Example of the edition of 200

Hand Project, by Jason Polan

Happy Super Tuesday, voters!

Hopefully all of you States-dwelling, party-declaring citizens have carved out a few moments in your day to head to the polls. Having already performed my civic duty at the old folks' home down the block, I can say: "It's good! And good for you!" In other political news: In the wee hours of this very morning, I completed a silent coup, installing myself as the President of The Jason Polan Fan Club.

I type this communique from 20x200 HQ aka JPFC HQ, where the man himself spent many hours among us yesterday, signing Certificates of Authenticity and pairing them up with each unique numbered piece that comprises the edition of 200.

This is a most ground-breaking and unique 20x200 edition. With it, I ask many of our regulars to take a somewhat bolder step into the arty unknown. I love pretty things and animals just as much as the next girl (I'd hazard to guess even more maybe, especially when it comes to birds and say, pandas...) The fact is, art is so much more for me than pretty, cute or cuddly; part of my mission with 20x200 is to show scads of people the many and various ways that art can enrich one's life.

Jason's work is about a lot of lofty ideas, but those ideas are grounded in the most mundane of media and happenstance. The ideas center around his ambitions to interact authentically with both the media he chooses to work in and the collectors who buy his work. With The Hand Project he achieves this with materials that most of us are lucky to have, or have easy access to: a photocopier, paper of varying weights and qualities, goopy black ink, a firm handshake, a Polaroid camera.

Example of the edition of 20

Hand Project, by Jason Polan

I say lucky because I mean it, and that I mean it is part of the art of it. This might sound totally cheeseball coming from a sassy cynic like myself, but honestly speaking, I have really and truly found meaning in my life by having gratitude for the simplest of things. Calling attention to this simple good fortune is something that makes the art work for me. The fact that Jason uses these things in ways that would never occur to me reinforces my admiration for the mind of the artist, a mind that functions so differently from my own.

Thinking about my hand, and everything (yes, everything!) it allows me to do, thinking about a photocopier as an artist's tool, recognizing the immediacy, intimacy and authenticity that springs from the in-person interaction required for an actual handshake - these are all things I'm happy to notice and to honor.

I'm grateful that Jason's thoughtful interpretation of the structure of 20x200 has given me the opportunity to do so. I'm equally grateful that he does it without gravitas or arch hipster irony. He makes me think sure, but oh, how he makes me laff! (I am pretty sure that he means to do both.)

It's a rich experience for me, and it's my very own. Kind of surprising considering that, in theory, what Jason's done is something that almost each and every one of us can do. Here's the thing though: he did it. And by doing it, he shifted my thinking a little bit and for the better. To me, that's art. Living with that art, as I plan to do, will always remind me to remember it.

The edition of 2 is a collaboration between yourself and Mr. Polan.

Hand Project, by Jason Polan

Dutch Club, Anaheim, California, by Brad Moore

Hectic Wednesday greetings, collectors. Things are hopping here at JB Projects HQ - we're revving up for the Friday opening of Ne Plus Ultra, the Hey, Hot Shot! Annual, and there are about a million other things percolating too. (Check the gallery blog for the full update.) First things first though, and what's first is today's edition by photographer Brad Moore, one of this year's Ultras.

Dutch Club, Anaheim, California is available in three sizes. All the prints in the edition are created using archival pigment inks and 100% cotton rag paper. As per usual, the edition is available exclusively through 20x200, and as a list subscriber you can buy it now, well before it makes its debut on the homepage at 2pm today.

I brought a portfolio of Brad's prints to the Scope Art Fair in the Hamptons this past Summer, and showing his work to collectors was one of the funnest parts of the proceedings for me.* Most every person passing by our booth paused to admire the one large stunning print hanging in the booth, and many of them subsequently asked to see more prints. Invariably, by the time I was on the third or fourth print in the set, a small crowd would be gathered around the table peering over the shoulder of the collector who had asked to see the work.

All of Brad's photos share a certain mundane consistency, but one that's executed with humor and precision. Shooting suburban landscapes is something ventured by many a contemporary color photographer, so I'm always thrilled to discover someone with a fresh take on it. There's no doubt that there's something innately pleasing in symmetry, an element so often present in Brad's work, but I also love the Rorschach-like responses many of the images illicit.

Cranes become giraffes, shrubs look more like lush moss or algae rather than the sort of greenery which sheds twigs, a manicured lawn and an oddly posed shrub are transformed into a color-field Where's Waldo.

In house, Dutch Club is known as "The Fez". Shocking, I know. And while it looks like a hat, it also has an endearing plant-to-animal creature nature about it. It always makes me smile and it often makes me giggle. And then there is the enduring appeal of the color green - I really love the hyper-real green that Brad coaxes out his subjects.

This coaxing doesn't come easy since all these photos are shot in Southern California, the land of bright sun and blue skies. Grey days, which are exactly the days that make the green greener than green itself, are few and far between. Brad charts the weather obsessively (have you ever noticed how totally obsessive a lot of photographers are?) knowing that he needs to seize these rare and fleeting moments.

Last we spoke, he seemed a bit defeated by relentless sunshine and told me that he had a hunch that the he'd be focusing on portraiture for next phase of his project. Grey days and greenery be damned!

As I mentioned up top, Brad's one of this year's Ultras - he's got several fine examples of his work in the upcoming exhibition at Jen Bekman. The opening is on Friday (2.8) from 6pm-8pm. Please join us then!

*Yes, of course it was awesome kicking back with fellow JB and 20x200 artist Amy Ross who is so totally reading this right now. But this newsletter, it's about Brad. I love you all equally if for different reasons.

Drawing, by Jacob Macgraw

Good morning, art lovers! Welcome to your new, improved, earlier in the day, albeit somewhat briefer, 20x200 newsletter announcement type thingy.

(My copy editor friends are cringing with each and every comma, I know. As you might have noticed I am prone to disparate adjectives and odd constructions more verbal than written, so the whole proper punctuation thing is a bit of a challenge. Should I be using dashes? I don't know.)

OK, then! On to the art, shall we? Today we present to you Drawing by island-dwelling painter Jacob Magraw. As per usual, this edition is:
- exclusive to 20x200
- being presented to you, dear newsletter subscribers, way before it's announced on 20x200.com at 2pm today.
- available in three wonderful sizes
- printed on 100% cotton rag matte paper, using archival inks

This here edition is also a crazy delicious piece of eye-candy, so you'd be well-advised to buy it now, before one of your fellow subscribers leaks it to their own online worlds. I have a hunch that this one will be a mover.

Someone asked me the other day whether I thought that "great art sells itself." You could see where I am inclined to answer with an emphatic "n-o. NO!" Which is what I did. And yes, I believe that to be true, but I also know that there's a lot of work that's immediately appealing and I myself have been sold on plenty of stuff, on sight.

I was thusly sold on Jacob's work. I first came across it on ffffound (don't get lost over there! I always do.) Upon further investigation I fell more in love. Jacob is represented by Richard Heller Gallery, one of those Los Angeles galleries which, like six space, fills my heart with envy admiration. After browsing through his and his gallery's sites, it was quite clear that this particular piece is but one of the many drawings and paintings by Jacob that I'd love to live with.

In house, the response has been similarly enthusiastic. I could hear Eric Recktenwald, printer extraordinaire, whistle under his breath even though he's all the way over in Minnesota. He was bracing himself for the challenge of printing such a gorgeous, colorful, layered original (one he met and mastered with ease, as you probably already know) and yea, he wants one for his very own. I can't blame him; I do too, even though I am quickly running out of wallspace to put stuff on.

I'm also running out the door - I've got loads of appointments to make, errands to run and editions to plan. So... until tomorrow, I bid you a fond adieu.

Untitled (from Sub Rosa), by Birthe Piontek

Good morning my collector friends! Welcome to day two of my recently renewed resolve to get up early after staying up late. (I almost always stay up late, my ability to get up early waxes and wanes.) This new resolve, it's all for you! Art to the people: early and often. That's my motto.

Today's edition is an untitled photograph by the Vancouver-based artist Birthe Piontek, whom* I had the good fortune to spend lots of time with this past weekend. She and her fellow 20x200 edition-making, Ne Plus Ultra-exhibiting cohort Brad Moore came by the office for a Certificate of Authenticity signing fiesta on Saturday, which stretched into some art-viewing, beer-drinking and dog-walking good times.

I am going to skip the part where I tell you about our fine papers, ink and printers. And also the part about how the edition is exclusive to 20x200 and what sizes we offer, etc. An informal survey of two list subscribers recently revealed to me that you maybe don't need to hear about all that in every single email. The people have spoken!

I might also skip the part where I sheepishly confess that my whole bird thing might be getting a little out of hand, but hey, it's different this time! Don't all those birds hanging out on your walls need a place to live? Of course they do.

I will not skip the part where I talk about how awesome Birthe is, and how fortunate I feel to have an opportunity to work with her. I first met her last Spring at Review Santa Fe, where reviewers and photographers alike were gushing about her lush, painterly portraits and still lifes. And oh by the way, she is so smart and nice and a pleasure to talk to. This is the buzz I heard ahead of meeting her, and wouldn't you know it? Every bit of it was true. Less than a year later, I've got her photos on the walls of the gallery and in 20x200's inventory.

Raul attended Review Santa Fe with his own amazing photography , giving me the inside track to the photographers' perspective of the whole shebang. He was also one of Birthe's biggest champions and we've subsequently discussed her work a great deal.

The other (late) night we were doing the post-game analysis of the Ne Plus Ultra opening over IM (but of course!), and he hit the nail on the head, I feel:

Jen: Birthe's work looks really nice, beautiful prints.
Raul: It's very feminine which is almost foreign because so many photographers even female photographers work with a male vocabulary
Jen : it's true, but also it's not saccharine
Jen: there is some feminine stuff out there which makes me want to tear my hair out
Jen: [name redacted] for instance
Jen: i mean really
Jen: wtf
Raul: I don't mean it like that at all.... I mean it in the best way, it's just a slight shift in perspective.. holly lynton has the same thing
Jen: I know what you mean
Jen: Don't worry you're not offending my feminist sensibilities :)

And then we went on to discuss potential artist and photographers that I am considering for my late-Spring group show, Ornithology. (For serious.)

On Saturday evening over beers and hot pretzels, Birthe, Brad and I chatted about this whole feminine photography concept, inspired by our fresh viewing of some decidedly unfeminine work from a female photographer. Alas, this email is getting long and I have lots to do within the next less-than-24-hours before I take off for and art-filled long-weekend in Minneapolis. And trust me, once you get me started on women, especially women in art, it becomes a longer conversation. So this part, I'm skipping it for now.

Speaking of conversation, I'll be doing a lecture at the Minnesota Center for Photography on Monday evening (02.18) about... something. Exactly what that something will be is one of the items on today's over-long to do list. (Feel free to send suggestions my way!)

*A Who or whom? debate immediately ensued. I am forever flummoxed. Niki was confident that Birthe was the object to my subject here, thus "whom" was that with which we went.

Darkness moves, by Wendy Heldmann

Flight-delayed Tuesday greetings, my friends in the computer! I'm just in from a jaunt to Minneapolis and am readjusting to the atmosphere, paring down my layers and shaking the scent of sickly-sweet taxicab air freshener from my locks.

Today's edition, Darkness moves by LA-based painter Wendy Heldmann, is pretty freaking brilliant and thought-provoking.

I've been semi-obsessed with Wendy's work since I spotted it during one of my pre-launch late-night online meanderings. My note to her regarding doing an edition was an especially plaintive "would you, could you, might you please consider this project?" not only because it was sent before the site even existed publicly yet, but also because I would've been truly crushed by a no.*

My affinity for bright colors and beauty in art is obvious. Scan the archives here or on jenbekman.com and you'll see plenty of evidence. You'll also notice that beauty is never enough - there's always got to be something more - a big idea, humor, a glimpse of tenderness.

So imagine little Miss Lover of Bright and Shiny Things stumbling onto this painting here and having her "Oooh, pretty" reaction readjust itself to the true darkness of the scene. Wendy's something more is particularly bold, affecting and honest. In this body of work, she coaxes beauty out of the detritus of disaster, and in doing so, she's provoked a series of questions and conversations for me that have resurfaced my own personal relationships with disaster in ways I hadn't seen them before.

In venerating and elevating disaster scenes as paintings, Wendy is opening up quite a can of worms. Photos of disaster can masquerade as documentary, photo-journalism, reportage - call it whatever you like. Disasters, natural and man-made, march across our broadsheets, tabloids, monitors and tv screens. We're not allowed to think of them as beautiful because they are bad and because they're photos, we might be tempted to believe that they're the whole truth. And yet, their beauty is what makes us look and what we're looking at and/or choosing to see is merely some person's version of the truth.

And this is where it gets really uncomfortable - Wendy's paintings embrace (perhaps invent?) the beauty of these scenes, and well, you just don't do that, do you? Not out loud at least. We don't talk about it. It might occur to us as part of our own inner dialog but it's not something to be discussed in polite company. Which is awfully ironic considering how preoccupied our culture is with violence, imagery and... images of violence. Because we don't talk about it, I've always felt a little funny-in-a-bad way about how the memory of disaster works in my mind.

I remember September 11th as a really beautiful perfect day, and each day subsequent as being persistently, painfully, equally as beautiful. I remember the strange beauty in steady shots of the remaining shard of a tower torqued and reaching upwards reflecting light in ways I hadn't seen light reflected before. I remember a certain excitement in the spectacle, completely involuntary, but undeniably there.

I put it away for a few years, after turning it all off as quickly as I could. (And, if you remember, turning it off wasn't exactly easy.) I don't like telling my own story, and I have a particular discomfort about stories I heard and retold because telling them made the pictures we were seeing real. The truth is that it's all real, and it's complicated and actually you can't put it away.

That was painfully obvious to me this weekend as I was driving on a bridge across the Mississippi with Karolina and Colin and off to the right over there was the wreckage from the bridge collapse from earlier this Summer. We started talking about that day and where they were, and where I was and what we did and who we called and how it felt.

How it felt for me, even though I really didn't want it to, was like September 11th. And all those feelings are so closely tied to images that are mapped into my memory. On September 11th, they were things I saw with my own eyes, from my own roof, in the sky before me. This past Summer, it was what I saw on the TV and how it connected me so immediately to what I'd seen and felt before. And so I told my story, and a lot of what my story was about had to do with how it looked, or how I remembered it looking.

*Actually I probably would've been crushed for a minute or two, and then I'd figure out a different angle by which I might get to yes. I am bull-headed, especially when I'm excited about something.

Opp, Alabama, by Scott Eiden

Brisk Wednesday greetings from downtown NYC, my stylish and sophisticated collector pals. I am still recovering from my travels, trying to settle in and am valiantly fighting what appears to be a losing battle with pet hair. (Ollie's coat seems to have gone forth and multiplied in my absence.)

With today's dispatch I am absolutely tickled to digitally present to you Opp, Alabama, an especially special analog edition from Brooklyn-based, Northwest-bred gentleman photographer Scott Eiden, who makes his pictures the old-fashioned way: with a Deardorff Field Camera and a whole mess of chemicals.

As I said during my presentation on Monday night at the The Minnesota Center for Photography, technology is a key component in making 20x200 go, go, go. We'd be hard pressed to develop such a far-flung and enthusiastic collector crowd without the website or the newsletter, the 20x200 dream team would be lost without IM and, to date, all of our prints have been produced digitally.

So, yes, I am a lover of the digital technology, but that doesn't mean that I don't mourn the diminishing presence of our analog past, photographic and otherwise. That's why today's edition is such a treat.

Opp, Alabama is editioned in 3 sizes, all of which are traditional Chromogenic prints on Kodak Supra N paper, created from an 8"x10" negative. The edition of 200 are 8.5"x11" contact prints with black borders. (The medium and large sizes, 20"x24" and 30"x40" respectively, have white borders.)

The traditional process of the actual prints is a fitting echo to the bricks-and-mortar solidity of the building depicted. Dean's Pharmacy is a sturdy, yet beleaguered, artifact of our small-town heritage, buffeted by the relentless encroachment of service-road, strip mall America.

I am a thoroughly modern Millie (and a city-slicker and that) but still and all, I have a lot of affection for old-fashioned manners and small town U.S.A. I might fight to pick up the check when we're out at dinner, but I'll always be impressed by a fella who helps me on with my coat or waits for me to step off the elevator ahead of him. I am not immune to Target's siren song, but I also crave the friendly hellos and quirky individuality of small town Main Streets. I much prefer the creak of a heavy wooden door accompanied by the thin jangle of brass bells announcing my arrival over the swoosh-swoosh of automatic doors which open to envelop my shopping cart (and me.)

Sentimentality aside, I remain a steadfast lover of the modern world. I'd surely be cranky for a million and one reasons were I instantaneously time-warped back to mid-century America. My Pollyanna-ish optimism keeps me believing that there's ample room for both the past and the future in our present, and today's edition is a perfect example of how that can play out.

Speaking of out... I need to get myself out of the house and down to 20x200 HQ. The crew has been patiently awaiting my all-too-brief return before my next departure. On Friday I'm off to the thin-aired altitudes of Santa Fe, NM for more photographic fun at Center, where I'll be jurying this year's Singular Image prize for color photography.

I won't be far from my beloved city for long - I touch down at LGA on Monday and will return to your Inbox on Tuesday with tales to tell and art to share. See you then!

Sleepy Tuesday greetings! The last few years of my adult life have been all about channeling my stubborn inner child, the one who insists on staying up past her bedtime regardless of the consequences (or looming deadlines) come morning. I am caffeinating, yawning and typing all at the same time, wishing that I'd had the presence of mind to tuck myself in before 3am.

Today's edition, Daisy, is our second offering from stylish LA-denizen Christina Muraczewski, whose sister-painting Polly flew out the door pretty quickly when it was introduced a few months back. Lucky* for you, we've got a fresh Daisy (or ten) still in stock! (But not for long...)

Daisy 's got some of that faux bois goodness I adore and it conjures thoughts of Springtime, which I am so totally ready for. My official ready-for-Spring moment came exactly (and agonizingly) at the very second that my elbow was the very first part of me to make contact with the icy banks of Medicine Lake in Plymouth, MN last week. (Note: I slipped on the ice before I even got on the really icy part. Way. To. Go.) Delighted as I was to check out the Art Shanty Projects in person, the blossoming bruise on my elbow and the stars in my eyes made me pine for longer days and budding trees.

So, yes, I'm ready to Spring forward! I'm even willing to give up that lost hour of sleep that's so hard to lose for a night owl like me. There's not long to wait - daylight savings starts on March 9th, which is barely a blink of the eye from now. Meanwhile, we can comfort ourselves with the warm thoughts evoked by Chrissy's Daisy.

Now I'm going to spring into action and get myself ready for what promises to be a very busy day. I'll be back in a snap with this week's photo edition, which will pop up in your Inbox tomorrow morning. Have a sunshine-y day!

*Speaking of lucky... The chic Ms. Muraczewski makes an appearance in the current issue of Lucky magazine. Look for her on page 240, in their regular What I'll Be Wearing feature.

Christina's editions tend to fly out the door, as do many others - consider signing up for our mailing list so you can get advance notice on our editions.

-jen

Good day collectors, and happy Wednesday to you. There's a hint of Spring in the air here in NYC today, not in a weather-gone-mad, global warming kind of way, but rather in a "let's step out for lunch and leave our coats unzipped and ditch the wooly accessories" kind of way. It's a beautiful thing, and if I'm lucky I'll get to do just that after I tell you all about today's photography edition.

You might have noticed that our artists have a penchant for Untitled when it comes to titling their works, and the creator of today's edition Jessica Bruah continues the tradition. Her Untitled is from a series called Stories, which I have been reading, so to speak, since early 2006. Jessie's earlier stories were exhibited at the gallery during the Winter 2006 edition of Hey, Hot Shot!

As regular 20x200 readers know, I love photos that tell stories, and what I find particularly enchanting about Ms. Bruah's work is the surrealist bent to the ones that she frames. While it's clear that every element of each image has been obsessively thought through, their assemblage is always off-kilter and often fantastical. Everyday things are unmoored from their usual stations, and with that unmooring I find myself constructing similarly loopy plotlines.

In this particular image, Jessie employs the seemingly endless creative potential of the humble (yet mighty!) Post-It note. I am a Post-It note fan, and am invariably delighted by Post-It note art. Post-Its + art + narrative? That adds up to art-y bliss for me.

Post-It notes and other office supplies always make me think of a Theodore Roethke poem, Dolor. I've included the poem below, because I think it's great; it perfectly (and timelessly) captures the tedium of the worker-bee life. The narrative that I've built around today's photo involves its heroine succumbing to a madness induced by the office tedium that Roethke so deftly describes.

Fortunately for me, 20x200 HQ is a tedium-free zone. We are having an awfully good time working with artists and getting the art out to all you happy, art-loving people. Who knew that work could be this fun? And with that: I'm off to have some fun!

***

Dolor

I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,

All the misery of manila folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,

Endless duplication of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,

Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.

***