Archive - Grotto


SAs/BATs / 2004-2007



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A LA CARTE MENU - UPDATED 05/30/08

SAs (Essays-as-Things) 2004-2007

Limited-Edition Folios - /S/O(MA) / LANY

Sublime Aesthetics(?) = /S/ = (Rhétorique + Esthétique + Poétique) x Polémique = ???? ...

BATs/SAs - Resembling in concept the now-classic artist’s book, the essay-as-thing ‘nature’ of the following custom-designed folios (SAs) is intended, nonetheless, as some-thing else altogether. The SAs are designed as talismanic objects, versus artistic statements, and conform to decidedly low-tech and generic (ready-to-hand), 'archaic' production values. The form (small, elegant, hand-made object) and content of each SA is interwoven, both physically and metaphorically, as mnemonic vehicle -- a condition that at once suggests an iconic product (some-thing to ‘fall’ into) and an inter-textual voyage (a portal to some-where else). One manner of representing the latter condition is typified by the presentation of some of the images as in the process of ‘leaving the page’ (i.e., partly present, partly absent), as fetish-fragment. Each folio is designed to be visually, phenomenally, and intellectually appetizing. Additionally, it is recommended that the SAs be first ‘encountered’ in the even-ing (at half-light) with a glass of single-malt Scotch (no ice) in hand.

Image (above, right) - Something About Nothing

About the author: Gavin Keeney is an unregistered, unlicensed (self-described) landscape aesthetician. He studied landscape architecture at Cornell University (receiving an MLA in 1993) and has written, lectured and taught here and there regarding the critical intersection of landscape + architecture + this + that. He (im)patiently awaits the (re)integration of the disciplines of landscape and architecture (plus other things), a subtext to the SAs offered here. / He has recently established Agence 'X', to produce editioned books and prints surveying contemporary Art and Architecture under the imprint Editions X ... For details of the Prospectus for Agence 'X', cliquez ici ...

/S/O(MA) = /S/yntactical Operations (Metaphorical Affects)

BATs - SERIES ONE 2004-2006

THINGS CZECH - Book-as-Thing #1 … A photo-essay, plus … The boxed essay includes a special edit of the essay “Dreaming Prague Gardens” (1995), with particular attention paid to Vrtbovska Garden in Mala Strana, and 3 custom black-and-white, textured photographic prints of Prague’s renowned, baroque palace gardens … Presented in a hand-made, black museum-board folio with laser-printed, black-and-white essay with subsidiary images on 24 lb. cotton-fiber paper … Board-mounted photographic images with vellum interleaf … The folded folio is inlaid with small, black-and-white and/or color images garnered from repeat visits, over 10 years, to Prague … Numbered, limited edition of 12 copies (variable subsidiary content) … 5” x 8” (approximate dimension/format) … $200.00 (postpaid) … Prototype copyright /S/O(MA) / Landscape Agency New York, 2004 … For parallel affects, see Things Czech ...

Image (above, left) - Durer's Bat (c.1523)

THE BOOK OF LITTLE SPARTA - Book-as-Thing #2 … A small, biodegradable book of impressionistic (calligraphic) poems (plus essay) written under the influence of an October 1993 return visit to Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Little Sparta (Dunsyre, Lanarkshire, Scotland) … Folio contains laser-printed poems on off-white cardstock and 3 small, C-prints of Little Sparta under October skies … Presented in blue Canson paper sleeve with black museum-board slipcase … Photographic, board-mounted images with vellum interleaf … Numbered, limited edition of 12 copies (variable subsidiary content) … 5” x 8” (approximate dimension/format) … $150.00 (postpaid) … Prototype copyright /S/O(MA) / Landscape Agency New York, 1993/2004 … For excerpts, cliquez ici ...

REVERSE ARCHITECTURE - Book-as-Thing #3 … Includes three densely wrought essays (the Anti-Anti-Theory Trilogy): “Letter to Paolo Bartoloni", “Thought Itself”, and “Infinity Doubled” (2004) … Laser-printed text with subsidiary images on 24 lb. cotton-fiber paper, presented in black museum-board folio with 3 ‘inverted’ black-and-white, textured images of Olsany Cemetery (Prague, 2004) … Photographic, board-mounted images with vellum interleaf … Numbered, limited edition of 12 copies (uniform content) … 5” x 8” (approximate dimension/format) … $250.00 (postpaid) … Prototype copyright /S/O(MA) / Landscape Agency New York, 2004 … For sample RTF texts, see Fashionable Ink ...

LINGUISTIC DUST - Book-as-Thing #4 … Based on an image from a dream ('looking' at an emblem book), the essay “Linguistic Dust” (1993) is laser-printed on luminescent-gray cardstock and presented in a black museum-board folio … The text includes embedded black-and-white reproductions of a series of drawings describing a house by the sea (‘one’ house that is only apparently ‘two’ houses), plus 3 black-and-white, textured custom photographs of John Hejduk’s “House of the Mother of the Suicide” and “House of the Suicide” in the 'sunk' garden of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (October, 1992) … Photographic, board-mounted images with vellum interleaf … Numbered, limited edition of 12 copies (uniform content) … 5” x 8” (approximate dimension/format) … $100.00 (postpaid) … Prototype copyright /S/O(MA) / Landscape Agency New York, 2004 … For an electronic mock-up, cliquez ici ...

/S/ - Book-as-Thing #5 … A 20,000-word novella written in 2003 surveying the linguistic terrain otherwise known as landscape architecture … Part travelogue, part faux-memoir, part love story, the novella traces the contours of an encounter with ‘the Angel’, a phantasmatic being from super-celestial space (or so it would seem) … Includes reproductions of a series of drawings associated with the appearance of the Angel and miscellaneous black-and-white and color images illustrative of discours naturel … Presented in red Canson paper sleeve with black museum-board slipcase with embedded images … Numbered, limited edition of 12 copies (uniform content) … 5” x 8” (approximate dimension/format) … $100.00 (postpaid) … Prototype copyright /S/O(MA) / Landscape Agency New York, 2004 …

BLACK-AND-BLUE - Book-as-Thing #6 ... Three travelogues (2004) ... San Francisco, Singapore, Adelaide ... Laser-printed texts with embedded images on off-white cardstock ... 3 small C-prints, board-mounted with vellum interleaf ... Presented in black Canson paper sleeve and blue museum-board slipcase with embedded black-and-white images ... Numbered, limited edition of 12 copies (variable subsidiary content) ... 5” x 8” (approximate dimension/format) ... $250.00 (postpaid) ... Prototype copyright /S/O(MA) / Landscape Agency New York, 2004 ... For preliminary texts, see
PDFs / RTFs ...

Image (above, left) - Sub-Calla (Calla lilies)

Image (left) - Calla lilies ("Pieces of San Francisco")

TWO GARDENS - Book-as-Thing #7 ... Glimpses of two gardens: Nyack garden (New York) and Skryje garden (Moravia, Czech Republic) ... Double-folio edition with gate-fold ... Mixed texts, sketches, essays, plant lists, notes ... Laser-printed on off-white cardstock ... Embedded black-and-white images ... 5 board-mounted Cibachrome prints with vellum interleaf ... Presented in black, museum-board case with blue Canson paper jacket ... Numbered, limited edition of 12 copies (variable content) ... 5" x 8" (approximate dimension/format) ... $300.00 (postpaid) ... Prototype copyright /S/O(MA) / Landscape Agency New York, 2004 ... For sample documents related to the Skryje garden, cliquez ici ...

BATs - SERIES TWO 2006-2007

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE (IR)REAL - Book-as-Thing #8 ... Forthcoming, 2006/2007 ... Essays, images (C-prints), diatribes ... Oversized folio (approximate dimension 11" x 17") ... TBA ... / For provisional content, cliquez
ici ...

SAMPLE TEXTS, OUTTAKES / ELSEWHERE
The Cosmogonic Parousia (Erodiade, 08/15/06)
Kant Nietzsche Undo Lacan (Rizoma, 02/25/07)

TWO TRIPTYCHS - Book-as-Thing #9-10 ... 1/ A Short Treatise on Becoming Devastating ... Three cibachrome prints of Émile Antoine Bourdelle's 1921 bronze 'Virgin of the Offering' (Adelaide, SA) with laser-printed text/treatise ... 2/ Red, Blue, Green ... Three cibachrome prints of peonies, ferns, sky (Nyack Garden/LANY) ... Laser-printed text/notes ... Both on black museum-board in blue Canson paper sleeve with slipcase ... Numbered, limited edition of 12 copies each ... 5" x 5" (approximate dimension/format) ... $150.00 (postpaid) ... Prototypes copyright /S/O(MA) / Landscape Agency New York, 2006 ...

Contact / Cliquez ici (RTF) ...

FORTHCOMING (AUTUMN 2008) - Editions 'X' ... Truly limited-edition art editions (one copy) from
Agence 'X' ... Various artists ... Editioned cibachrome and archival inkjet prints in handmade folios with critical texts ...

POSTSCR(Y)PT


"There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism." --Walter Benjamin (Inscription on WB’s 'grave' at Port Bou, Spain)

Image (right) - Adolf Loos, "Tomb for Arnold Hauser" (Sketch / inverted image)










/S/O(MA) / LANY - 2004/2008

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