cardboard, wood, steel, fabric remnant, aircon ducts

and avian remains ...

—­­­– Persepolis 2530 2007

A three-day party for monarchs and world leaders celebrating twenty-five centuries of culture, the tent city of Persepolis ’71 was  built on one of the world’s most important archaeological locations - a UNESCO heritage site. It was a tribute to the Ozymandian hubris of the potentate of the Peacock Throne, Shah of Shahs, King of Kings  (to date the last) Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Shah. To gather the countries of the world, or at least fly in their select rulers, was to garner legitimacy at a moment when the divine right of the monarchy was being called to question.

     The site itself was a European import direct from Paris; one-hundred-and-sixty acres designed by the House of Jansen visible as a star, but only from above, the god’s eye view. Beneath the symbolism (literally) crawled snakes and scorpions. European trees offered shade and housing to songbirds, 50,000 of them it was claimed, which were also flown in for the festivities. Removed from their natural habitat, they fell from the sky within days. A certain tension between air and ground became a hallmark of the last Shah. He was an enthusiastic aviator who was never completely at ease on the ground. In 1979, when he left Iran, he would self-pilot the aircraft of his own exile.

     Back on the ground with no clear plan for the afterparty, the site was looted, even as its guests departed. The time-warped remnants endure today; overgrown, dilapidated, vandalised, and still contentious.

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2008 »Persepolis 2530« Arnolfini, Bristol

     2007 »Persepolis 2530« Art Unlimited, Art Basel

cardboard, wood, steel, fabric remnant, aircon ducts

and avian remains ...

—­­­– Persepolis 2530 2007

A three-day party for monarchs and world leaders celebrating twenty-five centuries of culture, the tent city of Persepolis ’71 was  built on one of the world’s most important archaeological locations - a UNESCO heritage site. It was a tribute to the Ozymandian hubris of the potentate of the Peacock Throne, Shah of Shahs, King of Kings  (to date the last) Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Shah. To gather the countries of the world, or at least fly in their select rulers, was to garner legitimacy at a moment when the divine right of the monarchy was being called to question.

     The site itself was a European import direct from Paris; one-hundred-and-sixty acres designed by the House of Jansen visible as a star, but only from above, the god’s eye view. Beneath the symbolism (literally) crawled snakes and scorpions. European trees offered shade and housing to songbirds, 50,000 of them it was claimed, which were also flown in for the festivities. Removed from their natural habitat, they fell from the sky within days. A certain tension between air and ground became a hallmark of the last Shah. He was an enthusiastic aviator who was never completely at ease on the ground. In 1979, when he left Iran, he would self-pilot the aircraft of his own exile.

     Back on the ground with no clear plan for the afterparty, the site was looted, even as its guests departed. The time-warped remnants endure today; overgrown, dilapidated, vandalised, and still contentious.

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2008 »Persepolis 2530« Arnolfini, Bristol

     2007 »Persepolis 2530« Art Unlimited, Art Basel

sheet metal folded around a Skoda powertrain, fibreglass canopy,

sheep skin seat covers, 25kg butter boxes –

a white paper for outlasting the coming nuclear winter …

—­­­– This is the Trekka 2003 (detail)

“You can have it in any colour, as long as it’s green,” ran the sales pitch for the Trekka, to date New Zealand’s only mass-produced automobile. The vehicle itself was a geopolitical amalgam, a workaround of local import tariffs in combo with a detour—unauthorised—around the Iron Curtain. Rolled out nationally across car yards from 1966 to 1972, the Trekka’s ‘unique production cycle’ made it cheaper. In NZ’s grass economy, born from an agricultural island where thinking was still fixed in tons of export butter, a locally-produced automobile represented direct savings as a corresponding volume of displaced milk fat. 

     Home-grown, fridges, washing machines, TVs, etc. would follow, a cultivated manufacturing base to sustain dreams amongst the clover, the topsoil for a new Eden beyond the spectre of global nuclear war. The Trekka lends these timeworn concerns a shape, a form, and an aesthetic. The product of a locally produced sheet-metal body and an imported Skoda powertrain, the Trekka was designed for the farm and looked like 4WD, yet it was not. The vehicle’s business plan was driven by the most unlikely roundabout of interests and buffed to a high gloss with a sheen of nation-building sentiment, not a million miles from the social sentiment driving the meme stock phenomenon. Not the smoothest of rides but, it might just get you there after all … 

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2003 »This is the Trekka« New Zealand pavillion, Venice Biennale

     2005 »Small World, Big Town – Contemporary Art from Te Papa«

     Wellington City Gallery, Wellington

latex, crepe de chine, chenille, and Tears 4 Fears,

reunited for a fictional Telethon, with pledge letter

courtesy of a fan named “Shout”…

—­­­– How Much Can You Take Before You Give?

South Pacific Television 2004 Mental Health

Telethon supporters aid 2022 (detail)

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2022 »The Cheap Heat« Fine Arts, Sydney

latex, crepe de chine, chenille, and Tears 4 Fears,

reunited for a fictional Telethon, with pledge letter

courtesy of a fan named “Shout”…

—­­­– How Much Can You Take Before You Give?

South Pacific Television 2004 Mental Health

Telethon supporters aid 2022 (detail)

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2022 »The Cheap Heat« Fine Arts, Sydney

foldable plexi shield, acoustic foam, lunar sample #15415 replica, lunar

 regolith simulant, a model cardboard ark and casts of paws & hooves ...

—­­­– Drum Shield Affordance Extension 1.1

Extravehicular Activity 2020 (detail)

It starts with a moonshot, not just in the aspirational sense. What happens once the engines fall silent and the Eagle has landed? The reality is intensely visceral: boots settling in lunar regolith, electrolyte imbalance, heart arrhythmia. The physical weight of Discovery.

     The astronaut James Irwin was the lunar module pilot for Apollo 15, and the eighth person to walk on the moon. His was the first “J” Mission, longer than previous landings and correspondingly more extreme in its toll on the body. On his mission, Irwin collected Apollo’s most significant lunar mineral sample, dubbed by the media, “the Genesis Rock”. While traversing the lunar surface, Irwin claimed voices were guiding him in his work, and towards the location of the sample. When the Genesis Rock was dated, its age came to 4-billion years … and counting.

     Returning to earth, Irwin took with him not just the mineral samples, but the voices, too, and a different timeline was conjured inside him. Now sublunary, Irwin went on to found an evangelical organization endorsing a biblical worldview in which the Genesis-based creation narrative sees the world being created in 6 days then drowned in a global flood some 4,500 years ago. Genesis Rock notwithstanding, Irwin’s next years were spent in locating Noah’s Ark. The voices never went away for Irwin, but the ship that saved all species and landed them a new life, on a renewed planet, remains on the mountain unfounded.

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2021 «The Earth Is Flat Again« Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź

     2020 «Michael Stevenson« Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam

     2020 «Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief« Fine Arts, Sydney

foldable plexi shield, acoustic foam, lunar sample #15415 replica, lunar

 regolith simulant, a model cardboard ark and casts of paws & hooves ...

—­­­– Drum Shield Affordance Extension 1.1

Extravehicular Activity 2020 (detail)

It starts with a moonshot, not just in the aspirational sense. What happens once the engines fall silent and the Eagle has landed? The reality is intensely visceral: boots settling in lunar regolith, electrolyte imbalance, heart arrhythmia. The physical weight of Discovery.

     The astronaut James Irwin was the lunar module pilot for Apollo 15, and the eighth person to walk on the moon. His was the first “J” Mission, longer than previous landings and correspondingly more extreme in its toll on the body. On his mission, Irwin collected Apollo’s most significant lunar mineral sample, dubbed by the media, “the Genesis Rock”. While traversing the lunar surface, Irwin claimed voices were guiding him in his work, and towards the location of the sample. When the Genesis Rock was dated, its age came to 4-billion years … and counting.

     Returning to earth, Irwin took with him not just the mineral samples, but the voices, too, and a different timeline was conjured inside him. Now sublunary, Irwin went on to found an evangelical organization endorsing a biblical worldview in which the Genesis-based creation narrative sees the world being created in 6 days then drowned in a global flood some 4,500 years ago. Genesis Rock notwithstanding, Irwin’s next years were spent in locating Noah’s Ark. The voices never went away for Irwin, but the ship that saved all species and landed them a new life, on a renewed planet, remains on the mountain unfounded.

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2021 «The Earth Is Flat Again« Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź

     2020 «Michael Stevenson« Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam

     2020 «Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief« Fine Arts, Sydney

eggs, cigar cases, and tablets - placed with precision

on photovoltaic panels ...

—­­­– The Aptitude Test for Green Ghosts 2017-23 (detail)

“You die and the devil says he'll let you go to heaven if you beat him in a game…”So begins one particular variant of a well-worn aptitude test recycled across tech company interview rooms for decades. To play, you need to know the basics: seated across from each other, you and your opponent take turns putting down single chits on a table-top. Cans, eggs, cigar cases, coins, tablets, over time the representation of the chits has changed, but the rules remain. No overlapping, no stacking; the player who can place the last chit on the table wins.

     To win the game (and succeed in the interview) you must mimic the competition, but to build a successful startup, you must escape the competition, create something new. Successful game strategies play out, but the greater challenge, building a compelling monopoly with a future expected value not evident today, remains the most elusive chit to place on the table.  

     If the entry bar for hiring, or participation in the class were not yet sufficiently raised, play-offs in Serene Velocity… CS183 happen across gaming tables that are themselves highly charged. Five photovoltaic panels, a solar array configured in the format of a seminar room provide a grid for more accurate chit placement. Green Ghosts are how they’re named. Each panel is an object lesson, a proprietary system from a solar startup that filed for bankruptcy in 2012.

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2021 »Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief« KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin

     2019 »Serene Velocity in Practice: MC510/CS183« MUMA, Melbourne

     2018 »SUPERPOSITION: Equilibrium & Engagement« 21st Biennale of Sydney, Sydney

     2017 »Serene Velocity in Practice: MC510/CS183« Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland

eggs, cigar cases, and tablets - placed with precision

on photovoltaic panels ...

—­­­– The Aptitude Test for Green Ghosts 2017-23 (detail)

“You die and the devil says he'll let you go to heaven if you beat him in a game…”So begins one particular variant of a well-worn aptitude test recycled across tech company interview rooms for decades. To play, you need to know the basics: seated across from each other, you and your opponent take turns putting down single chits on a table-top. Cans, eggs, cigar cases, coins, tablets, over time the representation of the chits has changed, but the rules remain. No overlapping, no stacking; the player who can place the last chit on the table wins.

     To win the game (and succeed in the interview) you must mimic the competition, but to build a successful startup, you must escape the competition, create something new. Successful game strategies play out, but the greater challenge, building a compelling monopoly with a future expected value not evident today, remains the most elusive chit to place on the table.  

     If the entry bar for hiring, or participation in the class were not yet sufficiently raised, play-offs in Serene Velocity… CS183 happen across gaming tables that are themselves highly charged. Five photovoltaic panels, a solar array configured in the format of a seminar room provide a grid for more accurate chit placement. Green Ghosts are how they’re named. Each panel is an object lesson, a proprietary system from a solar startup that filed for bankruptcy in 2012.

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2021 »Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief« KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin

     2019 »Serene Velocity in Practice: MC510/CS183« MUMA, Melbourne

     2018 »SUPERPOSITION: Equilibrium & Engagement« 21st Biennale of Sydney, Sydney

     2017 »Serene Velocity in Practice: MC510/CS183« Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland

½ a RoboCop morph suit, Teva sandals, baby bibs with printed

slogans, webcams, a bunk bed and a goodnight mat ...

—­­­– How Much Can You Take Before You Give?

South Pacific Television 2030 Mental Health

Telethon supporters aid 2022 (detail)

A charnel house for the AI soul. The head of cyborg law enforcement rests in the lower bunk, dreams of an identical existence in the bunk above. We dream even though we cannot imagine.

     As the third decade of surveillance capitalism proceeds, the line between performance and consciousness collapses. In this work the aesthetics of 1980s dystopia become the fulcrum for investigating the future subjectivities of an emerging culture of psychic dispossession and spectacular abjection, ranging from street poverty to organised forms such as mental health fundraising telethons. The world of the future will be fully surveilled and quantised. Social and financial credit can be fused, as in charitable giving, but the baseness of the human soul remains—as does broadcast TV. In the future, all sins will be original.

     The role of the sculpture as a site of contention between interior states and materiality here seeks a new level: what may be felt gains meaning only through externalisation. Living in this new hyperscopia, the nature and quality of one’s identity, vulnerability, or suffering are subject to continuous evaluation, and compassion (or contempt) are portioned out accordingly to a self-selecting audience. The language born in this crucible will be as vapid as it will be participatory, compressing identities into slogans dressed as mantras, then to humans dressed as slogans, walking billboards and their posterchildren. Will we eat baby food forever? 

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2022 »The Cheap Heat« Fine Arts, Sydney

½ a RoboCop morph suit, Teva sandals, baby bibs with printed

slogans, webcams, a bunk bed and a goodnight mat ...

—­­­– How Much Can You Take Before You Give?

South Pacific Television 2030 Mental Health

Telethon supporters aid 2022 (detail)

A charnel house for the AI soul. The head of cyborg law enforcement rests in the lower bunk, dreams of an identical existence in the bunk above. We dream even though we cannot imagine.

     As the third decade of surveillance capitalism proceeds, the line between performance and consciousness collapses. In this work the aesthetics of 1980s dystopia become the fulcrum for investigating the future subjectivities of an emerging culture of psychic dispossession and spectacular abjection, ranging from street poverty to organised forms such as mental health fundraising telethons. The world of the future will be fully surveilled and quantised. Social and financial credit can be fused, as in charitable giving, but the baseness of the human soul remains—as does broadcast TV. In the future, all sins will be original.

     The role of the sculpture as a site of contention between interior states and materiality here seeks a new level: what may be felt gains meaning only through externalisation. Living in this new hyperscopia, the nature and quality of one’s identity, vulnerability, or suffering are subject to continuous evaluation, and compassion (or contempt) are portioned out accordingly to a self-selecting audience. The language born in this crucible will be as vapid as it will be participatory, compressing identities into slogans dressed as mantras, then to humans dressed as slogans, walking billboards and their posterchildren. Will we eat baby food forever? 

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2022 »The Cheap Heat« Fine Arts, Sydney

a freestanding wall with post-modern pretensions

a formal directive to pass through modified by an informal nudge

to instead ... pass around ...

—­­­– The Shallow Pond 2023 (detail)

If, on the way to the office, you saw a child drowning in a pond,

would your intention be to save it? Would that intention change

if you were wearing new shoes and saving the child meant

they’d be ruined and you’d be late for your business meeting? 

     So begins a thought experiment rendered here as a door knocker at what could be the entrance to a suburban family home. A provocative thought exercise formulated by moral philosopher Peter Singer, on the doorstep of moral behavior’s ancestral site of safe keeping. This idea represents a touchstone of sorts for the Effective Altruism movement, a global community of economic empaths who employ a quantitative approach to charity using evidence and reason to maximise aggregate long-term happiness and to minimise suffering.

     The knocker you grasp to rap on the door—a brass figurine—renders visible Singer’s challenge: does distance matter? Cast of metal it’s demeanour remains set - deep in thought, unaware, eyebrows minus eyes, whilst on its left, scratched into the door a child appears struggling in water. Why do we not recognize the same duty toward those who are physically distant? To reach the door, however, a front porch must first be traversed. Composed of raw fused plastic waste, this one nods to the past (and squints at the future). If your shoes are not yet ruined by an intervention at the pond of moral uncertainty, they’re sure to be sullied in this garbage.

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2023 »Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop: seating proposals for a Grantmaker«

     Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland 

a freestanding wall with post-modern pretensions

a formal directive to pass through modified by an informal nudge

to instead ... pass around ...

—­­­– The Shallow Pond 2023 (detail)

If, on the way to the office, you saw a child drowning in a pond,

would your intention be to save it? Would that intention change

if you were wearing new shoes and saving the child meant

they’d be ruined and you’d be late for your business meeting? 

     So begins a thought experiment rendered here as a door knocker at what could be the entrance to a suburban family home. A provocative thought exercise formulated by moral philosopher Peter Singer, on the doorstep of moral behavior’s ancestral site of safe keeping. This idea represents a touchstone of sorts for the Effective Altruism movement, a global community of economic empaths who employ a quantitative approach to charity using evidence and reason to maximise aggregate long-term happiness and to minimise suffering.

     The knocker you grasp to rap on the door—a brass figurine—renders visible Singer’s challenge: does distance matter? Cast of metal it’s demeanour remains set - deep in thought, unaware, eyebrows minus eyes, whilst on its left, scratched into the door a child appears struggling in water. Why do we not recognize the same duty toward those who are physically distant? To reach the door, however, a front porch must first be traversed. Composed of raw fused plastic waste, this one nods to the past (and squints at the future). If your shoes are not yet ruined by an intervention at the pond of moral uncertainty, they’re sure to be sullied in this garbage.

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2023 »Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop: seating proposals for a Grantmaker«

     Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland 

plexi cradle, cardboard display boards including works in gouache,

acrylic, marker pen, double-sided tape and glue ...

—­­­– JD’s School Certificate Folio

(after lost original) 2000 (detail)

“Business in the front, party in the back”: two distinct personalities in one unique hairstyle. The mullet, a fashion statement par excellence: short at the front, top and sides, long in the back, where luxuriant follicles flow like a waterfall of freedom. Flaunted on the stage since the glam-rock era, its raw audaciousness finds an unlikely recapitulation in the obligatory art portfolio for entry-level school examinations.

     Art education on the horns of a dilemma: on one exam boards remain shackled to their syllabus - a neat series of well-kempt, unimaginative, socially acceptable exercises that can be systematically coordinated by the examiner. On the other, there are the anarchic endeavours of students who regularly break the academic shackles and desublimate the approved course - where prescribed drawing is demanded - thus, adolescent anarchy is loosed upon the page.

     This project reconstructs a group of entry-level art portfolios reverse-engineered from the current practice of a number of notable contemporary New Zealand artists. The folios replicate in detail the mechanical exercises prescribed for the high school examination, and the admirable efforts of the students to circumvent these draconian restrictions. Each folio includes an imaginary portrait of the adolescent artist - aged 15, and still in two minds - a condition best captured in their hairstyle, an exercise in duality: business in the front, party in the back!

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2022 »Creation Stories« Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland

     2015 Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland 

     2000 »Genealogy« Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth

plexi cradle, cardboard display boards including works in gouache,

acrylic, marker pen, double-sided tape and glue ...

—­­­– JD’s School Certificate Folio

(after lost original) 2000 (detail)

“Business in the front, party in the back”: two distinct personalities in one unique hairstyle. The mullet, a fashion statement par excellence: short at the front, top and sides, long in the back, where luxuriant follicles flow like a waterfall of freedom. Flaunted on the stage since the glam-rock era, its raw audaciousness finds an unlikely recapitulation in the obligatory art portfolio for entry-level school examinations.

     Art education on the horns of a dilemma: on one exam boards remain shackled to their syllabus - a neat series of well-kempt, unimaginative, socially acceptable exercises that can be systematically coordinated by the examiner. On the other, there are the anarchic endeavours of students who regularly break the academic shackles and desublimate the approved course - where prescribed drawing is demanded - thus, adolescent anarchy is loosed upon the page.

     This project reconstructs a group of entry-level art portfolios reverse-engineered from the current practice of a number of notable contemporary New Zealand artists. The folios replicate in detail the mechanical exercises prescribed for the high school examination, and the admirable efforts of the students to circumvent these draconian restrictions. Each folio includes an imaginary portrait of the adolescent artist - aged 15, and still in two minds - a condition best captured in their hairstyle, an exercise in duality: business in the front, party in the back!

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2022 »Creation Stories« Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland

     2015 Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland 

     2000 »Genealogy« Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth

an installation view …

—­­­– Michael Stevenson, a solo exhibition 2023

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2020 »Michael Stevenson, a solo exhibition« Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam

an installation view …

—­­­– Michael Stevenson, a solo exhibition 2023

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2020 »Michael Stevenson, a solo exhibition« Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam

an installation view…

—­­­– Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief 2021

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2021 »Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief« KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin

an installation view…

—­­­– Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief 2021

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2021 »Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief« KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin

latex, net, webcam, biodegradable plastic bag -

a fictional telethon, the Hulkster and

an on-camera confessional…

—­­­– How Much Can You Take Before You Give?

South Pacific Television 2016 Mental Health

Telethon supporters aid 2022

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2022 »The Cheap Heat« Fine Arts, Sydney

latex, net, webcam, biodegradable plastic bag -

a fictional telethon, the Hulkster and

an on-camera confessional…

—­­­– How Much Can You Take Before You Give?

South Pacific Television 2016 Mental Health

Telethon supporters aid 2022

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2022 »The Cheap Heat« Fine Arts, Sydney

 camera plus effects for a telethon …

—­­­– The Cheap Heat 2021

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2021 »Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief« KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin

 camera plus effects for a telethon …

—­­­– The Cheap Heat 2021

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2021 »Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief« KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin

an installation view…

—­­­– The Cheap Heat 2022

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2022 »The Cheap Heat« Fine Arts, Sydney

an installation view…

—­­­– The Cheap Heat 2022

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2022 »The Cheap Heat« Fine Arts, Sydney

an installation view…

—­­­– Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop:

seating proposals for a Grantmaker 2023

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2023 »Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop: seating proposals for a Grantmaker«

     Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland

an installation view…

—­­­– Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop:

seating proposals for a Grantmaker 2023

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2023 »Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop: seating proposals for a Grantmaker«

     Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland

an installation view …

—­­­– Mind's Eye 2024

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2020 »Mind's Eye« Fine Arts, Sydney

an installation view …

—­­­– Mind's Eye 2024

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2020 »Mind's Eye« Fine Arts, Sydney

—­­­– Michael Stevenson: An Introduction 2013

This is the first published document to trace the artist’s practice as it developed across a number projects over a 20-year period. Amongst other things, the material collected in this volume straddles documentation, research, science fiction, anthropology, and philosophy.  An open-ended structure was used to ensure that the material could offer an overview of Stevenson’s practice while remaining as the title suggests, a primer.

     CONTENTS:

     Jan Verwoert

     Marilyn Strathern

     Michael Taussig (essay)

     Giovanni Intra (fiction), Mark von Schlegell (fiction)
     Roberto Bolaño (re-published text, 2004)
     José de Jesús Martínez (re-published document inserted in back cover, 1979)

     DESCRIPTION:

     280mm x 209mm, 260 pages, soft-bound with colour section (English/Spanish)

     EDITOR:

     Laura Preston

     DESIGN:

     Nuno da Luz

     Published jointly by; Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo,

     Ciudad de México, and Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln, 2013

     ISBN: 978-3-86335-236-3

—­­­– Michael Stevenson: An Introduction 2013

This is the first published document to trace the artist’s practice as it developed across a number projects over a 20-year period. Amongst other things, the material collected in this volume straddles documentation, research, science fiction, anthropology, and philosophy.  An open-ended structure was used to ensure that the material could offer an overview of Stevenson’s practice while remaining as the title suggests, a primer.

     CONTENTS:

     Jan Verwoert

     Marilyn Strathern

     Michael Taussig (essay)

     Giovanni Intra (fiction), Mark von Schlegell (fiction)
     Roberto Bolaño (re-published text, 2004)
     José de Jesús Martínez (re-published document inserted in back cover, 1979)

     DESCRIPTION:

     280mm x 209mm, 260 pages, soft-bound with colour section (English/Spanish)

     EDITOR:

     Laura Preston

     DESIGN:

     Nuno da Luz

     Published jointly by; Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo,

     Ciudad de México, and Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln, 2013

     ISBN: 978-3-86335-236-3

—­­­– c/o The Central Bank of Guatemala 2006

This publication borrows its title from material found in the Abba P. Lerner archive at UC Berkeley. Certain letters penned in 1953 are inscribed ‘c/o The Central Bank of Guatemala’ presented as Lerner’s official address. Presumptive and unabashed yet impermanent, adrift, unattached, and vulnerable, the address suggests the longer story of the Moniac device in Central America. Narrated via primary source materials acquired at the Central Bank with the kind assistance of its longest serving employees.

     CONTENTS:

    »The Moniac: Bill Phillip’s Machine«, Elvidio Aldana (essay)

     »The Search for the Fountain of Prosperity« Michael Stevenson (essay)
     »The Moniac: Metaphor for a Tropical Economy« Rosina Cazali (essay)

     DESCRIPTION:

     254mm x 177mm, 24 pages (unpaginated), black and white, self-covered (English)

     DESIGN:

     Rüdiger Schlömer

     Frankfurt, 2006

     ISBN: 3-86588-198-X

—­­­– c/o The Central Bank of Guatemala 2006

This publication borrows its title from material found in the Abba P. Lerner archive at UC Berkeley. Certain letters penned in 1953 are inscribed ‘c/o The Central Bank of Guatemala’ presented as Lerner’s official address. Presumptive and unabashed yet impermanent, adrift, unattached, and vulnerable, the address suggests the longer story of the Moniac device in Central America. Narrated via primary source materials acquired at the Central Bank with the kind assistance of its longest serving employees.

     CONTENTS:

    »The Moniac: Bill Phillip’s Machine«, Elvidio Aldana (essay)

     »The Search for the Fountain of Prosperity« Michael Stevenson (essay)
     »The Moniac: Metaphor for a Tropical Economy« Rosina Cazali (essay)

     DESCRIPTION:

     254mm x 177mm, 24 pages (unpaginated), black and white, self-covered (English)

     DESIGN:

     Rüdiger Schlömer

     Frankfurt, 2006

     ISBN: 3-86588-198-X

—­­­– Animal Spirits: Fables in the Parlance of Our Times 2013

An artist’s book by Michael Stevenson and the writer and critic Jan Verwoert. Through a series of collaborative processes or games, more than 30 stories were composed using a process akin to the surrealist genre of the exquisite corpse, i.e. text fragments passed back and forth between authors without prior discussion as to narrative through-lines. The only further prerequisite for the project was that each text should read as a fable.

     Ultimately, the representation of a moral force was found wanting. Therefore, the imperative to illustrate the texts was assigned to the artist and to Margaret P. Stevenson, (the artist’s mother) who additionally assumed the role of copy editor.

     CONTENTS:

     a collection of 31 fables including:

     »The Bull and the Beginning of the World«
     »The Used Light Bulb Vendor and the Sun«
     »The Shareholder and the Jackal«
     »The Skunk and the Chinese Lantern«
     »The Mosquito and the People of France«
     »The Monkey and the Pay Czar«
     »The Mock Lunchtime Beard«
     »The Moon and the Temporary Museum«
     »Gregarity and the Hermit Crabs«
     »The Buyer’s Remorse«

     DESCRIPTION:

     127mm x 185mm, 144 pages, 120 black and white illustrations, hard cover, English.

     DESIGN:

     Christoph Keller

     Published jointly by JRP|Ringier, Zurich and Clouds, Auckland, 2013

     ISBN: 978-3-03764-137-8

—­­­– Animal Spirits: Fables in the Parlance of Our Times 2013

An artist’s book by Michael Stevenson and the writer and critic Jan Verwoert. Through a series of collaborative processes or games, more than 30 stories were composed using a process akin to the surrealist genre of the exquisite corpse, i.e. text fragments passed back and forth between authors without prior discussion as to narrative through-lines. The only further prerequisite for the project was that each text should read as a fable.

     Ultimately, the representation of a moral force was found wanting. Therefore, the imperative to illustrate the texts was assigned to the artist and to Margaret P. Stevenson, (the artist’s mother) who additionally assumed the role of copy editor.

     CONTENTS:

     a collection of 31 fables including:

     »The Bull and the Beginning of the World«
     »The Used Light Bulb Vendor and the Sun«
     »The Shareholder and the Jackal«
     »The Skunk and the Chinese Lantern«
     »The Mosquito and the People of France«
     »The Monkey and the Pay Czar«
     »The Mock Lunchtime Beard«
     »The Moon and the Temporary Museum«
     »Gregarity and the Hermit Crabs«
     »The Buyer’s Remorse«

     DESCRIPTION:

     127mm x 185mm, 144 pages, 120 black and white illustrations, hard cover, English.

     DESIGN:

     Christoph Keller

     Published jointly by JRP|Ringier, Zurich and Clouds, Auckland, 2013

     ISBN: 978-3-03764-137-8

x and y are identical… but different,

Terry Gene Bollea and Hulk Hogan,

private citizen & celebrity

multiple personality meets legal strategy…

—­­­– (Terry Gene) 2020

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2020 »Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief« Fine Arts, Sydney

x and y are identical… but different,

Terry Gene Bollea and Hulk Hogan,

private citizen & celebrity

multiple personality meets legal strategy…

—­­­– (Terry Gene) 2020

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2020 »Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief« Fine Arts, Sydney

marker pen on latex…

—­­­– Hold-Up-To-Live-Camera 2021

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2021 »Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief« KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin

marker pen on latex…

—­­­– Hold-Up-To-Live-Camera 2021

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2021 »Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief« KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin

love or fear? the hand of Jeff Bezos and

the missionary zeal of Annie Vallatton

composing the Amazon.love list …

—­­­– S-team internal memo 2021

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2021 »Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief« KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin

love or fear? the hand of Jeff Bezos and

the missionary zeal of Annie Vallatton

composing the Amazon.love list …

—­­­– S-team internal memo 2021

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2021 »Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief« KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin

—­­­– Teoria Del Vuelo 2013

A re-printing of a Spanish text from 1979 by the playwright, mathematician, and bodyguard José de Jesús (Chuchu) Martínez, together with a new English translation of the text.

     At twice the page count of the source, the new document expands the original document considerably. This increased volume is offset by a reduction in the weight of the paper stock. The finished volume enfolds gossamer pages that allow show-through and which float in the air while turning. The text itself is a short rumination on flight.

     CONTENTS:

     dual language Spanish/English

     DESCRIPTION:

     198mm x 133mm, 44 pages, black and white with dust jacket (Spanish/English)

     TRANSLATION:

     Michelle Suderman

     First published in Panama by Colección Nueve de Enero in 1979.

     Re-printed with permission and English translation by; Portikus, Frankfurt am Main,

     Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Ciudad de México, and

     Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln, 2012,

     (included also as an insert in the 2013 publication

     »Michael Stevenson: An Introduction« by the same publishers).

     ISBN: 978-3-86335-236-3

—­­­– Teoria Del Vuelo 2013

A re-printing of a Spanish text from 1979 by the playwright, mathematician, and bodyguard José de Jesús (Chuchu) Martínez, together with a new English translation of the text.

     At twice the page count of the source, the new document expands the original document considerably. This increased volume is offset by a reduction in the weight of the paper stock. The finished volume enfolds gossamer pages that allow show-through and which float in the air while turning. The text itself is a short rumination on flight.

     CONTENTS:

     dual language Spanish/English

     DESCRIPTION:

     198mm x 133mm, 44 pages, black and white with dust jacket (Spanish/English)

     TRANSLATION:

     Michelle Suderman

     First published in Panama by Colección Nueve de Enero in 1979.

     Re-printed with permission and English translation by; Portikus, Frankfurt am Main,

     Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Ciudad de México, and

     Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln, 2012,

     (included also as an insert in the 2013 publication

     »Michael Stevenson: An Introduction« by the same publishers).

     ISBN: 978-3-86335-236-3

the ecumenical hand of Annie Vallatton

and the voice of José Raúl Capablanca,

paraphrased by Peter Thiel...

—­­­– (endgame) 2020

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2020 »Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief« Fine Arts, Sydney

the ecumenical hand of Annie Vallatton

and the voice of José Raúl Capablanca,

paraphrased by Peter Thiel...

—­­­– (endgame) 2020

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2020 »Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief« Fine Arts, Sydney

—­­­– Art of the Eighties and Seventies 2006

This publication follows the early history, planning, and construction of the Museum Abteiberg, billed as Europe’s first post-moderne art museum, documenting an erstwhile public/private partnership, its founding, prospects, and eventual demise. The story concerns an architect, Hans Hollein, and an art patron, Count Panza, and the relationship this civic institution mediated between a patron and the public.

     In a PoMo twist worthy of its subject matter, this publication reproduces exterior features - e.g. dust jacket, hard-bound black linen cover, and text descending the spine - in mimicry of the Rizzoli volumes celebrating the Panza Collection at MoCA, Los Angeles, the collection’s eventual home. This imprint is indistinguishable on the book shelf, but vastly different in content and motive, providing a counterfactual tale whereby the Panza Collection returns again to Abteiberg.

     CONTENTS:

     »Meeting Johannes Cladders & Hans Hollein« - conversation with Susanne Titz &

     Chantal Jacobi (interview)

      »The aircraft carrier, the paddy field, the late modern institution«, David Craig (essay)

     DESCRIPTION:

     317mm x 250mm, 128 pages, black and white with colour section, hard covered

     with dust jacket (English/German)

     DESIGN:

     Christoph Keller

     PUBLISHER:

     Revolver – Archiv für aktuelle Kunst Frankfurt

—­­­– Art of the Eighties and Seventies 2006

This publication follows the early history, planning, and construction of the Museum Abteiberg, billed as Europe’s first post-moderne art museum, documenting an erstwhile public/private partnership, its founding, prospects, and eventual demise. The story concerns an architect, Hans Hollein, and an art patron, Count Panza, and the relationship this civic institution mediated between a patron and the public.

     In a PoMo twist worthy of its subject matter, this publication reproduces exterior features - e.g. dust jacket, hard-bound black linen cover, and text descending the spine - in mimicry of the Rizzoli volumes celebrating the Panza Collection at MoCA, Los Angeles, the collection’s eventual home. This imprint is indistinguishable on the book shelf, but vastly different in content and motive, providing a counterfactual tale whereby the Panza Collection returns again to Abteiberg.

     CONTENTS:

     »Meeting Johannes Cladders & Hans Hollein« - conversation with Susanne Titz &

     Chantal Jacobi (interview)

      »The aircraft carrier, the paddy field, the late modern institution«, David Craig (essay)

     DESCRIPTION:

     317mm x 250mm, 128 pages, black and white with colour section, hard covered

     with dust jacket (English/German)

     DESIGN:

     Christoph Keller

     PUBLISHER:

     Revolver – Archiv für aktuelle Kunst Frankfurt

the ecumenical hand of Annie Vallatton and

 the voice of René Girard,

paraphrased by Peter Thiel...

—­­­– (scapegoat) 2020

     IN EXHIBITION:

     2020 »Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief« Fine Arts, Sydney