A_Selection_Of_66_From_JHG - Limited Edition of 33 Print

Walter van Rijn (Ed.) 2018 A_Selection_Of_66_From_JHG : Unconsumable Global Luxury Dispersion Artist's Book, Softback, Crown Quarto Format 246x189mm, 160 pp. 1 Wallpaper cover, 66 works and 2 essays. Limited Edition of 33 numbered and signed copies. If you would make art for robots, what would that look like? I imagine a human selection plus algorithms plus machinistic application creating 66 artworks. The selection of data is made from the John Hansard Gallery's exhibition history. More precisely, from a database which contains all of the artworks exhibited at the John Hansard Gallery between 1979 and 2016, based on what I thought would be ideal, beautiful data, or the meta-data of the exhibited artworks. This beautiful data is transformed, through algorithms, into images like minimalist cubes. You can also see it as infographics which tells a story about the creation and exhibition of each artwork. To select also implies to curate leading to exhibition and distribution. The database and ‘selections’ are exhibited at the John Hansard Gallery as part of the exhibition Time After Time with artists Caroline Bergvall, Victor Burgin, Hamad Butt, John Latham and Charlotte Posenenske. Through exhibition and independent distribution the artist’s book A_Selection_Of_66 creates a new flow of artworks and associated meta-data. During circulation parts of the artworks are endlessly copied (mostly their meta-data) while other parts remain unique. You could say that it is a function of the artworld to guard the distinction between the meta-data and the unique. However, in today's post-digital context of art making and art consumption, this distinction is not a given anymore and one of the starting points of my project here is to rethink that distinction. A_Selection_Of_66 starts with an article that describes the meta-data of an artwork (for example an artwork title) as the material the artist is going to work with or as the artwork itself. As a result of this switch between meta-data and 'artwork', a hybrid is created of both categories. Anticipating the ongoing circulation of this work, it will be interesting to see how this artist’s book will be absorbed into the artworld and its archives. Following on is an article Archival Machinations by Jane Birkin that delves deeper into the connection between the work of the archivist and the artist.

 The main part of the book contains a selection of 66 artworks. They are selected for their 'ideal' data, and based on this data each artwork is transformed into a different, unique visual entity that refers to minimalist cubes and infographics. A current ubiquitous form of graphics used in the news and in business reports to make sense of a complex set of data.

Printmaking:Digital on Paper

Artist Produced Limited Edition of:33

Size:7.5 W x 9.8 H x 0.4 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.