ISBN-10: 0-9820559-3-5
Brendan Fowler
Book Launch
Saturday, June 13, 5:00 – 7:00 PM
Printed Matter is pleased to announce a launch for Brendan Fowler's publication ISBN-10: 0-9820559-3-5, which has recently been published by Brian Kennon's 2nd Cannons Press. The launch will take place from 5:00 – 7:00 PM at Printed Matter, which is located at 195 Tenth Avenue in New York City.
To many Brendan Fowler is known as the brain behind the performance outfit BARR, a solo/sometimes collaborative project undertaken over the last ten years to showcase Fowler's storytelling abilities, while traversing well-worn DIY and program-optional circuits and performance spaces. In the summer of 2008, the artist decided to cancel a scheduled tour and begin making artwork.
From this experience, this starting point, began a concerted studio effort that landed Fowler's work in galleries, on a steady foot; on a path that wasn't always fleeting. This work was/is comprised of sculpture, collage, drawing and prints. While you can take artist of the music world, you can't always take the music out of the artist, so Fowler addresses this straight on, making work addressing a life of music. Rather than fetishising it as a noble subculture, BARR uses his practice as a stage for highlighting its politics, its assumptions, and ultimately its limited form.
ISBN-10: 0-9820559-3-5 details this body of work through visual stutters, false starts, premature endings, and doors that lead you straight into narrative brick walls or rather open space. Aesthetically, the book borrows from a range of sources, but most notably Christopher Wool, with its repetition of images, differentiated only by their production strategy: photocopies reworked and photographed and vice versa, only to be re-worked again. Is it a catalogue, an artist book, or both? The artist employs both forms with a playful finesse and intuition.
Brendan Fowler works and lives in Los Angeles and New York City. This is his first book, though he has produced zines throughout the last decade. His work is currently showcased in the New Museums recent triennial: “The Generational: Younger Than Jesus.”
ISBN-10: 0-9820559-3-5 is published by 2nd Cannons and retails for $26.00. It is produced in an edition of 500 and is 84 pages. It can be purchased at Printed Matter's storefront or online at www.printedmatter.org. A limited signed and numbered print (edition of 20) is also available for $100 here.
For more information on the exhibition or press images, please contact James Hoff at jhoff @ printedmatter.org. Printed Matter, Inc. is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 1976 by artists and art workers with the mission to foster the appreciation, dissemination, and understanding of artists' books and other artists' publications.
Printed Matter, Inc. has received support, in part, through grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Altria Group Inc, the Milton & Sally Avery Arts Foundation, The Cowles Charitable Trust, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, The Gesso Foundation, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Schoenstadt Family Foundation, The Roy and Niuta Titus Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and individuals worldwide.
Printed Matter, Inc.
195 Tenth Avenue
New York, NY 10011
www.printedmatter.org
T: 212 925 0325
F: 212 925 0464
