Artists' Books in Crossett: Artists' Books by LGBTQ+ Artists

"In this diptych of poems, Stacy Szymaszek constructs a multiplicity of selves and desires in language that bends, stimulates, disorients, and satisfies, giving free reign to obsessions over identity, queerness, the broad landscape of corporeality that makes these obsessions possible, and with death—in particular, social death. A Reagan-era childhood looms in the “permission to have a story / denied.” Szymaszek’s “story” is a collectivity of narratives overlooked, rejected, and untold—a series of snapshots and moments, skirting linearity, bubbling beneath the surface." Chapbook; 64 pp, 5.44 x 6 inches. Binding: Hand-bound dos-à-dos binding

An incomplete formal study of certain ornamental forms and their relationship to one another, combined with something like a journal of related ideas and questions. New four-dimensional and "impossible" ornaments are presented. Topics such as chirality, acupuncture, the helix, and consciousness are discussed. "A personal account of a group of questions which sprang up around a particular group of shapes. Topics such as chirality, gesture, Traditional Chinese Medicine and 4-dimensional space are discussed. Features a new "split blackletter" typeface." [158] p., 17 x 11 in. Digital printed. Bristol board case. Staple bound.

Foregrounding the slippages between doing and undoing or not doing, speech and movement-based forms of address, and improvisation and the score, Lauren Bakst traces the forms performance takes, be they in our everyday experiences, intimate and personal relationships, memories, or on stage. Publisher: Wendy's Subway. 28 pages; Risograph; Saddle-stitched. Edition of 125

This documents the events of the Sundown Salon,held at the Los Angeles home of Fritz Haeg, and shares participants reflections on the idea of salons and the nature of viewing and making art communally and for a domestic space. The text can be flipped through and read like a book, and the pictures can be unfurled to a 140 foot long art piece. The book has been conceived by Fritz in collaboration with Evil Twin Publications' Stacy Wakefield. Edition of 500. Each copy features a hand-screened cover in five different configurations by a different artist. Elastic vertical band. Accordion fold. 8.5" x 8.5" (one 140 foot long accordion folded sheet)

El muro by Eduardo Hernández Santos is ten triptych photographs documenting the Cuban LGBTQ community. "Working in the dark of night he printed them on expired photo paper and with exhausted chemistry, in his bedroom-turned-darkroom in Centro Habana. Hernández then adhered lines of poetry by the late Cuban poet and playwright Virgilio Piñera to the photographs of the wall, metaphorically breaking down the mortar that supports the hateful edifice of heteronormativity that confines his subjects to the edge of the city. Also included is a bi-lingual translation of the lines by poet Virgilio Piñera and the individual letters Hernandez added to the photographs of the wall, which are abbreviations of pejorative terms used in Cuba to refer to homosexuals. Wire-o binding opening to 20" so the triptychs may be viewed in full. Edition of 1200. 9 x 14; 18 leaves (2 pink free end sheets, 1 pink divider, 10 photograph fold outs, 5 text pages). Ten black and white triptych photographs, two bilingual essays, and a glossary. Printed by duotone offset lithography on Shine, a luminous mica-coated acid-free paper, with three sheets of translucent magenta paper separating the photographs and essays.

ENCOUNTERS is a collection of photographs taken by Dean Sameshima between 1993-2001 throughout Los Angeles, California, at varying “tearooms”. Tearooms are public spaces, mainly public restrooms, where men meet for anonymous sex. Sameshima began a documentary photography series titled WONDERLAND in 1993 while an undergrad at CalArts. At this time he felt an urgency to start documenting public sex spaces in Los Angeles as a way of recording an important part of his history and Los Angeles gay history. These tearoom drawings were especially interesting to him because they were the most temporary form of communication and many were painted over/erased by his subsequent visits. While working on this project, many of the tearooms were being policed, raided and eventually shut down. 28 p. 20 x 13 cm. Paperback. Binding: Staple Bound. Risograph. Edition of 250.

Trickster’s Journey reimagines the tarot by exploring its themes through the lens of Eastern mysticism, folklore, and spirituality. By renaming the Fool card to Trickster, a character based on the legendary Monkey King in Journey to the West, this archetype of the sojourner takes on new meaning—and new agency—as a seeker of truth and self-discovery. Created by artist Jia Sung, this fresh take on the classic figures in the Major and Minor Arcana uses symbols from Buddhism and ancient Chinese history to enliven this age-old divination practice once more.

"A poetry comic that follows the mythological hybrid as it enacts its roles of hunter, stalker, executioner, devourer." - Jia Sung. The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable describes a harpy as "In Greek and Roman mythology, a rapacious monster described as having a woman's head and body and a bird's wings and claws or (as in Virgil's Aeneid) depicted as a bird of prey with a woman's face; in extended usage, a grasping unscrupulous woman." Jia Sung is a Singaporean Chinese artist, currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work draws on motifs from Chinese mythology, Buddhist iconography, and the familiar visual language of folklore to examine and subvert the archive through a queer feminist lens. 7 unnumbered pages. 16 cm. Binding: Saddle Stitch / Staple.

RYB (red-yellow-blue) is a standard set of colors used in subtractive color mixing. By combining any two of these primary colors, a third color is created (the secondary colors: green, orange, or purple); by mixing equal amounts of all three, black is born. Jerry Seguin's 2015 book 100 XIV / 100 RYB uses this color theory as a starting point, working within--and against--its confines to examine the ways in which masculinity (in particular, queer masculinity) is represented or imagined. Photographs of naked or near-naked men, alone or with another, are printed in this limited palette, the colors never mixing to create their secondary counterparts. Seguin isolates these moments--the photographs are often snaps of men in action (walking on a beach, running on a soccer field, giving a blow job)--and rigidly layers them on top of abstractions (also in this limited palette), exposing the awkwardness of representation and the pleasure in tension at the same time. [100] p. 23.5 x 15.5 cm. Perfect Binding. Digitally printed.

For Projects 75, The Museum of Modern Art has published artist Laylah Ali's first book, a work composed entirely of her trademark green-headed, brown-bodied figures engaged in acts of violence. Stock characters such as security officers, sports figures, victims and oppressors that have been the subject of Ali's singular gouche pieces in the past now play out their aggressions in this hybrid comic / artists' book, an extended, nonlinear narrative designed by the artist to be a visual novelette.
40 p.; 18.5 x 24.5 cm.; Staple Bound; Offset Printed

The only autonomous collection of Jack Smith's photographs to appear during his lifetime, The Beautiful Book comprises 19 hand-tipped black-and-white contact prints (2 1/4 x 2 1/4 inches), originally published in an edition of 200 copies. The 2001 Beautiful Book is a true facsmile produced by Granary Books in collaboration with the Plaster Foundation, Inc. New prints have been made from the original negatives and hand-tipped onto Canford Buttercup paper. The covers are silk-screened in two colors on Tweedweave paper and saddle-stitched. The printing and arrangement of the photographs, choice of materials, and nature of the binding are consistent with the four copies of the book given by Smith to Marian Zazeela in 1962.(3) The 200 copies in the present edition are numbered and authenticated by the Plaster Foundation, Inc.

"Cultures and religions have among their basic tenants phrases that in the non-sectarian world are equivalent to the 'The Golden Rule'. This book looks at 13 golden rule texts. Upon opening the book, the reader is confronted with a blind embossing of the text in one of the original languages, followed by handwritten, slowly dissolving translation. Only after leafing through to the next page is one able to read the dictum. This is contrasted with newspaper clippings of petite crime and punishment." Issued in a limited edition of 45 numbered copies. Paper: Revere Book, UVII Ultra. Printing method: Letterpress, silkscreen, digital. Typeface: Book Antigua, Helvetica. Binding: Case bound. Structure: Codex.

Pistol, Pistil: Botanical Ballistics examines the use of ordinary words in both botanical and military context. Single sheet accordion fold book (26 panels) attached front and back with screw and post binding with snakeskin hinges to wooden covers. Text and color illustrations on one side and illustrated endpapers and front cover. Five illustrated additions are handbound into folds of the accordion. Two are cards, one is a card with a pop-up, one is a glassine envelope containing a slice of dried squash, and one is made from handmade, illustrated, waxed paper with slices of mushroom incorporated into the paper. Silkscreen printed on Mohawk Superfine, UV Ultra, and handmade abacá fiber paper. Crossett Library copy: 85/100.

Ways of Looking, with a die cut hole in the center, opens to reveal two holes which create a viewer for the reader. Each page asks questions or makes a statement about what the reader is viewing such as: "Who looks back?" "Nothing you see is yours." "What leaves more to be desired?" and "Make a movie, each blink is a transition." Nat Pyper is an alphabet artist. Their practice of fonts, wearables, video, and performance extends from ongoing research on queer publishing histories. 13 x 10 cm. Perfect Binding. Digital Printing. Die-Cut. Edition of 100.