Nov 14, 2015
Temporary Services & Half Letter Press publications — Medium Cool, designed object and printed matter fair, Prairie Productions, Chicago, IL, November 21 – 22, 2015
We will be at this two day fair.
Prairie Productions
1314 W. Randolph St.
Chicago, IL 60607
Saturday, November 21, 12 – 6 PM
Sunday, November 22, 11:30 – 5 PM
Temporary Services & Half Letter Press — Symposium: The Dynamic Library, The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, IL, November 14, 2015
What are some of the systems Chicagoans have created to make information visible and accessible to a larger public? Soberscove Press hosts a panel exploring the approaches taken by various Chicagoans.
Presenters will include:
- Doro Boehme, Head of Archives & Special Collections, Flaxman Library, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
- Marc Fischer, Artist, Temporary Services/Half Letter Press
- Joseph Grigely, Professor, Visual & Critical Studies, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
- Katy Lawrence, Culinary Assistant to Chef Rick Bayless, Frontera Grill, Topolobampo & XOCO & Manager, Chef Rick Bayless Cookbook Library
- Allison Schein, Former Librarian, The Arts Club of Chicago; Manager, Studs Terkel Radio Archive
- Kate Hadley Toftness, Manager, Archival Collections and Public Engagement, Rebuild Foundation
Temporary Services presentation — Publishing with Temporary Services / Half Letter Press, with Melinda Fries discussing her booklet Red Summer, SHoP (Southside Hub of Production), Chicago, November 7, 2015
SHoP
1448 E 57th Street, Chicago
5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Temporary Services is Brett Bloom and Marc Fischer. They are based in Ft. Wayne (IN) and Chicago and have existed, with several changes in membership and structure, since 1998. They produce exhibitions, events, projects, and publications. In 2008 they started Half Letter Press. Half Letter Press is a publishing imprint and online store that they initiated to publish and distribute book and booklet length works by themselves and others. They are particularly interested in supporting people and projects that have had difficulty finding financial and promotional assistance through mainstream commercial channels.
Marc Fischer from Temporary Services and Half Letter Press will give a talk on their approach to publishing, which to date includes over 110 booklets, books and newspapers.
Late last year, as part of their project “Publishing Clearing House” at the Sullivan Galleries at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Temporary Services published “The Red Summer Self-Guided Walking Tour: Chicago” by Melinda Fries. In the summer of 1919 there were 25 race riots in the United States. During the hot and humid summer in Chicago in July 1919, blacks would use the 25th Street beach and whites would use the 29th Street beach. The riot this booklet covers started on July 27, 1919. Author Melinda Fries will also be present to discuss her booklet and the history it covers.
Temporary Services & Half Letter Press publications — The Reading Room, Eastworks, Easthampton, MA, November 7 – 8, 2015
The Reading Room is an exhibition of artists’ books and zines curated by Trevor Powers and Esther S White. Combining works pulled from their respective collections with books they’ve chosen specifically for the exhibition, the books will be displayed on tables in the gallery. Each table will feature 4-12 books, grouped by content, context, or materials and methods. The exhibition aims to highlight the wide range of approaches to the medium, and celebrate the diversity and excellence of contemporary artists’ books, zines and xerographic book art being created here in the Pioneer Valley and around the world. Visitors are encouraged to sit and browse all books on display.
A centerpiece to this exhibition will be 12X12, an artists’ book and zine swap that brings together six Massachusetts artists and six national artists. Each artist was asked to create a book centering around the number twelve. Each received a box set of twelve books, with one for display and two donated to libraries. One of the box sets and a collection of risograph prints by the artists will be on display. 12X12 is supported in part by Flying Object.
Both curators will be on hand to share their knowledge, excitement and love for books, and to answer any questions you may have about zine making and self-publishing!
Half Letter Press / Temporary Services — Madison Print & Resist, Madison Public Library (central branch), Madison, WI, 11 am – 5 pm, October 31st, 2015
We are excited to participate again in Madison Print and Resist. This year’s line up includes over 40 participants. Despite the fact that Chicago is just a few hours from Madison, this event includes many publishers and artists that are new to us. As with beer and cheese, regional differences are interesting and matter!
Half Letter Press / Temporary Services — Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair, MoMA PS1, NY, September 17-20, 2015
We have a table in the Friendly Fire section of the book fair again this year. Stop by and see both of us and all of our latest publications!
MALL presented by 7D8 and V. Project
Our publications — Mall No. 2, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City, UT, August 14 – September 12, 2015
Our booklets were included in Draw Down Book’s contribution to the exhibition.
Designated Drivers — The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH, November 14, 2014 – summer 2015
For Designated Drivers, Temporary Services invited an international selection of twenty people and groups to each fill one four-gigabyte USB flash drive with material of their choosing. The invited participants for Designated Drivers have included mountains of material, much of which cannot be found duplicated online. During the exhibition, visitors will be able to load their own drives or laptops (or use a host computer and CDrs or DVDrs) with any of the material they would like from each of the flash drives mounted on the wall. File types include: MP3, JPEG, PNG, AIFF, TIFF, PSD, WORD DOCs, PPT, MPEG, PDF, AVI, and more.
Contributors are: Lisa Anne Auerbach, Matt Bua, Cake and Eat It Collective, Ricardo Dominguez & B.A.N.G. Lab, Dan Gleason, Ryan Griffis & Sarah Ross, Anyte Greie AKA Poemproducer AGF, Terrence Hannum, Hideous Beast, IC-98, Tim Ivison, Gregory Jacobsen, Vladan Jeremic & Rena Raedle, Tim Kerr, Loud Objects, Alexis O’Hara, Rob Ray, Deborah Stratman, Adam Trowbridge & Jessica Westbrook, and You Are Here
We have redesigned the booklet that accompanies Designated Drivers.
The Butler Institute of American Art
Workshop—Summit on Pedagogy, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY, June 21, 2015
Marc Fischer will be representing Temporary Services. He will conduct a workshop called Empowerment through Publishing.
Pedagogy can be a space for imagining radical change, for testing new modes of learning and doing. Although teaching strategies are often reserved for specific areas of study or professional training, they have the potential to provide models for inquiry and practice that reach across disciplines and contexts. The recent surge of alternative educational initiatives — in everything from the art world, to neuroscience, to K-12 and higher education — reveals the high demand for experimental extra-institutional learning, yet these initiatives often operate at a remove from one another, making the insights of such projects largely inaccessible to the discourse and interpretation that might bring them to wider audiences. In an effort to facilitate pedagogical exchange, Pioneer Works Center for Art and Innovation will host its first annual Summit on Pedagogy on June 21, 2015.
The summit will combine a program of speakers with hands-on workshops offering opportunities to practice and exchange tools and ideas from a range of disciplines and approaches. Throughout the day summit participants will be invited to explore tools that are outside their areas of expertise, and to reflect on possible insights gained from such investigation.
We will ask: Can practical tools become effective catalysts for change? Are such tools only local solutions, or can they offer viable answers for the dominant education systems? What are the values and belief systems that underlie the way we teach, interact and collaborate? How can we create more exchange between different learning modalities?
The summit is co-organized by Catherine Despont Director of Education at Pioneer Works, and Hallie Scott, Education Director at the Wassaic Project
Pioneer Works—Summit on Pedagogy
Interview with Temporary Services — Come Together: The Rise of Cooperative Art and Design, by Francesco Spampinato, Princeton Architectural Press, NY, 2014
ISBN 9781616892685
Publication date 11/15/2014
8 x 10 inches (20.3 x 25.4 cm), Paperback
256 pages, 400 color illustrations
The past twenty years have seen a new generation of artists working together in small groups and large collectives to explore new avenues of art, design, performance, and commerce. In Come Together, author and visual artist Francesco Spampinato assembles an international roster of forty of today’s most exciting and influential collectives, from design studios like Project Projects and political performance artists The Yes Men to flash mob provocateurs Improv Everywhere and the multimedia artists Assume Vivid Astro Focus. Alongside visual portfolios of their best work are in-depth interviews addressing each group’s unique motivations, processes, and objectives. What emerges is a shared desire to turn viewers into producers and to use commercial mass-media strategies to challenge prevailing social, political, and cultural power structures. Come Together is an essential resource and inspiration for students, art lovers, and anyone interested in the cutting edge of visual culture.
Booklet Cloud — Loving After Lifetimes of All This, The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design, Benchspace Gallery, Asheville, NC, January 30 – May 23, 2015
Loving After Lifetimes of All This is an exhibition exploring the intersections of craft, (self-)care, apprenticeship, and survival within the practices of historically disadvantaged populations. Including artwork and ephemera from over 15 artists, activists, and archives nationwide, this exhibition considers ‘craft’ in an expanded sense to include such practices as homeopathy, scrap-booking, gardening, and other do-it-yourself (DIY) strategies for self-reliance.
With a focus on inter-generational skill-sharing, this exhibition positions craft-practice alongside the histories of community service, citizen journalism, and volunteerism, as another potential strategy for cultural resistance. In addition to traditional techniques such as weaving, quilting, ceramics, and wood-working, artists in this exhibition incorporate video, photography, archival material, and performance into their mulch-disciplinary projects that often hybridize the historical with the contemporary.
Featured Artists: Gina Adams (Lawrence, KS); Tanya Aguiñiga (Los Angeles, CA); Natalie M. Ball (Chiloquin, OR);Jonathan D. Barnett (Kansas City, MO); Nedra Bonds (Kansas City, KS); Sonya Clark (Richmond, VA);Matthew Dehaemers (Kansas City, MO); Josh Faught (San Francisco, CA); Christopher Leitch (Kansas City, MO); Judith G. Levy(Lawrence, KS); Ramekon O’Arwisters (San Francisco, CA); Tina Takemoto (San Francisco, CA); and Temporary Services (Chicago, IL & Copenhagen, Denmark)
Curated by Danny Orendorff
The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design
Our publications — Chicago Zine Fest, Chicago, IL, May 8-9, 2015
Friday, May 8th
Access Living
115 W Chicago Ave
5-6:30 pm: panel
7-8 pm: youth reading
8-9 pm: exhibitor reading
Saturday, May 9th
Plumber’s Union Hall
1340 W Washington Blvd
11 am-6 pm: zine exhibition
Our publications — Philadelphia Art Book Fair, The Annex on Philbert, Philadelphia, PA, April 24 & 25, 2015
The Philadelphia Art Book Fair is a two-day event featuring a range of exhibitors from photography and art book publishers, small and large, to individual artists and institutions, as well as lectures from key artists and bookmakers.
In its fifth year, the 2015 edition of the Philadelphia Art Book Fair is jointly presented for the first time by the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center and The Print Center. Through maximizing both organizations’ networks the fair aims to expand audience participation and exhibitor specialties.
Our publications — Printed Matter’s LA Art Book Fair, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles, January 30 – February 1, 2015
We will be attending this year’s LA Art Book Fair. Marc will be there on our behalf.
Our publications — Drucken Heften Laden: Reflections on Theory and Practice of Independent Publishing, nGbk, Berlin, Germany, January 8-18, 2015
Exhibition:
“The Inside and the Outside of a Book,” opening reception, January 7, 7:00 PM, with a presentation by Brandon LaBelle
Lecture:
“Publishing in the Realm of Plant Fibers and Electrons,” by Brett Bloom, of Temporary Services, January 9, 7:00 PM
Self-publishing with simple means is a common endeavour, and the less money is available, the greater the enthusiasm seems to be. But the distribution and perception of small print publications can quickly reach limits. The relevant know-how about the intricacies of book publishing is not something to be taken for granted. So Drucken Heften Laden will analyse and discuss the conditions and possibilities for independent publishing in the context of art and city (politics). The exhibition presents a temporary archive, with selected nGbK titles published since 1969 and contemporary books and journals. Running parallel to this is a three-day closed workshop, the themes and results of which will be integrated in the public series of events.
Participating publishers:
adocs, Hamburg
Architektur in Gebrauch, Berlin
Archive Books, Berlin
Michael J. Baers, Berlin
Books People Places, Berlin
Botopress, Berlin
Edition Bernward Reul, Berlin
Ernst und Mund, Leipzig
Errant Bodies, Berlin/Los Angeles
form und sinn, Berlin
Fulcrum, London
image-shift, Berlin
Wolfgang Kil, Berlin
Metabooks, Amsterdam/Berlin
metroZones, Berlin
nGbK, Berlin
Revolver Publishing, Berlin
Scriptings/Achim Lengerer, Berlin
Spector Books, Leipzig
Temporary Services/Half Letter Press, Chicago/Copenhagen
The Green Box, Berlin
von hundert, Berlin
ztscrpt, Wien/Berlin
nGbK Project group:
Erik Göngrich, Heimo Lattner, Katja Reichard, Ines Schaber, Peter Schmidt, Florian Wüst
Booklet Cloud — Loving After Lifetimes of All This, la Esquina, Kansas City, KS, November 7, 2014 – January 3, 2015
Loving After Lifetimes of All This is an exhibition exploring the intersections of craft, (self-)care, apprenticeship, and survival within the practices of historically disadvantaged populations. Including artwork and ephemera from over 15 artists, activists, and archives nationwide, this exhibition considers ‘craft’ in an expanded sense to include such practices as homeopathy, scrap-booking, gardening, and other do-it-yourself (DIY) strategies for self-reliance.
With a focus on intergenerational skill-sharing, this exhibition positions craft-practice alongside the histories of community service, citizen journalism, and volunteerism, as another potential strategy for cultural resistance. In addition to traditional techniques such as weaving, quilting, ceramics, and wood-working, artists in this exhibition incorporate video, photography, archival material, and performance into their multi-disciplinary projects that often hybridize the historical with the contemporary.
Featured Artists: Gina Adams (Lawrence, KS); Tanya Aguiñiga (Los Angeles, CA); Natalie M. Ball (Chiloquin, OR);Jonathan D. Barnett (Kansas City, MO); Nedra Bonds (Kansas City, KS); Sonya Clark (Richmond, VA); Matthew Dehaemers (Kansas City, MO); Josh Faught (San Francisco, CA); Christopher Leitch (Kansas City, MO); Judith G. Levy(Lawrence, KS); Ramekon O’Arwisters (San Francisco, CA); Tina Takemoto (San Francisco, CA); and Temporary Services (Chicago, IL & Copenhagen, Denmark)
Curated by Danny Orendorff