WITH APOLOGIES TO WALLACE BERMAN 119 18 86 * “... I THINK IT’S JUST WONDERFUL” Andrew Tuck, Monocle Weekly radio show, Monocle 24, discussing Catalogue 1462 RADIO COUNTERCULTURE: THE INCREDIBLE STRING BAND, JENNY HOLZER, THE SONS OF HAWAII BIKER GANG, SAN FRANCISCO DIGGERS, ANGELA DAVIS, THE SEX PISTOLS, OZ, THE SYSTEMS KID, REVOLUTIONARIES (ALL KINDS). Catalogue 1463, Counterculture, Maggs Bros Ltd. WITH APOLOGIES TO WALLACE BERMAN 119 18 86 17 85 87 9868 RADIO COUNTERCULTURE: THE INCREDIBLE STRING BAND, JENNY HOLZER, THE SONS OF HAWAII BIKER GANG, SAN FRANCISCO DIGGERS, ANGELA DAVIS, THE SEX PISTOLS, OZ, THE SYSTEMS KID, REVOLUTIONARIES (ALL KINDS). Catalogue 1463, Counterculture, Maggs Bros Ltd. 57 1 “... HARD TO RANT IN ONE SENTENCE” Jenny Holzer 1 1 “IT WAS FUN TO PUT PARTICULARLY FRIGHTENING ONES UPTOWN” Jenny Holzer 2 1 HOLZER (Jenny). Inflammatory Essays. 3 [CRASS], [VAUCHER (Gee)] (Graphic Original posters. 43.18 x 43.18 cm., 100 words of 3 design). black text arranged in 20 lines, in Times Roman [I am tired of the limitations and the Bold Italic, on a variety of coloured papers, 26 of humiliations the dead lines of blind jarring 29 published. N.p., [New York], n.p. [Franklin ignorance...]. Furnace?/printed at Millner Bros.], n.d., 1979– Original flyer. 38 x 25.3 cm., b&w photomontage 1982. £20000 in a black box, with text below the image. Near fine, a couple slightly creased, inky marks N.p. [Essex/London?], n.p. [CRASS/Southern on the versos of a few. Studios/Exitstencil Press?], n.d., c. 1980. £200 A very rare large group of the famous ‘essays’, 4 Clean and crisp, creased, edges dog eared with partial listings only on OCLC, one group of 12 tears, the central image unaffected. Rare in only at MOMA – in the Franklin Furnace commerce and institutions; no copies found on Collection. A group of 10 at James Madison OCLC. University and another at Reed College. The last “distributed at Fashion Moda, New York, a part FUNERARY CULTURE. of the ‘Carnival Store’ at Dumaine Pictures Framing, March, 1979” (note on OCLC). Another group of 16 at UCSD. Auction records show only scattered small groups and individual posters. The largest set we can find, outside of The Tate, which has a complete set of 29 (P77382–P77412), is a group of 24 acquired by Yale University Art Gallery in 1989. These are larger by 20 centimetres than the 1988 issue of the essays for the ‘Black’ Book. The quantity for both print runs is described as ‘unlimited’, although we suspect that this of lunatic manifestos and beautiful ones” (Tate.). edition is rarer as they were pasted on walls in large spreads. Holzer is recorded by the Tate as Initially, they were created using “... an old saying that “A number of the ‘Inflammatory broken typewriter...” to give them an “informal” Essays’ were first published in book form by the look. Holzer then had them typeset into 100 4 Two portraits of dead children, original artist as Black Book Posters in 1979. These took words in 20 lines and printed in offset to give tintype, 10.3 x 6.6 cm. N.p., n.d., late 1800s. £50 the form of paragraphs printed on green paper”. them the look they have here. She felt it was In very good condition. “... hard to rant in one sentence”. The Essays were apparently first exhibited sort One depicts a young infant girl wrapped in a of formally in 1979 at COLAB’s ‘Manifesto A previous work, ‘Truisms’, which is very similar shawl and lying in a large cot. The other a male Show’, a kind of pop-up in a temporary space on to the ‘Inflammatory Essays’, was printed in toddler, possibly lying on the same shawl, the Bleecker Street. These very potent posters were black on white paper. For this, her next work, backgrounds have the same wallpaper. designed to be “… wheat-pasted in the streets of she chose “... a different coloured support for Manhattan. They were placed wherever posters each ‘Inflammatory Essay’, to distinguish one normally appear”: sometimes she would text from another” and “to heat up the whole “… choose certain texts for certain thing”“ ibid p18.). As such, “a change of colour neighbourhoods. It was fun to put particularly would announce a new text” (David Joselit et al. frightening ones uptown” (Holzer: Tate). The ‘Jenny Holzer’, 2010 p26). She has since re-used texts were “... inspired by Holzer’s readings of the text in a variety of other media including Emma Goldman, Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Lenin, websites, LED ticker signs and benches. Mao Tse-Tung, and Leon Trotsky, as well as some 2 WOOD (James “Jas”) (1895–1975) Spot religious and crackpot writings” (Waldman – Paintings, oil on canvas, 3 x 42 x 42 cm., arrays ‘Jenny Holzer’, 1997 p18). They are very extreme of spots in sevens as radial spokes, on a grey and messianic directives themed around ground, undated, mid 1920s. POA. alienation, social life, freedom and capitalism in a rather bleak and godless world. Or, as Holzer In fine condition, re-stretched. Illustrated in has put it “The subject matter is everyday life Tate Etc magazine #7. with a twist. The tone of the writing is matter-of- Wood wrote ‘The Foundation of Aesthetics’ fact” (ibid p26). (1922) with C.K. Ogden and I.A. Richards and 5 Portrait of a dead boy, image 16.7 x 22 cm., 19 Holzer has talked of how she wanted to “include later ‘Colour Harmony’ with Ogden alone. x 23.9 cm. mount, albumen in sepia. N.p. [USA], both sorts of manifesto making, one being scary, Cambridge led to art studies in Paris and n.p., n.d., late 1800s. £50 an inflamed rant to no good end, and then the painting under the Impressionist Percyval positive type, a deeply felt description of how the Tudor-Hart After this, he served in a variety of Mount chipped and worn, image a bit scratched. world should be” (ibid p32). With that in mind, roles in the Great War including the Royal she plundered the library “… to find examples Flying Corps and battleship camouflage with Richard Carline. 2 3 7 8 6 J.T. JACKSON, PORTRAITS. Postmortem portrait of George Kelsey, 3 years, 2 weeks and 10 [STRUMMER (Joe)]. YEWDALL (Julian 4 days, original cabinet card, image 10 x 13.6 Leonard) (Designer). The 101ERS Beat Music cm., card 10.8 x 16.5 cm., blind stamped, Dynamite. holograph annotation on verso in pencil. Owego, New York, J.T. Jackson Portraits, circa July 15th Original poster. 100 x 73 cm., titles in red, black 1894. £75 and reverse white, central photomontage illustration, on cheap paper, initialled and dated Card curling, image a bit yellowed, two largeish in the stone by the designer, silkscreen?. spots on the photo. Good or better condition. N.p. [London], n.p. [Self published], printed at 7 [VOODOO]. Voodoo staff, approximately 90 the London College of Printing, 1976. £4000 cm., 10.2 cm tapering to 7 cm., hardwood with Very browned, creased and torn, extensive loss symbolic animals, plants, loveheart with arrows, on upper portion affecting titles that have lost crucifixes, trees etc carved in relief, inset cut, the top half of “ERS”. Rare, no copies on OCLC. blue glass ‘jewel’, with other small cavities An artefact from Strummer’s other life as a pub (possibly empty jewel mounts) small pins and rocker in the squat culture of ’70s West London. shiny additions and white paint, tip with a piece The group were named after the house number of white cloth with a black geometric design of the squat they lived in on Walterton Road, through which three nails have been driven, Maida Vale. Clash oral-history relates that heavy patina. Southern States of the USA, Strummer had a punk-epiphany when he saw possibly early 1900s. £650 the Sex Pistols perform as the 101ers support act In very good condition with a rich, deep patina. at the Nashville Rooms. 8 [CLIFF (Jimmy)]. Jimmy Cliff in The Harder 11 IVINS (Mark) They Come. (Photography & Original poster, UK issue. 76 x 101 cm., in colour design). BLADOW on white paper. N.p. [London], n.p. [Lagoon (Janel) (Text). Associates], n.d., 1972. £400 Primal Punk. A Photographic Diary Rolled, edgewear, browning and creasing and New York. especially on upper edge, an iconic poster. This style of vernacular poster design is supposedly Largely illustrated ‘blaxploitative’ but to this cataloguer it is more with b&w photos. reminiscent of Emory Douglas’s graphics for the First edition. 4to., West Coast Black Panther Party. The film, with a 18ll., unpaginated, ska/reggae soundtrack, about an anti-hero stapled into the bandit, was seen by one reviewer at the time as original stiff paper moving Jamaica from a “... passive backdrop in wrappers illustrated in photomontage. N.p., James Bond pictures – providing pot plantation, [New York], Halftone Press, n.d., c. 1980. £250 black gangster villains, or man-eating crabs Good to very good copy, rubbed and worn spine. upon demand by Salzman and Broccoli, to “... Commercially and institutionally rare with 3 the reality of a poverty stricken half-nation” copies only on OCLC. No copy in the Fales. (Ernest Callenbach – The Harder They Come Punk ‘porn’ with many beautiful photographs (review) in Film Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 2, from CBGB’s in the mid-seventies. The upper Winter, 1973 p59). portion of the wrapper depicts the club entrance with trompe l’oeil film strips of group members 9 THE CLASH. from Blondie, Talking Heads, Television, The Black Market Ramones and Patti Smith scattered around.