Editing, Research, and Book Work
Curator, Christina Fernandez: Multiple Exposures, ed. Rebecca Epstein
Co-published by UCR ARTS and UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center, fall 2022. Distributed by University of Washington Press.
Christina Fernandez sees herself equally as artist and storyteller, one who employs photography to explore social and physical isolation and estrangement within marginalized communities while experimenting with composition and form. Her art is shaped by the concerns that powered the Chicano movement and the aesthetics and discourses of postmodernism. As she considers the questions and ideas that absorb her, Fernandez moves between landscape and portraiture, but she revises the visual language to suit her purpose, producing works that are deeply thoughtful and engaging.
This exhibition catalog examines the Los Angeles–based photographer’s work since the late 1980s. Among these works are María’s Great Expedition, in which the artist photographs herself as her immigrant grandmother, and the Lavanderia series, photographs created from layered images that offer glimpses into Eastside LA laundromats and the lives of their customers. The volume’s six essays are supplemented with excerpts from three interviews with the artist. Together, they offer critical perspectives on Fernandez’s radical intellectual and formal agenda and reveal the multiple senses of “exposure” that are at play in her art.
240 pages. 180 black-and-white and color illustrations. 10.25 x 12 inches. Hardcover. ISBN: 9780895512017. LCCN: 2022002742.
Image: Christina Fernandez: Multiple Exposures (cover). Design by HvADesign, New York.
Copy editor (English), The International Collection of Modern Art of the “a.r.” Group, eds. Paulina Kurc-Maj and Anna Saciuk-Gąsowska
Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź, 2019
International Collection of Modern Art of the “a.r.” group is the first collection of radical avant-garde art in Poland and one of the first collections in the world created with the intent to be shown publicly. It is exceptional also because its idea was conceived in the art community and it brings together works donated by artists. Finally, the collection was deposited and later donated to the then municipal museum meaning it was viewed as a public collection from the very start. This is how the legacy of the Avant-garde was “officially” sanctioned and included into mainstream culture. Although further research is still needed, the publication presents an updated body of knowledge about the history of the collection.
The publication includes two essays: the first one authored by Paulina Kurc-Maj and Anna Saciuk-Gąsowska devoted to the history of the Collection and its positioning amongst other modern art collections created in more or less the same timeframe, and the second one by Masha Chlenova discussing stages in which the Collection was built based on the current state of research.
The last chapter of the book contains annotated reproductions of all the works in the Collection. Works lost during the WWII are also described and presented in accordance with the state-of-the-art knowledge. The publication finishes with a catalogue in which there are brief descriptions of the history of each of the works and conservator reports.
Authors: Céline Berchiche, Barbara Brus-Malinowska, Masha Chlenova, Wietse Coppes, Isabelle Ewig, Maria Franecka, Małgorzata Geron, Barbara Gołębiowska, Adriaan Gonnissen, Pierre Guénégan, Mariëtta Jansen, Walburga Krupp, Paulina Kurc-Maj, Martine Mathias, Paweł Polit, Anna Saciuk-Gąsowska, Marek Igor Skrzyński, Karel Srp, Maike Steinkamp, Przemysław Strożek, Agnieszka Szewczyk, Cecilia de Torres, Arta Valstar-Verhoff, Romana Wojtynek, Karolina Zychowicz
ISBN 978-83-62820-89-3. Softback. 19,5 x 25 x 2,5 cm. 284 pages. 207 illustrations (125 color, 82 b/w).
Artwork by Dana DeGiulio
Co-editor, On Returning, eds. Julian Myers and Joanna Szupinska, SFMOMA Open Space, February-April 2016
How have art institutions aimed to rectify—or at least to make visible—their historical exclusions? What new arrangements have been made, and with what results? In advance of SFMOMA’s imminent reopening after a three-year period of expansion, the collaborative project grupa o.k. (Julian Myers and Joanna Szupinska) surveys progressive or radical “turns” in existing museums.
grupa o.k., "On Returning: an introduction," SFMOMA Open Space, February 16, 2016
Dana DeGiulio interviewed by grupa o.k., "Painting Notes (For the Chronic)," SFMOMA Open Space, February 16, 2016
Helen Molesworth interviewed by grupa o.k., "In a room: Helen Molesworth on The Art of Our Time," SFMOMA Open Space, February 16, 2016
Charles Gaines, "A Tale of Conflict: Charles Gaines on the Contemporary Museum in the Age of Liberalism," SFMOMA Open Space, March 8, 2016
Johanna Burton, "Back to the Future: Johanna Burton on Engagement through Preservation," SFMOMA Open Space, March 15, 2016
Xiaoyu Weng, "Toward the Utopia of a New Canon," SFMOMA Open Space, March 22, 2016
Silvia Kolbowski, "Just what is it that makes today’s museums so different, so appealing? Notes on a Museum of Resistance," SFMOMA Open Space, March 29, 2016
Andrew Stefan Weiner, "Museum in Reverse: Decolonizing the Ethnographic Museum," SFMOMA Open Space, April 5, 2016
Julieta Gonzalez, SFMOMA Open Space, April 19, 2016
Chus Martinez, SFMOMA Open Space, April 26, 2016
Editorial Assistant, Show Time: The 50 Most Influential Exhibitions of Contemporary Art, by Jens Hoffmann
Thames&Hudson, London, 2014
Managing Editor, Confessions* of a male chauvinist pig: Rethinking Winogrand’s Women, ed. Susan Laxton
California Museum of Photography at UCR ARTSblock, 2013 (edited volume)
This illustrated, 116-page compilation of essays reflects the themes explored in the exhibition of the same name that reconsiders Garry Winogrand’s “Women Are Beautiful” (1975), a set of 85 photographs culled from the hundreds Winogrand shot of women in public places between 1964 and 1973. Initially bearing the controversial subtitle “Observations of a Male Chauvinist Pig,” Winogrand’s project struggled to find a publisher and then withered in the light of feminist critique once it appeared. Confessions* aims to reorganize the photographs into a critical exhibition that places his photographic endeavor in the context of the turbulent 1960s, at the nexus of gender relations buffeted by the conflicting terms of the sexual revolution and the women’s movement.
Confessions* of a male chauvinist pig is organized by the California Museum of Photography at UCR ARTSblock, and is guest curated by graduate students from the Departments of Art, History of Art, and Public History, as advised by Susan Laxton, UCR Assistant Professor of the History of Art. The exhibition is on view at the museum from August 10 through October 26, 2013. The book includes original texts by Andrea Brown, Leann Do, Chelsea Herr, Susan Laxton, Leslie Paprocki, Anamaria Ramey, Kaelyn Rodriguez, Nicolette Rohr, Carolyn Schutten, Megan Suster, and Margaret Wallace. Cover design by Wendy Brown.
Advisor, The Ninth Page: Etel Adnan’s Journalism 1972-74, eds. Julian Myers and Heidi Rabben
CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, and the Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice at CCA, San Francisco, 2013 (edited volume accompanying the exhibition Words and Places: Etel Adnan)
The Ninth Page: Etel Adnanʼs Journalism 1972-1974, collects and translates some of Adnanʼs contributions to the Al-Safa newspaper. The articles document the rich cultural scene of Beirut on the brink of civil war, a political cataclysm addressed with great force in Adnanʼs landmark books Sitt Marie Rose (1978) and The Arab Apocalypse (1980). These writings have an immediacy that is distinct from the rhythms of her poetry and prose. The publication also includes newly commissioned essays that respond to Adnanʼs journalism and its fraught sociopolitical context.
Co-curator (with Michael Darling), Skyscraper: Art and Architectures Against Gravity
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 2012
Gathering a wide range of art from around the world, Skyscraper: Art and Architecture Against Gravity explores the enduring human desire to build farther and farther into the sky. Accompanying an exhibition of the same name, this heavily illustrated volume includes essays by the curators and the architecture critic Owen Hatherley. Examined are themes such as verticality, personification, urban critique, improvisation and the vulnerability of landmark buildings. Skyscraper features the work of about 50 diverse artists, including Francis Alÿs, Ziad Antar, Fikret Atay, Erica Bohm, Jennifer Bolande, Marie Bovo, Roe Ethridge, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Cyprien Gaillard, Jakob Kolding, Vera Lutter, Claes Oldenburg, Gabriel Orozco, Thomas Ruff, Andy Warhol, Peter Wegner, Wesley Willis, Catherine Yass, Yin Xiuzhen, and Shizuka Yokomizo. The book also includes documentation of artist Monika Sosnowska's process of creating new work commissioned for the exhibition.
Copy editor (English), Konstrukcja w Procesie: The Community that Came? eds. Anna Saciuk-Gąsowska and Aleksandra Jach
Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi, 2012
Construction in Process 1981: The Community That Came? is a collection of new writing on the subject of the important international exhibition Construction in Process. In addition to the texts, it is heavily illustrated with photographic documentation of both the historic 1981 event that took place in a factory in Łódź, and the 30th anniversary exhibition that commemorated it, organised by Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź in April 2011. Texts include:
Aleksandra Jach, Anna Saciuk-Gąsowska, "Trzydzieści lat poźniej" ("Thirty Years Later”)
Paweł Spodenkiewicz, "Lata 1980-1981 w Łodzi: Sytuacja rewolucyjna" (“The Years 1980-1981 in Łódź: A Revolutionary Situation”)
Joanna Szupińska-Myers, "Od sali wystaw do fabryki" (“From Kunsthalle to Factory”)
Stephan von Wiese, "Od utworzenia Muzeum sztuki, 1931, do aukcji na rzecz
solidarności, 1982. Artyści w darze dla Polski" (“From Creating Muzeum Sztuki, 1931, to the Auction For Solidarity, 1982. Artists' Gift for Poland”)
Miško Šuvakovič, "Konstrukcja w Procesie: Antagonizmy późnego socjalizmu i koniec zimnej wojny" (“Construction in Process: Antagonisms of Late Socialism and the End of Cold War”)
Co-editor, Proposal for a Museum, eds. Julian Myers and Joanna Szupinska, SFMOMA Open Space, October 2012-May 2013
In 2013 SFMOMA closed for a building expansion planned to last nearly three years. Reflecting on the closure, grupa o.k. asked several friends and colleagues to imagine their own proposals for a museum in San Francisco. Their proposals -- alongside projects and “proposals” discovered elsewhere -- were published on SFMOMA's Open Space blog:
grupa o.k., "Proposal for a Museum," SFMOMA Open Space, November 26, 2012
Zarouhie Abdalian, "Museum of the Witnessing Object," SFMOMA Open Space, November 27, 2012
grupa o.k., "Le Corbusier’s Project for a ‘Museum of Unlimited Growth,’ 1931," SFMOMA Open Space, November 30, 2012
grupa o.k., "Nikolai Fedorov's Philosophy of the Common Goal," SFMOMA Open Space, December 3, 2012
Daniel Marcus, "A Public Museum," SFMOMA Open Space, December 6, 2012
Ian Dolton-Thornton, "Proposal for a Museum," SFMOMA Open Space, December 11, 2012
grupa o.k., "Ed Ruscha, The Los Angeles County Museum on Fire, 1968," SFMOMA Open Space, December 17, 2012
grupa o.k., "Paulina Ołowska, Yael Bartana, and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw," SFMOMA Open Space, December 18, 2012
Dieter Roelstraete and Monika Szewczyk, "Proposal for a Museum," SFMOMA Open Space, December 21, 2012
Ahmet Öğüt, "Artifact (hereafter referred to as the work of art)," SFMOMA Open Space, January 8, 2013
grupa o.k., "El Lissitzky's Abstract Cabinet," SFMOMA Open Space, January 12, 2013
Xiaoyu Weng, "Museum of the False," SFMOMA Open Space, January 22, 2013
grupa o.k., "Roman Ondák’s Virtual Museum of Contemporary Art," SFMOMA Open Space, January 25, 2013
grupa o.k., "Meschac Gaba’s Museum of Contemporary African Art," SFMOMA Open Space, January 29, 2013
Arden Sherman, "Mise en green," SFMOMA Open Space, January 31, 2013
grupa o.k., "Trieste Constructivist Cabinet," SFMOMA Open Space, February 4, 2013
Terry Smith, "'You Can Be a Museum, or Contemporary...'," SFMOMA Open Space, February 5, 2013
Dana DeGiulio, "Proposal for a Future Museum," SFMOMA Open Space, February 7, 2013
Byron Peters and Matthew Post (with Xiaoyu Weng and grupa o.k.), "Questions on Expansion," SFMOMA Open Space, May 28, 2013
Editorial Assistant, The Studio, ed. Jens Hoffmann
Part of the series "Documents of Contemporary Art," Whitechapel Gallery, London, and The MIT Press, Cambridge, 2012
With the emergence of conceptual art in the mid-1960s, the traditional notion of the studio became at least partly obsolete. Other sites emerged for the generation of art, leading to the idea of “post-studio practice.” But the studio never went away; it was continually reinvented in response to new realities. This collection, expanding on current critical interest in issues of production and situation, looks at the evolution of studio – and “post-studio” – practice over the last half century. In recent decades many artists have turned their studios into offices from which they organize a multiplicity of operations and interactions. Others use the studio as a quasi-exhibition space, or work on a laptop computer – mobile, flexible, and ready to follow the next commission. Among the topics surveyed here are the changing portrayal and experience of the artist’s role since 1960; the diversity of current studio and post-studio practice; the critical strategies of artists who have used the studio situation as the subject or point of origin for their work; the insights to be gained from archival studio projects; and the expanded field of production that arises from responding to new conditions in the world outside the studio. The essays and artists’ statements in this volume explore these questions with a focus on examining the studio’s transition from a workshop for physical production to a space with potential for multiple forms of creation and participation.
Editor, "Polish Movie Nite," Cosmopolitan Review
Spring 2011-Spring 2012
Based on the monthly film and lecture series that I organized at the Polish Club in San Francisco in 2010-2011, I guest edited a selection of texts for publication as a series on cosmopolitanreview.com the following year:
"Polish Movie Nite presents Julian Myers & Chris Fitzpatrick: Wajda's The Promised Land," Cosmopolitan Review, Volume 3, number 2, Summer 2011
"Polish Movie Nite presents Erica Levin: Kieslowski's Camera Buff," Cosmopolitan Review, Volume 3, number 2, Summer 2011
"Polish Movie Nite presents Arden Sherman & Knife in the Water," Cosmopolitan Review, Volume 3, Number 3, Fall 2011
"Polish Movie Nite presents Susannah Magers & In the Name of their Mothers," Cosmopolitan Review, Volume 3, Number 3, Fall 2011
"Polish Movie Nite presents Marcella Faustini: An Introduction to The Theatre of Tadeusz Kantor," Cosmopolitan Review, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 2012
"Polish Movie Nite presents Julian Myers: Introduction to Possession," Cosmopolitan Review, Volume 4, number 1, Spring 2012
Co-editor, We have as much time as it takes, eds. Julian Myers and Joanna Szupinska
CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, and the Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice at CCA, San Francisco, 2010 (exhibition catalogue)
Co-edited by Julian Myers and Joanna Szupinska, this publication reflects many of the themes of the group exhibition We have as much time as it takes, including circular processes and resistance to the production of assessable results. Designed by Jon Sueda/ Stripe SF, the book features an exposed binding and nontraditional typesetting. Challenging a common function of the conventional exhibition catalog, the images are speculative rather than documentary: a set of 10 drawings by artist Matthew Rana illustrates his interpretation of the works in the show prior to the manifestation of the exhibition. The book also includes new texts by the poet Jasper Bernes and the writers Erica Levin and Daniel Marcus, an essay by Jacqueline Clay and Kristin Korolowicz, and interviews with each of the artists. Featured artists include Nina Beier and Marie Lund, David Horvitz, Jason Mena, Sandra Nakamura, Roman Ondák, Red76, Zachary Royer Scholz, Tercerunquinto, Lawrence Weiner, and Christine Wong Yap.
Editorial Assistant, Paul McCarthy’s Low Life Slow Life, ed. Jens Hoffmann
CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, and Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern, 2010
Low Life Slow Life—a hefty, 640-page tome accompanying a two-part exhibition at San Francisco's CCA Wattis Institute curated by Los Angeles-based artist Paul McCarthy—is packaged as an instantly recognizable recreation of a Tide box, circa 1973. A fine work of book art in its own right, it showcases a vast range of works that have influenced McCarthy's career, presenting a personal map of his individual take on art history alongside his unique creative philosophy.
This personal map includes works by John Altoon, Gunter Brus, Howard Fried, Dan Graham, Allan Kaprow, Rachel Khedoori, Yves Klein, Tetsumi Kudo, Yayoi Kusama, Maria Lassnig, Robert Mallary, Gustav Metzger, Yoko Ono, Lil Picard, Jason Rhoades, Dieter Roth, Barbara Smith, Stan VanDerBeek, and Andy Warhol. The catalogue, which is designed by McCarthy with Jon Sueda / Stripe, also includes an interview with McCarthy and an essay on his work by Wattis Institute curator Jens Hoffmann.