| WAGNER, MARK Coming soon: Time lapse process videos and weekly studio log Postal mail: 20 Grand Avenue #303, Brooklyn, NY 11205 A personal aversion to electronic mail makes it best to send old fashioned written correspondence, if you simply must send electronic mail, be advised that I might not answer for several weeks. Electronic mail: mark@x-ingdesign.com SHORT BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT Mark Wagner was born quietly in the rural Midwest at the tail end of thirteen children. Since leaving the sandbox at the age of fourteen, he has continued his creative career in the fields of writing, collage, and bookmaking. He is co-founder of The Booklyn Artists Alliance, and has published books under the name Bird Brain Press. Wagner's work is collected by dozens of institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, The Walker Art Center, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institution. It has shown at The Metropolitan Museum, The Getty Research Institute, and The Brooklyn Museum. STATEMENT ON COLLAGE WITH CURRENCY The one dollar bill is the most ubiquitous piece of paper in America. Collage asks the question: what might be done to make it something else? It is a ripe material: intaglio printed on sturdy linen stock, covered in decorative filigree, and steeped in symbolism and concept. Blade and glue transform it-reproducing the effects of tapestries, paints, engravings, mosaics, and computers-striving for something bizarre, beautiful, or unbelievable... the foreign in the familiar. GENERAL CREATIVE STATEMENT My creative production includes work in many media: from writing and artist bookmaking to drawing, collage, and assemblage. Though varied, this work is far from eclectic-forming several discrete bodies that both stand on their own and link in nature and theme to their counterparts. In whatever media employed I have a tendency toward meticulous production and solid graphic presentation. Usually fantastical, occasional surreal, and often interdisciplinary- I am satisfied only when concept and craft meet on equally firm footing. PROJECT STATEMENT: FORTUNE'S DAUGHTER Fortune's Daughter Fortune's Daughter pictures a full figure, life-sized, female nude rendered in fragmented one dollar bills. Its weightless figure with outturned hands steps from a swirling landscape of flowers through an arched architecture of distorted bills-recalling depictions of Venus, Christ, and Eve. The piece is at once both the image formed and the material of its making-it is a realistic and recognizable portrait of which every square millimeter is constituted solely from money. Curved and interwoven strips define contour and volume while intact images and framing render detail. The effect is uncanny...almost unbelievable. The realism of the large scale gives way to surrealism upon close examination. Detailed passages, varied collage techniques, and hidden texts rewards the attentive viewer. Eyebrows and pubic hair are formed from foliage. Knees dissolve into vortexes of twisting currency. A hundred faces of Washington crowd the lower corners, serving as surrogate audience. A 100 page handbook-capable of disassembly for display-accompanies the collage and serves as archive for the project. Housing drawings, notes, source material, work records, and explanatory texts, it tethers the surreal product to the real labor and consideration expended in its creation. Fortune's Daughter is a figure birthed from legal tender-an evocation of personal value from the material of commercial value-a product and testament to craft and attention-an allegory of prosperity. PROJECT STATEMENT: THOUGHTS ON THE TAG JACKET Tailored from over eleven hundred clothing labels harvested from the wardrobes of friends and family, pieced together without aid of underlying cloth support. Complete with tag-lined lapels, shoulder pads, two internal and four external pockets. Inch by inch, labels are the most charged, labored, and costly pieces of fabric from any garment. Here are tags from clothing of all sorts: both vintage and modern, under and over wear, dress and casual, expensive and cheap, mixed with those from stuffed toys, furniture, baggage, bedding, and housewares. A shimmering landscape of embroidered silks and acrylics. A patchwork text of contradictory care instructions and competing brand names. The hidden, revealed. The inside turned out. The thing made from the thing. More obsessive than a mouse-skin coat. An improbable mojo to protect its wearer from the forces of fad and fashion. PROJECT STATEMENT: SMOKE IN MY DREAMS AND ITS ARCHIVE THE BOOK: Smoke in My Dreams is the seminal work by writer, illustrator, and bookmaker Mark Wagner and his Bird Brain Press. Letter press printed, collaged, hand-drawn and painted--the edition of seventy books was nearly a decade in the making. Since completion, Smoke in My Dreams has seen exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museums, and The Getty Research Institute. It has been collected by dozens of museums and libraries across the United States and abroad, and is currently being adapted for mass market trade distribution. THE ARCHIVE: The Archive for Smoke in My Dreams was itself four months in the making (or nine years and four months if you count the span of time represented by all its included materials). Its production called upon the artist's skills as designer, box maker, book binder, trained conservator, and practiced writer to make a completely integrated visual and literary work. Its goal...to serve as a comprehensive tour of not only the book's production but to examine, as closely and honestly as possible, the imaginative and creative process. It is a complex and intricate object that evades quick description. THE ARCHIVE CASE: A meticulously-crafted case, designed for both storage and display, houses the entirety of the archival materials in custom-fitted compartments. The 5x24x19” box unfolds into four panels totaling over six feet in length. THE CONTENTS: This case contains a maniacally thorough collection of all materials relating to the production of Smoke in My Dreams. Found within are a copy of the finished book and two working mock-ups, also two artist books (Travel by Dancing and the one-of-a-kind I Smoke in My Dreams) which were precursors to the edition. Included inside are not only the notes, manuscripts, and proofs one might expect, but also the ruler, french curves, x-acto knife, and pencils used in editioning. All materials left over after the archive's assembly were burned, and these ashes too are interred within the archive. THE LARGE ALBUM: The centerpiece of the archive is an 80-page album measuring 21x16x1”. It's post binding is capable of easy disassembly for display. Inside, mounted wall-to-wall, are over one thousand pieces of ephemera pertaining to the project: photographs of related works of art, manuscripts, drawings, notes, diagrams, proofs, and trial collages--all presented in chronological order. Of these materials, 140 items have been footnoted and explained in detail. THE NARRATIVE: This 124 page book explains the contents of the archive and details in writing the making of Smoke in My Dreams. In eight essays (seven by the book's maker and one by Christopher Wilde) the project is approached from a number of different perspectives: from the maker's personal history of cigarette smoking and book making, to an analytical page-by-page discussion of design and production concerns. Also reproduced here are 23 page spreads from the artist's journal, offering further entry into both his private and productive life. MORE THAN AN ARCHIVE: More than the record of the making of a book, the Smoke in My Dreams Archive becomes a singular, integrated piece of artwork. In its presentation of the entire creative process--with all its mistakes, misdirections, and anxieties--the archive surpasses in scope the polished product which is its subject. ESSAY: IN THIS TOGETHER collaboration: its varieties, benefits, and obstacles by Mark Wagner with collaborative input by Heather McCabe, Marshall Weber, and Christopher Wilde I was pulling favorite books from the shelves (artist books that is, from the shelves of Booklyn), setting them before a visitor and announcing what I knew of their origins: “This one was made by Kurt, Marshall, and Chris...this one by thirty-five artists...this one by Dylan and Dave.” What made me launch this investigation was an outsider's surprise: “You guys do a lot of collaboration!” Like anything one has grown accustomed to, for me the practice had stopped registering. Collaboration between artists seemed natural--simply, what went on. It became regular to see a box of half-finished books sent off only to be unpacked three months later after Shon or Felice had done their work. It was normal to hear the questions, “Do you wanna have a go at this?” and “Who's got such-and-such book now?” I reassessed the books at hand--the books I had to move in order to use the board shears or save from the cats, the books I repiled and reshelved on an almost daily basis--and found that one out of every three were made by multiple participants. In contrast, a mental survey of all the art history classes I'd ever taken could recall only two non-architectural slides cast on the screen that admitted to being collaborative work. In light of this disproportion, the visitor's surprise seemed warranted, and I too began to wonder why collaborations were going on here and now. Why here and now? This question has two parts. I will take the word “here” to mean within the territory of the book arts. There are reasons commonly discussed regarding the book form that make it natural for collaboration (skip ahead a bit if you're tired of hearing them). Books are intimate and have a tendency toward the diminutive. Books are discreet, they sit on a shelf instead of hanging on a wall. A net effect of these qualities is a softening of the artist's ego--surrender of control is a necessary component to collaboration (more about ego later). A division of labor is already implicit in book production: writing, illustrating, printing, and binding often reside in different hands. Also, books are practical for collaboration...small and prepackaged, they're easily handed back and forth in a way that a large painting is not. The second part of this initial question, “Why now?” may be expanded: why does one see more collaborations generated now then in the past? To address the question is partially to denial it, for collaborations were presented in those art history classes, only they were not called thus. To name just a few, there were Albrecht Dürer's collaborations with his printing minions, and Rubens, whose level of involvement with one of “his” paintings depended on its price tag. This model is still in use. Like the celebrity figureheads of Paul Newman and Martha Stewart, we have Jim Dine and Jeff Koons brand artwork, the unseen and unnamed collaborators often having more to do with the work than the persona used to sell it. This is not, of course, a value judgment on the results (I love Martha's color palette); the pet peeve airing here is a call for giving credit where credit is due: the general recognition of those collaborators performing a lion's share of work that bears the name of a single big cat. Only once, at a retrospective of Claes Oldenburg prints, have I seen satisfactory (nay, exquisite) documentation. The title card for each print read like a colophon, some with five or six names listed. Let's have more of that. Along with this have been the considerable collaborations on style we've come to call movements. Visual and conceptional innovations made by one artist have been picked up by their contemporaries and progeny. They are and aren't collaborations. These artists were and weren't working together. Actually, both of the models already given are less than the purest examples of collaboration. Neither represents two artisans coming to the same canvas with a sense of shared responsibility and equality. If we search for these qualities, it probably is true that more people are doing collaborative work today than ever before. So again, the question... why now? There are more of us. The world is filling and we are forced to make more contact. Why not work together instead of fighting to carve a personal territory? More so than in the recent past, there is a greater awareness in the arts of the forces of history, influence, and context (these realizations are sometimes housed under the roof of “postmodernism”). This has brought an end (or at least an alternative) to the romantic concept of the artist as lone gunman, working in an insular studio, conducting solo (often solipsistic) experiments into image and idea. Softening the artist's borders of personal genius has allowed others to enter. The advent of installation and performance events in the last half century have required many participants. What is collaboration? On some level it could be said that a photographer collaborates with the people and object-makers who create the scene before the lense, and the collage artist collaborates with the illustrators, designers, and printers who create the images they employ. I did not make the paper on which I write, nor the pen with which I write upon it. Am I right now collaborating with the people who did? One must be careful of getting too caught in semantics. By allowing a term to be too inclusive, one makes it useless. Yet one does not want to deny its extent by drawing an arbitrary line on the continuum, artificially amputating its dimmer end. It is best to aim at a more organic understanding of the term--recognition of its characteristics without the rigidity of strict definition. If you had rented my apartment and moved out before I moved in, we would not be co-habitating. The word “collaborate” (co-labor...hence, working together) implies a temporal overlap, beyond merely sequential work. So a commercial publisher may take a text, hire illustrator and designer, printer and binder, without these elements ever meeting. Though involving many people, the result is not particularly collaborative. An artist book might sport the same elements more interactive to the others and therefore stray further into the spirit of the word. Something in the word implies communication, a discourse through the materials. In its purest form, collaboration is two people working at the same time on the same piece of paper, bumping elbows and passing the glue brush. In a more pragmatic form, it is handing a book back and forth--a ping pong game in which both players win or both players lose. Several paragraphs ago I asked the question “Why here and now?” Less grammatically correct, it could be stated “Why, here, and now.” The why is an important consideration. Collaboration offers benefits that parallel those of civilization's founding. In the advancement of our species, we learned to work together. One did not have to both grow food and build housing. Division of labor allowed for specialization. Specialization allowed for mastery and excellerated innovation. A successful collaboration produces something beyond the ken of any of the artists involved. One can put their best foot forward, and (if well matched) expect compensation for their weaker side. Feet in mind, it must be said that it is more fun dancing together than by oneself. Two humans collaborate on the making of each baby. The stated purpose of art is to communicate (or more basically, commune) with others (traditionally the viewer). In collaboration, this philosophy may be extended to the act of production. Participants, in one sense, become a special kind of viewer, and a hybrid work is likely to be as new to them as to anyone else. I sometimes say I am collaborating with myself when I return to a project that has been sitting on the shelf for months-- for my tastes, approaches, and ideas have changed. There is a kind of magic to collaborating. Like a fairy tale in which an invisible imp helps the poor but deserving protagonist, labors happen without you having to perform them. You pass the book off and the next time you see it, it is more complete. The unpleasant task of editioning is aided like a fairy godmother summoning a flock of birds to pick lentils from the fireplace. A design dilemma you could not see your way around is resolved like spinning straw into gold. There is strength in numbers. As binocular vision gives us more information than would a single eye, collaboration provides a holographic multiplicity of perspective. As Marshall Weber said of The Flower Folio, “Each artist crossed out the parts they didn't like and the book became stronger as a result. It was a distillation process, a call to account for personal tastes that may interfere with general appeal, an immediate though ruthless form of critique.” A collaborative work may be a shared playground or battle ground depending on the attitudes of those involved, and these interplays show themselves, adding depth to the tenor of a finished piece. There are obstacles to collaboration. A common motive leading to artistic pursuit is the desire to be in control of image and object-- to manifest a personal vision and have things one's own way. What's more, the skills of creation usually require a great amount of exercise, which is likely to occur in solitary practice. These self-centered tendencies can inhibit collaboration, as my third grade report card reveals: “Does not play well with others.” Old habits die hard. One becomes used to the art they make, too often limiting tastes to a region hugging closely their own style. Collaboratively speaking, intolerance and inflexibility are fatal. Of course others will do things differently, that's the point. “I made this” is the ego's voice. The self can become problematic where cooperation is called for. Compulsive collaborator Christopher Wilde points out that collaboration effaces authorship for the process of collaboration automatically puts more emphasis on the work itself and less on the identity of its creators. It is a shared, thus diffused, limelight. One might say, who cares as long as another beautiful object has been brought into the world, but such effacement may be problematic not only for an egocentric artist, but for an audience and marketplace driven by the cult of personality. An extra measure of effort is needed to collaborate, for the process necessitates communication. Internally one may see, assess, judge, reach conclusion, and act without the uttering of a single word, but not so when one is responsible to others. In working on the book Fortune with Scott Teplin, there were moments when I knew the production had to progress in a certain way, but it took five minutes of explaining before Scott too was convinced. However, for this added burden of explanation there is a reciprocal positive: the exercise of clarifying one's own decision-making process. For the most part collaboration necessitates communication, but there exist also the silent alternatives of trust, understanding, and abandon. Understanding (the prize of communication) may reach a wordless state. A tried and true collaborative relationship may shorthand a need for communication, and the words “just trust me” can save an hour of explanation. The Y-book, an all-inclusive collaboration... I hated the idea when Christopher first explained it to me. I thought it was too simple: a blank book to be passed around in which anyone could draw the letter “Y”. Years later, while he lectured at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, I noticed The Y-book again (on a table between the three-thousand dollar book and the book you needed to wear white gloves to handle). It was sitting with a pile of pens and markers. After contributions from hundreds of people, no square inch of the book remained blank, yet more Y's were added to it monthly by both four-year-olds and elderly calligraphers, artists and laymen alike. Now it is one of my favorite books, for apart from being a beautiful demonstration of the varied modes of human operation it is art that anyone can participate in, hence a reminder that anyone can create. It is also a functioning metaphor for all culture. Without the contributions of the countless generations who have gone before, we would not be artists or writers but naked apes...wordless hunter-gatherers roaming the forest. All of science and art have been and continue to be a group effort. We take what is given, transform and expand upon it and pass it on to future generations. The extent of all human culture is one big collaboration, and we are all in this together. |