Photography Changes Everything on view @ Friedrich Petzel Gallery
Candice Bergen. Arnold Schwarzenegger, 1976 from Photography Changes Everything
In 1966, John Latham checked out Clement Greenberg’s Art and Culture: Critical Essays from the library at the Saint Martin’s School of Art, where he was an instructor. One evening at a party he asked students to chew up the book’s pages after which he turned the pulp into a clear liquid. After repeated demands from the library for the book’s long overdue return, Latham presented the liquid in a vial. The book in its altered state was not accepted.
Soon to be on view at Friedrich Petzel Gallery, “The Feverish Library,” a group exhibition organized in cooperation with Matthew Higgs, brings together a number of artworks “whose premises are predicated on the book as a conceptual, psychological, and cultural form. In some pieces, the actual physicality of the book is addressed. The works collectively constitute a meditation on the page, book jackets, design, and content. Some works are arguably a fond or surreal portrait of pulp, a disconcerting look at hoarding and a general nostalgia or malaise regarding the impending obsolescence of the printed medium.”
Running alongside “The Feverish Library,” Friedrich Petzel Gallery presents “Thirty People Present Their Favorite Book [After Kosuth]” which co-opts Joseph Kosuth’s 1966 show wherein he asked fifteen artists to choose their favorite book and presented the books as an exhibition at Lannis Gallery. Of particular interest to Aperture is the inclusion of Marvin Heiferman’s 2012 publication Photography Changes Everything, selected by Dana Hoey, an accomplished visual artist working in photography.
Mr. Heiferman’s publication will be exhibited among the thirty selections from September 6 – October 20, 2012, and there will be an accompanying brochure documenting the book covers published by Jeremy Sanders and 6 Decades.
