Badlands Unlimited at the 2013 NY Art Book Fair
September 20–22, 2013
Badlands Unlimited is pleased to participate in the 2013 NY Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1. This year, Badlands will mount an exhibition of never before seen diagrams, notes, and drawings by Hans Ulrich Obrist to coincide with the upcoming release of his book, Think Like Clouds, and premiere the e-book reissue of Volition by Gregg Bordowitz, a genre-defying inquiry into art, philosophy, and ethics. Badlands will also host a reading by poet Tréy Sager, and exhibit new artist books and works by Cory Arcangel, BFFA3AE, Nickolas Calabrese, Antoine Catala, Paul Chan, Petra Cortright, Ian Cheng, Josh Kline, Gil Gentile, Cassandra Raihl, and Georgia Sagri. Come to the Art Book Fair and visit the Badlands table for more.
Think Like Clouds: the exhibition
September 20–22, Gallery S, second floor
This exhibition showcases a selection of diagrams, notes, and drawings that appear in the upcoming bookThink Like Clouds by Hans Ulrich Obrist. Undulating shapes and flowcharts drawn on hotel stationery and printouts of emails map the conceptual terrain of one of the most curious minds in contemporary art. Curated by Badlands Unlimited.
Tréy Sager: a reading
Saturday, September 21, 3pm at the classroom
Poet and writer Tréy Sager reads from his novel Fires of Siberia, the hit erotic romance inspired by Tea Party leader and Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.
New 2013 Titles From Badlands
Think Like Clouds by Hans Ulrich Obrist
Softcover book, limited edition zine, and enhanced e-book for Apple iBooks and Amazon Kindle, 228 pages.
Think Like Clouds collects for the first time the diagrams, notes, and drawings curator Hans Ulrich Obrist has made for the past twenty-two years. Obrist has curated exhibitions worldwide and has interviewed personalities in nearly every field of endeavor: from architect Rem Koolhaas to painter Gerhard Richter to journalist and activist Studs Terkel. During conversations and curatorial work he draws and takes notes obsessively in order to help him remember and expand the topic at hand. But what ends up being drawn on hotel stationery or printouts of emails are more than mere memory aids. Beautiful and enigmatic, they are visual portraits of conversations or exhibitions made up of names, dates, quotes, and loose bits of information entangled with wavering lines and undulating scribbles. Taken as a whole, Think Like Cloudsmaps the intellectual and historical terrain of one of the most active and curious minds in contemporary art today. With an introduction by Paul Chan and an essay by Michael Diers. At the fair, a limited edition zine made by Chan based on a selection of the works in the book will be available.
Volition by Gregg Bordowitz
E-book on Apple iBooks and Amazon Kindle, 141 pages.
Consisting entirely of questions, Volition is an active, mind-bending engagement with the reader, who is led down paths of inquiry involving art, meaning, philosophy, choice, happiness, and identity. Bordowitz organizes his questions into lists, paragraphs, and stanzas, which are themselves organized into five chapters: Questions, Topics, Aesthetics, Beliefs, and Morals. The resulting text is something like a spiritual guide crossed with an epic poem crossed with a transcription of the meandering thoughts of a philosophic insomniac, kept awake by such questions as “How can I touch creation as a principle without reproach?” and “How does gratitude unfold from virtue?” Originally published as a limited softcover book by Printed Matter, Badlands is proud to reintroduce Volition as a digital work of breathtaking aesthetic and poetic originality for the twitter generation.
Fires of Siberia by Tréy Sager
E-book on Apple iBooks and Amazon Kindle, 219 pages.
“What do you get if you combine Michele Bachmann and Fifty Shades of Grey?”
—Huffington Post
“Tréy Sager’s Fires of Siberia is a flaming ode to erotic lyricism. Protagonist Danielle Powers, a sexy sociopath and politician on the make, wants to be made and made again. She’s Sarah Palin, Machiavelli, and a philosopher no one has ever heard of. Fires is so bizarre and witty, real yet unbelievable, and compelling, it hurts. Read it on the beach.”
—Lynne Tillman, author of American Genius, A Comedy.
Inspired by the life of Tea Party leader and Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Fires of Siberia is an old-fashioned bodice ripper romance novel by New York poet and writer Tréy Sager. Presidential candidate Danielle Powers, full of firebrand pluck and red state sex appeal, has the country in a tizzy. But on an international tour to beef up her foreign policy experience, disaster ensues—her plane explodes over Siberia. Miraculously, Danielle survives, along with one other passenger—a mysterious stranger named Steadman Bass. Trapped in a wilderness of snow and ice, the two begin a journey that pushes Danielle to the brink. There she must confront her deepest self and choose between civilization and a wild, primitive ecstasy. All the while, Steadman harbors a terrible secret that threatens to destroy them both.
Marcel Duchamp: The Afternoon Interviews by Calvin Tomkins
Softcover book, limited edition zine, and enhanced e-book on Apple iBooks and Amazon Kindle, 110 pages.
“I love [The] Afternoon Interviews. I’ve already gotten to use two quotes from the book. ‘A mule’s kick of debonair style’ and ‘badass ‘tude.’”
—Jerry Saltz
In 1964, New Yorker writer Calvin Tomkins spent a number of afternoons interviewing Marcel Duchamp in his apartment on West 10th street in New York City. Casual yet insightful, Duchamp reveals himself as a man and an artist whose playful principles toward living freed him to make art that was as unpredictable, complex, and surprising as life itself. Those interviews have never been edited and made public, until now. The Afternoon Interviews, which includes an introductory interview with Tomkins reflecting on Duchamp as an artist, guide, and friend, reintroduces the reader to key ideas of his artistic world and renews Duchamp as a vital model for a new generation of artists.
About Badlands Unlimited
Founded by Paul Chan, Badlands Unlimited publishes e-books, limited edition paper books, and artist works in digital and print forms. Historical distinctions between books, files, and artworks are dissolving rapidly. We publish and produce new works by artists and writers that embody the spirit of this emerging dissolution. We make books in an expanded field.
