SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 20
 
12:00-1:00pm
About Trees by Katie Holten
About Trees is an artist’s book by Katie Holten and the first in Broken Dimanche Press’s series Parapoetics: a Literature beyond the Human. Recognizing a crisis of representation as our species adapts to life in the Anthropocene, About Trees considers our relationship with language, landscape, and perception. For the book Holten created a Tree Alphabet and made a new typeface called Trees. To celebrate the book release the artist will be in conversation with some of the contributors including Will Corwin, Prem Krishnamurthy, Rachel Sussman, and Aengus Woods. Presented by Broken Dimanche Press.
 
1:00-2:00pm
Paginated Exhibitions with Charles Stankievech, K. Verlag & Regine Ehleiter
A conversation between co-Director of K. Verlag Charles Stankievech and art historian Regine Ehleiter about the contemporary phenomena of publishing as a platform for exhibition making. Case studies produced by K. Verlag, as found in books, events and exhibitions, are contextualized within the historical arc of publishing and the curatorial.
 
2:00-3:00pm
Dust: The plates of present, February 2013 – July 2015, Book Launch and Round Table
Artists Thomas Fougeirol and Jo-ey Tang, founders of The plates of the present, an artist-run darkroom residency in Paris, and Blonde Art Books’ founder Sonel Breslav will lead a round table discussion alongside various residents of the ongoing project, and contributors to its first comprehensive publication. The residency is one that spans beyond the production of the eight photograms that become part of the archive of The plates of the present. Artists, writers, and curators are invited to participate in a process that traverses the history of photographic processes… together. The on-going proposition that Thomas and Jo-ey present embraces both the unpredictable, poetic, and performative nature of this form of image making, as well a surprising affirmation in collective practice. Presented by Blonde Art Books and Secretary Press.
 
3:00-4:00pm
Beyond the Food Chain and the Fabulous: A Taxonomy of Interspecies Animal Friendships by Nikki Columbus 
Brussels-based publishing project Mémoire Universelle is pleased to present an illustrated lecture by Nikki Columbus, a writer and US Senior Editor of Parkett. Investigating the widespread fascination with animal odd couples and their abundant online imagery, Columbus considers the philosophical implications of unbelievable cuteness.
 
4:00-5:00pm
The complete Boabooks artists’ notepad by Izet Sheshivari
A prologue explains the principles of Boabooks artists’ notepad publications; each content page is preceded and followed by a blank page. All the blank pages were removed in a fresh reprint: 1216 pages left. Izet Sheshivari will present this fifth book in the paperback series fink twice, conceived in collaboration with Georg Rutishauser. The reprint and the complete original artist’s notepads include Derek Sullivan, Raphaël Julliard, Aurélien Mole, Fabienne Radi, Frédéric Post, Christine Würmell, Léopold Banchini, Laurent Kropf, Susanne Bürner, Yann L. Popper, Isabelle Cornaro, Tatiana Rihs, Jérémie Gindre, Christian Robert-Tissot, Pierre-Olivier Arnaud, Zhang Xiao, Christophe Rey, Carola Bonfili, Anne Minazio, Samuel Ostermann, Nicolas Giraud, Olivier Mosset, Stéphane Le Mercier, Lance Wakeling and Eric Watier. Presented by Boabooks and Edition Fink.
 
5:00-6:00pm
The Future of First Rate Second Hand: A Retrospective Evaluation with Sophy Naess, Carmelle Safdie, and special guest Mary Walling Blackburn
Since 2006, Sophy Naess and Carmelle Safdie have mined local thrift stores and the internet in order to picture themselves in a variety of dislocated seasonal scenarios they anticipate in the coming year. This is the stuff of First Rate Second Hand, an annual photo collage wall calendar featuring 12 months’ worth of bizarre satire.
 
In celebration of the calendar’s 10th anniversary, the artists will conduct a retrospective evaluation of the project, inviting the Classroom audience to participate in a focus group about bringing First Rate Second Hand into its next decade. The hour will begin with a short presentation of the project’s trajectory, as well as examples of other women who use their bodies in performance photography to various ends. In the ensuing discussion, moderated by artist Mary Walling Blackburn, Naess and Safdie will open questions to the audience about the calendar’s modes of address and the potentials of an annual durational project that traces two womens’ bodies moving through a world of second hand goods and appropriated imagery.
 
6:00-7:00pm
Messages to the Future People
Futurepoem’s Messages to the Future project solicited off-the-cuff missives for “the future people” from a diverse group of artists and writers, who each mailed back their responses on 4×6 standard-sized notecards. For the release of a facsimile edition of these responses, project curators Dan Machlin, Mónica de la Torre and Jeremy Sigler (along with several artist participants) will talk about the genesis of the idea of soliciting “instructions for the future” and highlight some of the more poignant project responses. Presented by Futurepoem books.
 
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 – Sunday Classroom Sessions in the MoMA PS1 Basement Theatre
 
11:30-1:00pm
The NEW Century of Artists’ Books
Johanna Drucker’s The Century of Artists Books (Granary) was published in 1995, JAB: The Journal of Artists’ Books, edited by Brad Freeman, began publication a year earlier. Together these two crucial contributions to the field have continued to help frame the critical conversation about artists’ books. But in the twenty years since the initial publication of Century a new millennium has arrived along with considerable changes in publication practices, technologies, cultural politics, and institutional programs. If a publication were conceived to address this “new century” of artists’ books, what topics and themes would it contain? What developments and critical formulations would be essential and what points of continuity would remain in place? Johanna Drucker, Brad Freeman, joined by Tate Shaw, will present thoughts on this speculative project. In addition, a call for abstracts for contributions to this project will be placed in advance, and some of the results of this call will be assembled as a way to see how the broader community is thinking about these issues.
 
1:00-2:00pm
Love and Death in the Old South, with Daniel Fuller and Victoria Camblin
Following the exhibition, “Endless Road,” which examined the archive and legacy of Atlanta’s Nexus Press (May 1 – Jul 25, 2015), Atlanta Contemporary Art Center curator Daniel Fuller and Art Papers Editor and Artistic Director Victoria Camblin will explore how print pushed and changed the face of the arts in the capital of the southeast – and how the city in turn pushed print culture in ways that were, in the late 20th century, ahead of their time. This conversation chronicles and celebrates the legacies of two Georgia institutions.
 
2:00-3:00pm
STREETOPIA: artists respond to displacement
A panel presentation with book contributors: Erick Lyle, Streetopia curator, Sarah Schulman: novelist, playwright, Maya Taylor: Managing Director, Booklyn, Ivy Jeanne McClelland: artist and activist, UCB Healing Arts Collective, and Bill Daniel: artist.
After San Francisco’s new mayor announced imminent plans to “clean up” downtown with a new corporate “dot com corridor” and arts district, curators Erick Lyle, Chris Johanson, and Kal Spelletich brought over one hundred artists and activists together with local residents fearing displacement to consider Utopian aspirations and to plot alternate futures for the city. Opening in May 2012 at the Luggage Store Gallery, the resulting exhibition “Streetopia” was a massive anti-gentrification art fair that took place in venues throughout the city. For five weeks, Streetopia featured daily free talks, performances, and skillshares while operating a free community kitchen out of the gallery. The Streetopia book brings together all of the art and ephemera from the now-infamous show. On the occasion of its publication, artists and organizers discuss responses to displacement and gentrification via actions, artworks, and alternative fundraising methods. Presented by Booklyn.
 
3:00-4:00pm
SELF PUBLISH BE HAPPY: A DIY PHOTOBOOK MANUAL AND MANIFESTO
In 2010, Self Publish Be Happy was created to collect, study, and celebrate self-published photobooks through an ongoing program of workshops, live events, and on/offline projects. In 2015, the London-based organization celebrates its fifth anniversary with the publication of SELF PUBLISH BE HAPPY: A DIY PHOTOBOOK MANUAL AND MANIFESTO (Aperture, 2015). Founder Bruno Ceschel is joined by David Senior, bibliographer at the Museum of Modern Art Library and contributor to the book, to discuss the history and legacy of artists who self publish. Presented by Aperture.
 
4:00-5:00pm
Jimmy DeSana
A panel discussion about the artist’s life and work moderated by Laurie Simmons. Panelists include Grace Dunham, Johanna Fateman, Carlo McCormick and Matt Wolf. Jimmy DeSana (1949 – 1990) was a photographer working in the downtown art and music scene of New York in the ’70s & ’80s. His new book Suburban published by Aperture is out this fall with essays by Laurie Simmons and Elisabeth Sussman. Presented by Aperture and Salon 94.
 
5:00-6:00pm
The Art of Movement Building: Black Lives Matter
#BlackLivesMatter was created in 2012 after Trayvon Martin’s murderer, George Zimmerman, was acquitted for his crime, and dead 17-year old Trayvon was post-humously placed on trial for his own murder. Rooted in the experiences of Black people in this country who actively resist our de-humanization, #BlackLivesMatter is a call to action and a response to the virulent anti-Black racism that permeates our society. The art of movement building will discuss the use of art and graphics in the Black Lives Matter movement. blacklivesmatter.com
 
6:00-7:00pm
NON HUMAN ANIMAL PERSONS by Melanie Bonajo, in conversation with Terike Haapoja and Experimental Jetset
Can we send funny animals pictures to space for aliens to discover the Earths ecosystem? Our enormous access to animal pictures on the internet tramples our awareness that only humans possess self awareness, language, culture, land and customs. But when does a lion stop being a lion? This talk is about the future of animals in relation to education and preservation through information we receive about them via popular images on the Internet. How are typical Nature photography categories designed by the hands of science replaced by the images of amateurs who document the disappearing surroundings of wildlife by ever expanding urbanization? As a result, do we need complete revised scientific categories for these images? For 10 years, Melanie Bonajo collected over thousands of animal pictures online and she attempts to answer these questions. This publication is Number 1 of Bonajo’s publication series, Matrix Botanica, designed by Experimental Jetset and published by Capricious Publishing.
 

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