IT'S ALL ABOUT THE BOOKS The band, The Books hired us to create a poster for them, I proposed something fairly unconventional, at least for us it was. I don't take a lot of photographs, what I pitched to them was an all photographic poster featuring an arrangement of, well, books, books of all kinds. 







The Books (the band) consist of guitarist and vocalist Nick Zammuto and cellist Paul de Jong. Their music is a mix of electronic, folk, and acoustic music, incorporating samples of sounds and speech they arrange from many sources like thrift store cassette tapes, old film soundtracks, or by looping a portion of sound from a child's play toy.  







Today, I spent the afternoon laying on the floor, snapping photographs of an arrangement of books from below. Doing so required that I build a make shift photo studio. My dad brought over part of his front door for me to use as a "invisible set" of sorts -- thanks dad! From down here, I was able to see what the book shelf sees. 











The yellow paged guy with the colored ink on the edge is a phone book.







Rather than silk screen printing these, the final poster will be printed as a digital offset print, in large quantities. This poster is meant to promote multiple show dates. The show info will be hand written in, at the bottom of the poster to advertise each show.







dimensions: 18" x 24"

MR. LAWRENCE WEINER 



Lawrence Weiner was born in the Bronx, New York, February 10, 1942. He currently lives in New York City and Amsterdam. His first solo exhibition was in 1960, and he has exhibited widely in numerous shows since.



His works have a haiku-type specificity driven by the joy of language and quite a bit of humor, building sculptures with language which can be carried by walls, posters and also beer mats or manhole covers. Mr. Weiner’s effusive work asks tough questions about who makes or owns art, where it can occur and how long it lasts. It reminds us that while art and money may have been inevitably entwined throughout most of history, art’s real value is not measured in strings of zeros, high-priced materials or bravura skill, but in communication, experience, economy of means (the true beauty) and, yes, the inspired disturbance of all status quos.







This piece is displayed on the outside of the Walker Art Center right here in lovely Minneapolis, MN. I've always admired it for it's subtile boldness. It's so familiar and comforting.



 











This short documentary film on Lawrence Weiner is really well done. take a few minutes to endulge. He's a pretty darn intense and interesting guy. I'd hang out with him.