Arts & Sciences PROJECTS

Note posted April 10, 2020: the Arts & Sciences Projects website will be transitioning entirely to Tumblr as of May 1, 2020 due to our web host shutting down. We are posting images and texts from previous exhibitions, events, and publications. 

Arts & Sciences Projects is an organization dedicated to providing a production and dissemination platform for emerging and established artists through independent publishing, an alternative project space, and temporary installations and performances. Published works are held in the publicly accessible artist’s book collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Getty Research Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale University, Brooklyn Museum, National Gallery of Canada, Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Franklin Furnace Archive, Oberlin College, and Maryland Institute College of Art Library.

For purchase, please contact Printed Matter, New York.

ARTS & SCIENCES PROJECTS PUBLICATIONS

Public Collection 2. Published by blisterZine and Arts & Sciences Projects, 2016.  World Cat. Printed Matter.

Publish or Perish. Published by Arts & Sciences Projects in collaboration with Transmitter Gallery, 2016.

WINDOWS. Philip Tomaru. Published by Arts & Sciences Projects, 2016. World Cat. Printed Matter.

WALLS. Philip Tomaru. Published by Arts & Sciences Projects, 2016.  World Cat. Printed Matter.

R.I.P. Galleries of the Lower East Side. Philip Tomaru. Published by Arts & Sciences Projects, 2016. Printed Matter.

Public Collection. Published by blisterZine and Arts & Sciences Projects, 2015. World Cat. Printed Matter.

BLINDS. Philip Tomaru. Published by Arts & Sciences Projects, 2015. World Cat. Printed Matter.

Positions. Philip Tomaru. Published by Arts & Sciences Projects, 2015. World Cat. Printed Matter.

Mies in Baltimore. Philip Tomaru. Published by Arts & Sciences Projects, 2014. Printed Matter.

First Class. Trevor Powers. Published by Arts & Sciences Projects, 2013. Printed Matter.

Fixing the Oscillating Weight, Calvin Lee. Published by Arts & Sciences Projects, 2013. World Cat. Printed Matter.

Wall Papers. Mahieddine Bachtarzi, Lindsey Castillo, Ryan Compton, Carl Gunhouse, Tuomas Korpijaakko, Phuc Le, Calvin Lee, Kim Llerena, Anthony Malone, Martin Masetto, Tammy Mercure, Cyle Metzger, Howard Mollett, Chris Mottalini, Nikholis Planck, Trevor Powers, Christine Rogers, Irina Rozovsky, Matthew Schenning, Ginevra Shay, Luke Swenson, Kyle Tata, Philip Tomaru, Jason John Würm, Suzanna Zak. Published by Arts & Sciences Projects, 2013. World Cat. Printed Matter.

A Romance In Pictures. Calvin Lee. Published by Arts & Sciences Projects, 2013. World Cat. Printed Matter.

Friends & Family. Martin Masetto. Published by Arts & Sciences Projects, 2012. Printed Matter.

3. Ryan Compton. Published by Arts & Sciences Projects, 2012. World Cat. Printed Matter.

Wall Papers. Mark Daniel Amura, Mahieddine Bachtarzi, Christine Callahan, Laurent Champoussin, Ryan Compton, Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo, Gina Dawson, Sam Frazier, Edwin Giglio, Carl Gunhouse, Scott Hug, Federico Krampack, Calvin Lee, Martin Masetto, Billy Miller, Daavid Mörtl, Trevor Powers, Aaron Tilford, Philip Tomaru, and Charlie Welch. Published by Arts & Sciences Projects, 2011. World Cat. Printed Matter.

American Desire. Carl Gunhouse. Published by Arts & Sciences Projects, 2011. World Cat. Printed Matter.

Young Man with International Style (Berlin). Philip Tomaru. Published by Arts & Sciences Projects, 2012. World Cat. Printed Matter.

Young Man with International Style (Baltimore). Philip Tomaru. Published by Arts & Sciences Projects, 2011. World Cat. Printed Matter.

Instant Media Dispatch (Redux). Miles Dixon & Ryan Compton. Edited by Martin Masetto & Philip Tomaru. Published by Arts & Sciences Projects, 2011.  World Cat.

Approaching Mies (Plano, IL). Philip Tomaru. Published by Arts & Sciences Projects, 2011.  World Cat. Printed Matter.

The Journal of Sexual Homos (The JOSH). Published by Arts & Sciences Projects, 2008-2010 (3 editions). World Cat. Printed Matter.

Note posted April 10, 2020: the Arts & Sciences Projects website will be transitioning entirely to Tumblr as of May 1, 2020 due to our web host shutting down. We are posting images and texts from previous exhibition, events, and publications. 

Arts & Sciences Projects at the New York Art Book Fair, at MoMA/PS1, September 15-19, 2016

Visit us in the Small Press Dome at MoMA/PS1. We’ll be hanging out there with our friends from blisterZine.

New titles include Public Collection II and Blinds, Walls, and Windows, a three-part book series by Philip Tomaru.

**Join us in the Small Press Dome for these launches and signings:

Friday September 15, 2016:

6:00pm Blinds, Walls, and Windows (Mies van der Rohe series), by Philip Tomaru.

Saturday September 16, 2016:

3:00pm Launch and signing of Public Collection 2 by Arts & Sciences Projects & NASTYNASTY©.

5:00pm Signing of Contacts + Contracts by Bell + Battle (Wilder Alison and David Roesing), in collaboration with Metropolitan Structures.

Note posted April 10, 2020: the Arts & Sciences Projects website will be transitioning entirely to Tumblr as of May 1, 2020 due to our web host shutting down. We are posting images and texts from previous exhibition, events, and publications. 

Mies [Muse] - at Printed Matter, New York - new books by Aaron Krach and Philip Tomaru

Sat. April 16, 2016, 5-7pm

On the occasion of Mies van der Rohe’s 130th birthday, Aaron Krach and Philip Tomaru present three new publications that reckon with the architect’s place in history, popular culture, and the modernist canon. Cake will be served. It wouldn’t be a birthday party without it.

Aaron Krach’s new book, Dark Pools (Almost Everything) is a shadow of Mies van der Rohe Furniture and Drawings, the catalog for a 1977 exhibition at MoMA dedicated to the architect’s furniture. Massimo Vignelli designed the slender paperback with brutal simplicity. “I found a dog-eared copy and lingered over its beauty,” Krach explains. “But I could not shake a sense of dread. Something dark lurked between the pages. The utopia imagined by Mies and Vignelli never arrived. Machine production rendered craftsman irrelevant. Minimal forms did not improve daily life. Innovative designs became ordinary, now filling bank lobbies and corporate boardrooms. Dark Pools inverts the original. Black is white. Shiny is matte. The cover is screen-printed by hand instead of machine-printed. The book is still elegant and stark, but the darkness is clear. Much is obscured and yet more, perhaps, is revealed.

Philip Tomaru releases two new publications. BLINDS and WALLS are the first and second volumes in a three-part series, concluding with WINDOWS. The photographic-based series explores issues related to public-private space, transparency, and cognitive-affective processes as Tomaru negotiates the messy terrain of the modernist architecture program inter-mingled with his own lived-experience in one of Mies van der Rohe’s last residential buildings. Each book in the series is published using a different method, including risography, photocopy, and offset.

Aaron Krach is an artist based in NYC. Recently, he has worked with people, books, rocks, text, vodka, Purell, and a taxidermy goat to make books, sculptures, prints, and installations.

Philip Tomaru lives and works in New York and Baltimore.

Note posted April 10, 2020: the Arts & Sciences Projects website will be transitioning entirely to Tumblr as of May 1, 2020 due to our web host shutting down. We are posting images and texts from previous exhibition, events, and publications. 

Publish or Perish

Transmitter Gallery - Curated with Arts & Sciences Projects

April 1 - May 8, 2016

Benoît Broisat

Sessa Englund

David Horvitz

Farah Khelil + Antoine Lefebvre Editions

Nicole Reber

Paul Soulellis

“The definition of artistic activity occurs, first of all, in the field of distribution.”—Marcel Broodthaers

Publish or Perish focuses on artists who align their practice with varied modes of content distribution and circulation, often experimenting with new forms that promote accessibility, collaboration, and engagement with others. Publishing, broadly  defined  to include  books, zines, PDFs, and other digital  content, is a central component of  their  artistic  repertoire. These works often defy conventional aesthetic hierarchies in counterpoint to prevailing market conditions. In an over-saturated and over-built culture, notions of ascribed value continue to expand, as some published works take on increasing value as they move through different channels of distribution and are absorbed into institutional and private collections. However, as economic challenges relate directly to issues of cultural over-abundance, our perspective regarding the value placed on art is also challenged, thus recontextualizing production into what Edgardo Antonio Vigo calls the “unmaking” of art objects. Ultimately, as self-publishing becomes more prominent as a tool in the pursuit of autonomy, so too does its intrinsic ideology of the self-organized.

“Publishing has never been a fixed notion. ‘What is publishing today?’ remains a relevant inquiry, but with an expanding field of response, as platforms, channels and modes of production mutate and multiply.”—Paul Soulellis

“La Bibliothèque Fantastique is an artist’s books virtual publisher. Our books are free and downloadable from the internet so that you can print them at home.“—Antoine Lefebvre

"The power of books is to exist in several copies, and you can always destroy one, either by water, or fire, or stupidity; other copies will remain."—Farah Khelil + Antoine Lefebvre

“Za Nami is a 32 page full color photo book taken in Poland. Bound by elastic so you can put your favorite pictures on your wall.”—Nicole Reber

“The exhibition is a tool of the market, but at the same time oddly resistant to being sold. The curator is a force within that market, but has the alternative to maneuver against the current rather than with it.”—Sessa Englund

"All these projects are caused by my experience as a reader and by my dissatisfaction with this position. They deal with what we could call the ‘mediate knowledge’ issue. In the past, people used to be preoccupied by the events that concern them directly. They were in the dark about the global situation of the world but they were in close touch with their limited reality. On the opposite, we know a lot about the world but almost everything we know about it we learnt second-hand. Consequently, the reality we deal with is purely intellectual, like disembodied."—Benoît Broisat

“For $1 USD I will think about you for one minute. I will email you the time I start thinking, and the time I stop.”—David Horvitz

Transmitter Gallery, 1329 Willoughby Avenue, 2A, Brooklyn, NY 11237

Note posted April 10, 2020: the Arts & Sciences Projects website will be transitioning entirely to Tumblr as of May 1, 2020 due to our web host shutting down. We are posting images and texts from previous exhibition, events, and publications. 

Wall Papers (2013) will be featured in Display Copy, organized by Petrella’s Imports, at NADA New York 2014.

The third edition of NADA New York will take place May 9–11, 2014, on Pier 36 at Basketball City located at 299 South Street on the East River.

Wall Papers (2013) features a compilation of images previously posted on social media platforms by friends and friends of friends. Contributors were asked to submit images deemed to be forgotten, ignored, or perhaps not loved by others. Wall Papers advances an archival strategy that aims to re-animate and re-circulate these overlooked images, albeit in a humble, photocopied way.

Contributors:

Mahieddine Bachtarzi
Lindsey Castillo
Ryan Compton
Carl Gunhouse
Tuomas Korpijaakko
Phuc Le
Calvin Lee
Kim Llerena
Anthony Malone
Martin Masetto
Tammy Mercure
Cyle Metzger
Howard Mollett
Chris Mottalini
Nikholis Planck
Trevor Powers
Christine Rogers
Irina Rozovsky
Matthew Schenning
Ginevra Shay
Luke Swenson
Kyle Tata
Philip Tomaru
Jason John Würm
Suzanna Zak

Wall Papers (2013)

Published by Arts & Sciences Projects
B&W laser
28 pages
8.5x11"
Velo bound with transparency cover
Edition of 100

Note posted April 10, 2020: the Arts & Sciences Projects website will be transitioning entirely to Tumblr as of May 1, 2020 due to our web host shutting down. We are posting images and texts from previous exhibition, events, and publications. 

Cookbook Dreams and Inflatable Futures

Antoine Lefebvre, Robin Cameron, Cybele Lyle, Luca Antonucci, John Bohl, NOWORK, and Lauren van Haaften-Schick

On view: March 8, 2014 through April 19, 2014

Opening Reception: Saturday, March 8, 2014, 7-10pm

Selected works seen here. Installation images here.

Guest Spot at THE REINSTITUTE (Baltimore) is pleased to present Cookbook Dreams and Inflatable Futures, a group exhibition organized by Arts & Sciences Projects. Opening Saturday March 8, 2014, the works will be on view through April 19, 2014. The show will feature artists’ books and works in other media by Antoine Lefebvre, Robin Cameron, Cybele Lyle, Luca Antonucci, John Bohl, NOWORK, and Lauren van Haaften-Schick.

Inspired by Ant Farm’s 1971 Inflatocookbook, which envisioned a utopia of DIY inflatables within its humble photocopied pages, Cookbook Dreams and Inflatable Futures brings together artists who concoct varied approaches to circulating and advancing concepts and ideas central to their practice through innovative means of book making and distribution. For these artists, books are conceived as alternative spaces in which to exhibit works to a broader audience; they embrace a process-oriented approach to book making, where dialogues are revealed between books and works in other media, including photography, prints, video, and painting. The assembled artists in Cookbook Dreams and Inflatable Futures not only utilize the book as a vehicle for their ideas, they also position the book as an art object, thus challenging notions of assigned value in contemporary art. In making a diverse range of books, these artists assert agency by choice of content, form, materials, and production values. What unites the artists in the show is the realization of the boundless possibilities of books as they enter circulation, free to establish a life of their own.

Antoine Lefebvre initiated La Bibliothèque Fantastique (LBF) in 2009 as an artist’s book virtual publisher. Free and downloadable from the internet, LBF books are made of excerpts of other works, with pages, sentences and words realized in new editions, thus developing a discourse on the ontology of the book. Robin Cameron’s The Book That Makes Itself exposes its own production through its content and form. By personifying the book itself, Cameron articulates her artistic practice as the subject (The Artist), agent and author. The collaborative practice of Cybele Lyle and Luca Antonucci reveals itself in their Space, Time + Architecture project, which includes the titular Sigfried Giedion tome in a highly redacted state, collaged photographs that imagine new conceptions of space, and a revised, letterpressed Space, Time + Architecture that unites their ideas into a new form. John Bohl uses painting and sculpture to examine utopia, kitsch, and romanticism. Typically produced in collabration with other artists, his books may be seen as sculptural objects dialectically engaged with his paintings and works in other media. NOWORK is a platform for collaboratively produced, anonymous projects that relate to New York City, with a focus on photographic material in public spaces. Not citing individual authorship for their work has allowed them to treat their source material, whether taken or found, as part of an act of re-circulation. The problem of artistic agency features prominently in Lauren van Haaften-Shick’s curatorial practice, which considers a selection of art exhibitions manifested in alternative forms, such as publications. van Haaften-Schick’s work highlights the book form (and printed matter) as a crucial means of disseminating artworks and ideas, potentially in ways that are more historically accessible and lasting than a traditional exhibition would have been.

BIOS

Luca Nino Antonucci lives and works in San Francisco, California. He received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2010 and is a resident artist at Basement. He is editor and co-founder of Colpa Press, an independent publishing company specializing in art books. He has exhibited his work widely in San Francisco, New York and Berlin. With Carissa Potter, he founded and previously operated Edicola, a re-purposed newsstand kiosk on San Francisco’s Market Street, selling artists’ books, fine art prints, independently published periodicals, and records.  itwillbeok.com

John Bohl was born in 1983 in New York. Bohl graduated with a BFA in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art and currently lives and works in Baltimore. Recent exhibitions include ICA Baltimore (solo), Nudashank, Baltimore Liste at the Contemporary Museum (solo), Guest Spot, and Current Gallery. In 2012 he was a Sondheim Award Semi-finalist and a resident artist at the Vermont Studio Center.   john-bohl.com

Robin Cameron, (b.1981, Canada lives and works in New York) studied at Emily Carr University in Vancouver and received an MFA at Columbia University, New York, NY in 2012. She has had solo exhibitions at Art Metropole and Room East, with a recent show at Lefebvre & Fils. Her work has been promised as a gift to the Whitney Museum of American Art. A comprehensive selection of her books are held in the Library of the Museum of Modern Art. Library presentations of her books have been included at the ICA in Philadelphia, Art In General, the New Museum’s Resource Center and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. She has been a jury member for Printed Matter’s grant Books For Artists and she has attended a residency at the Banff Centre, Banff, Alberta. She is currently represented in New York by Room East. robincameron.org

Antoine Lefebvre, founder of La Bibliothèque Fantastique, is an artist-publisher based in Paris. He recently completed a one-year residency at New York University in a joint exchange with the Sorbonne, where he is a PhD candidate in Fine Arts. Lefebvre’s work has been exhibited at Printed Matter; the NY Art Book Fair at MoMA/PS1; Miss Read, ABC Berlin; Peanut Underground, New York; and Palais de Tokyo, Paris, among others. www.antoinelefebvre.net

Cybele Lyle holds an MFA from Hunter College in New York City, where she received the Tony Smith Award upon graduating. She received a BFA in printmaking in 2001 from California College of the Arts. Cybele has been an artist in residence at the Bemis Center, Atlantic Center for the Arts and Ox-Bow. She was selected as a finalist for the 2012 SECA award and is a current Kala Fellow in Berkeley. Cybele has a studio at Real Time & Space in Oakland and lives in San Francisco. She is currently represented by Et al. Gallery in San Francisco. cybelelyle.com

NOWORK started in 2011 in New York City. Certain NOWORK publications are conceived serially, while others function independently, sometimes in conjunction with an installation. Their published works and installations have been exhibited at Ed. Varie, 8-Ball Zine Fair, New York Art Book Fair, LA Art Book Fair, and Open Space Baltimore, among other venues. nowork.us

Lauren van Haaften-Schick is a curator, artist and writer from New York. Her current research and artistic interests concern the legal and economic factors that influence the conceptual and material manifestations of art. Recent and upcoming exhibitions include Canceled: Alternative Manifestations and Productive Failures at the Center for Books Arts (NY), Albright College (PA), and Smith College (MA), and Non-Participation published by Half Letter Press (IL/Denmark), and presented at the Luminary Center for the Arts (MO). She was the founding director of Gallery TK in Northampton, MA from 2004-2006, and AHN|VHS gallery and bookstore in Philadelphia from 2009-2010.  www.laurenvhs.com

Guest Spot is located at 1715 N. Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD 21202

Hours:
Saturday 1pm-4pm
Wednesdays 5pm-7pm
or by appointment unless otherwise noted.