Please join us for a conversation, The Editioned Work, between artists James Hoff and Eric Timothy Carlson, presented on occasion of the exhibition ‘Shanzini : Shannon Michael Cane and Printed Matter, Inc.’ The talk is moderated by Nicole Killian, a new media artist and design educator at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Join the event on Facebook here.

The discussion will explore the overlap of the two artists’ past Printed Matter editions, taking them as a starting point for a broader conversation about artwork in edition. In the context of these individual works and across their respective practices as multidisciplinary artists and bookmakers/publishers, Hoff and Carlson will discuss the nature of distributive channels and degraded systems.

The editioned artwork, deliberate and discrete, with its promise of multiplicity, offers a model for an idea set into motion. It carries a disruptive potential, testing the contours of the network it travels. The discussion will look at information and objects, digital and real-world, as as they relate to the themes of the works at hand — malware and the virus, archives, systems of control as they’re met by acts of resistance.

For Hoff’s 2016 edition, he exposed an image scan of a vintage National Geographic (December, 1988) to a computer virus known as the Morris Worm which wreaked havoc on the early internet only a few weeks before the appearance of the issue. The resulting image, a now fractured rendition of a holographic Globe, was screenprinted on top of twenty worn copies of the magazine sourced individually online. Part print, part found object, the work overlays these two networks – a pervasive non-targeted web virus placed on top of a point-specific old fashioned Magazine carried through the mail system. More.

The two screenprints which Carlson produced as part of his ‘NYPLPC’ project considers broadly how institutions, academics and archivists work to establish a historical record through systems of codification and examination, and how this history is continually unraveled by the effacement of time. Carlson’s work builds on the interaction of a nuanced set of symbols that, in spite of this, persist in transmitting ideas and feelings across the course of human existence and into our present. More.

Shanzini: Shannon Michael Cane and Printed Matter is a survey exhibition of artist editions and publications produced by Shannon Michael Cane (1974-2017). During this time with Printed Matter Shannon was the driving force behind a huge number of projects, including the realization of more than 60 editioned artworks and publications from high-profile and emerging artists alike. A new print catalog overviewing individual works was released on occasion of the show here.

“Shanzini: Shannon Michael Cane and Printed Matter, Inc.” is on view through Monday, October 15. See more details on the exhibition here

Participant bios:

James Hoff (b. 1975) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. His work encompasses painting, sound, performance, and publishing among other media. He has performed and exhibited his artwork extensively throughout the United States and Europe over the last ten years. Hoff is also a co-founder of Primary Information, a non-profit arts organization devoted to publishing artists’ books and art historical documents. Recent solo museum exhibitions include The Air You Breathe is Metallic at Anne Leonowens Gallery at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Canada; B=R=I=C=K=I=N=G at the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans; and Black Box, Base Arte Contemporanea Odierna (BACO) in Bergamo, Italy. Two-person and group exhibitions include We are the Center…, Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; From Minimalism into Algorithm, The Kitchen, New York; Eugen Gomringer &, Bielefelder Kunstverein, Germany; Exploring Compositional Epistemologies A Series of Notional Synthesization on Topological Morphologies and Heuristic Gestures in the Realm of Sonic Language, Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis; Postscript: Writing After Conceptual Art, The Eli & Edythe Broad Art Museum, East Lansing, Michigan; and Drop Shadow, Kunsthall Oslo, Norway. Readings, talks, and performances by Hoff have taken place at Mass MoCa, North Adams, Massachusetts; Artist’s Space, New York; MoMA, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Issue Project Room, New York; Bergen Kunsthall, Norway; and La Monnaie/De Munt, Brussels, Belgium.

Eric Timothy Carlson (b. 1984) is an interdisciplinary artist from Brooklyn, New York working with collections of semiotic content generated through processes of drawing, image/object collection, and assemblage. Since 2006 he has maintained a diverse exhibition history exhibiting at both art institutions and DIY spaces; a self-publishing practice producing zines and artists books; and an independent design studio.