Group Show: Brutal Destruction, at pinkcomma gallery, Boston, MA

My Orange County Government Center 'transformation' images are included in an exhibition opening this week in Boston, MA. I have mixed emotions — I'm thrilled to be included in this exhibition but sad that the general attitude toward brutalism is almost universal destruction. As this show highlights, there are many excellent examples of the architectural style that should have been saved or more carefully redesigned.

If you are in Boston, please check out the exhibition. Full info below:

Brutal Destruction

Thursday, April 12, from 6:00 until 8:00 pm

pinkcomma gallery
46 Waltham Street, Courtyard One, Boston, MA 02118

An exhibition documenting the ongoing destruction of significant works of concrete architecture, and the issues raised by their demolition and alteration. 

The exhibition is curated by Chris Grimley, over,under.

Photographs by:
Matthew Carbone: Mechanic Theatre, Baltimore, MD
Harlan Erskine: Orange County Government Center, Goshen, NY
Jason Hood: Birmingham Public Library, UK
Rey Lopez: Third Church of Christ, Washington, D.C.
David Schalliol: Prentice Women's Hospital, Chicago, IL
David Torke: Shoreline Apartments, Buffalo, NY
Oliver Wainwright: Robin Hood Gardens, UK

pinkcomma is a division of over,under.
The gallery receives support from the Boston Society of Architects and NADAAA.

Books & Co – New York to Munich.

Ed Ruscha Books & Co. Gagosian Gallery was a fantastic success. I'm very happy to be part of it. The opening on Tuesday, March 5th was widely attended. It was great to meet so many different artists who were influenced by Ruscha. I have to thank Gagosian gallery for putting on the show and for the reception after the opening. Thanks to Jeff Brouws, Wendy Burton, and Hermann Zschiegner for making Various Small Books and Books & Co. possible. Much respect to the artist Ed Ruscha. His publication, Twentysix Gasoline Stations, provided a language of minimalist sequence and seriality which has influenced the work of many contemporary artists, as well as my book,  ten convenient stores.

Here are a few images from the opening from Paul Soulellis post: Books on wires | Soulellis

BOOKS & CO. ran from March 5 - April 27, 2013 at Gagosian Gallery Madison Avenue and traveled to Munich, Germany at the Museum Brandhorst running from June 6-September 22, 2013.

(from left) Jeff Brouws, Ed Ruscha, Hermann Zschiegner

ten convenient stores in Ed Ruscha: Books & Co. at Gagosian Madison Avenue.

BIG NEWS: my artist book,ten convenient stores will be featured in Ed Ruscha: Books & Co. at Gagosian Gallery, 980 Madison Avenue, New York. March 5 – April 27 2013.

Opening reception: Tuesday, March 5, 2013, 6 to 8 pm

ten convenient stores also features in Various Small Books, published this month by MIT Press:

Various Small Books: Press Release

In the 1960s and 1970s, the artist Ed Ruscha created a series of small photo-conceptual artist’s books, among them Twentysix Gas Stations, Various Small Fires, Every Building on the Sunset Strip,Thirtyfour Parking Lots, Real Estate Opportunities, and A Few Palm Trees. Featuring mundane subjects photographed prosaically, with idiosyncratically deadpan titles, these “small books” were sought after, collected, and loved by Ruscha’s fans and fellow artists. Over the past thirty years, close to 100 other small books that appropriated or paid homage to Ruscha’s have appeared throughout the world. This book collects ninety-one of these projects, showcasing the cover and sample layouts from each along with a description of the work. It also includes selections from Ruscha’s books and an appendix listing all known Ruscha book tributes.

These small books revisit, imitate, honor, and parody Ruscha in form, content, and title. Some rephotograph his subjects: Thirtyfour Parking Lots, Forty Years Later. Some offer a humorous variation: Various Unbaked Cookies (which concludes, as did Ruscha’s Various Small Fires, with a glass of milk), Twentynine Palms (twenty-nine photographs of palm-readers’ signs). Some say something different: None of the Buildings on Sunset Strip. Some reach for a connection with Ruscha himself: 17 Parked Cars in Various Parking Lots Along Pacific Coast Highway Between My House and Ed Ruscha’s.

With his books, Ruscha expanded the artist’s field of permissible subjects, approaches, and methods. With VARIOUS SMALL BOOKS, various artists pay tribute to Ed Ruscha and extend the legacy of his books.

Click here for sample page spreads.

Hardcover $39.95 Trade | £27.95 ISBN: 9780262018777 288 pp. | 6 x 9 in | 298 color illus., 55 b&w illus. February 2013

Copies of my book, ten convenient stores are available through my website here. I bound them in a limited edition of 100. See more images of the book below or click here.

ten convenient stores

'#10535' (detail), ten convenient stores by harlan erskine