BEATRIZ MILHAZES CREATES FIRST EDITIONED ARTIST BOOK TO BE PUBLISHED IN CONTEMPORARY EDITIONS SERIES FROM MoMA

Publication Launches Series of Special Edition Fine-Press Books Pairing Contemporary Artists and Writers

Coisa Linda (Something Beautiful) is on View at MoMA QNS from November 21, 2002 to January 13, 2003

NEW YORK, October 2002—The will publish and exhibit Coisa Linda (Something Beautiful), the first in a series of special edition publications pairing artists and writers. Coisa Linda, created by artist Beatriz Milhazes, juxtaposes ornamental abstract images with poetic lyrics from some of the most influential Brazilian songwriters of the past 100 years. Copies of the book, including a selection of pages and an original collage included in the screenprinted volume, will be on view at MoMA QNS from November 21, 2002 to January 13, 2003. The book will be published in an edition of 200 copies on December 5. Contemporary Editions is a series of publications that brings artists and writers into collaboration with designers, printers, and craftsmen from around the world. Offering artists an opportunity to work in unconventional formats and materials, the series will originate as hand-printed and hand-bound editions; some may also be published as trade editions. Future publications from Contemporary Editions will include books by Gabriel Orozco and future artists to be announced. Proceeds from sales of the book will benefit the Library and Archives at MoMA. Coisa Linda is organized by May Castleberry, Editor of Contemporary Editions at MoMA. This series extends MoMA’s continuing commitment to contemporary art and the art of the book. The Museum has been actively involved in the acquisition and exhibition of books by artists since 1936, when it mounted the exhibition Modern Painters and Sculptors as Illustrators. The MoMA collection of illustrated books numbers some 1,600. In addition the Museum's Library has over 10,500 artists books (including the Franklin Furnace Archive), ensuring its place as one of the world's largest collections belonging to a museum library. Beatriz Milhazes (b. 1960, ), known for her colorful and exuberant abstractions executed in a variety of mediums, created Coisa Linda to explore the connection between music and image, specifically drawing influences from the sights and sounds of her native . The 44-page, 12-inch-square book features a hand-printed cover and 32 screenprints hand-printed in 40 colors. Each book also includes two die-cut pages, two printed overlays on acetate, and a unique collage assembled by Milhazes, juxtaposed with lyrics from 12 traditional and contemporary Brazilian songs that inspired the artist. Milhazes’s fluid drawings accompany each set of lyrics in Coisa Linda, which are treated as poetry and appear in their original Portuguese along with an English translation by Clifford E. Landers. This edition brings -More-

together lyrics by , , Vinίcius de Moraes, , Antonio Carlos Jobim, Benedito Lacerda, Arto Lindsay, , Pixinguinha, Edgard Scandurra, Sinhô, and . Milhazes is well known in her native Brazil and is beginning to be recognized by a wider audience. The Museum of Modern Art has recently acquired a major Milhazes painting, Succulent Eggplants (1996), which demonstrates her attempt to create a genre of painting combining portraiture and still life and utilizes her trademark vocabulary of ornamental motifs. Milhazes also contributed to MoMA’s Project 70 (May 2000), creating one in a series of banners that hung outside MoMA’s facade. Beginning October 29, 2002, the Centro Cultural Banco Do Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, will present the first full-scale retrospective of Milhazes’s work. Her work is represented in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; and the Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Milhazes created all screenprints in Coisa Linda in collaboration with printmaker Jean-Paul Russell of the Durham Press, Durham, Pennsylvania. Graphic designer Pablo Medina fashioned the text pages based on his special interest in vernacular Latin American typefaces. The book was screenprinted by Steve Maiorano at Screened Images Inc., Port Washington, New York, and was hand-bound by Claudia Cohen in East Hampton, Massachusetts. Coisa Linda is printed in an edition of 200 copies, all of which are signed by the artist. Seventy-five books will be offered to the general public at the special publication price of $1,600 through December 31, 2002. For information or to place an order, the public may call 212/708-9430.

About the Editor May Castleberry was appointed Editor of Contemporary Editions at The Museum of Modern Art in October 2000. Previously, she founded and directed the Artists and Writers Series of the Library Fellows at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where she edited 19 books between 1983 and 2000, including Hiddenness, by Richard Tuttle and Mei-mei Berssenbrugge (1987); Heat by Joyce Carol Oates and Robert Gober (1989); The First Picture Book: Everyday Things for Babies, by Mary Steichen Calderone, Edward Steichen, and John Updike (1992); and Phrase Book, by Fred Tomaselli and Rick Moody (2000). She organized several exhibitions of books, prints, and photographs at the Whitney between 1998 and 1999 and was a recipient of a Getty Curatorial Research Fellowship in 2000.

About Contemporary Editions Contemporary Editions is a publishing program consisting of a biannual series of editioned artists books. These handmade works offer artists a high degree of experimentation based on a flexible physical structure that permits

2 unusual printing and binding techniques. Proceeds from Contemporary Editions will be used to support acquisitions and conservation of rare and historical material, and new artists books from around the world.

The publication of Coisa Linda is supported by members of the Museum’s Library Council, chaired by Agnes Gund and Joan Tisch, and guided by Milan Hughston, Chief of the Library and Museum Archives. Additional funds for travel were provided by the Fundaçion Cisneros.

Press Contact: [email protected]

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