Project series: Ian Wilson is an interview between Ben Kinmont and Ian Wilson that took place on the 19th of October, 1997, in Kinmont’s home in NYC. With Ian’s consent and involvement, the conversation was recorded and later transcribed, but it was never published. Previous publications issued by the Antinomian Press in the Project series include those about Lee Lozano (1998), Chris D’Arcangelo (2005), and Seth Siegelaub (2016).

In the interview, Ian talks about the origin of his Discussion pieces, where and when they occurred, and their content and purpose. He mentions the work of Robert Barry, Joseph Kosuth, and Lawrence Weiner, the exhibitions of Seth Siegelaub, and the writings of Lucy Lippard. He also addresses when a conversation is and isn’t an artwork and how the interview is different from one of his Discussion pieces.

Project series: Ian Wilson is published by the Antinomian Press. Printed in an oblong format and stapled in the upper left-hand corner, it is fifty-two leaves long, includes one original color photograph tipped-in as a frontispiece, and a few illustrations in the text. As a publication, the interview challenges conventional rules of bibliographical description as there will be nine different first editions and no issue will have priority.

The publication Project series: Ian Wilson will be printed at the same moment in nine different cities on Tuesday, April 6th. In advance, each printer/participant will receive the pdf of the publication and a stack of original photographs, each printed in a different color for each participating city. For example, the frontispiece photograph for Paris will be printed in red, for Toronto it will be green, for Berlin it will be yellow, and so on. (The photograph is a picture of the first page of the first printed appearance of Plato’s Parmenides dialogue, a text that was very important to Ian Wilson.)

Each participating site will print 25 copies of the interview. During the event, the publication will be printed in black ink onto white paper from a computer, collated, and stapled in the upper left hand corner. The publication is in an oblong format and the text is printed on the rectos only (i.e. it is printed on one side of the paper only). The person printing the publication will staple the leaves together and then tip-in the photograph on the frontispiece page with a glue stick. (I will cover the cost of the original photographs and mail them to each participating site before the event.) Once assembly is completed, the printer will then place each copy of the publication into an envelope that bears the name of their institution.