Tanja Lažetić: ABCED - 33 books in a box

Tuesday, 18 December 2012, at 6 p.m.
Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Maistrova 3

You are kindly invited to the presentation of the book ABCED - 33 books in a box by Tanja Lažetić.

24 artists from various parts of the world have decided to produce a series of books together. Some of them have never met, but they all know each other's work. They have become friends through daily contacts on their forum. ABC (short for Artist's Book Cooperative) is an informal group of artists who share an interest in the artist's book. Producing a joint work proved a bit challenging, and the resulting 33 books together bear the title ABCED. The books are of uniform size and are all titled with a single word ending in -ed (a simple thing to accomplish in English). At the same time, this is a reference to one of the pioneers - and the most prominent representative - of the modern artist's book Ed Ruscha. The ABCED series of books, however, is not about blind adulation of the great genius, nor simple copying or repeating or recreating the work of the role model; rather, the books are a reflection on, and an evaluation or even criticism of, Ruscha's work method. The approaches to the task vary vastly. For most of the artists, this is not their first foray into reinterpreting Ruscha's books. This makes their questions about the purpose and method of appropriation highly relevant, and their answers manifold. The first issue of the book series will be presented to Ed Ruscha as a gift on his 75th birthday on December 16th, 2012.

The ABCED series and the ABC group will be presented by Slovenian artist Tanja Lažetić, the only group member from Eastern Europe (an exotic designation that sends a chill down her spine every time she hears it). She will talk about the group's manner of communicating and operating and about their first and only joint project, and then reflect on the medium of the artist's book as a space of presentation of art, on repetition as a method, and on reasons for recreating Ed Ruscha's books.

More about the ABC group and the ABCED series of books at: http://abcoop.wordpress.com/abced/

Titles of the books in the ABCED series and the names of the authors:
Abstracted by Jonathan Lewis - Aped by EJ Major - Auctioned by Andreas Schmidt - Borrowed by Joachim Schmid - Clicked by Wil van Iersel - Clothed by Deanna Dikeman - Collected by Wil van Iersel - Colored by Tanja Lažetić - Covered by Hermann Zschiegner - Derailed by David Schulz - Disappeared by Joshua Deaner - Distilled by Jonathan Lewis - Dressed by Julie Cook - Exploded by Tanja Lažetić - Freed by Fred Free - Fucked by Andreas Schmidt - Ignored by Jean Keller - Peed by Jochen Friedrich - Pronounced by Erik Benjamins - Pumped by Mishka Henner - Recounted by Elisabeth Tonnard - Replicated by Joachim Schmid - Reworded by Travis Shaffer - Richtered by Mishka Henner - Rorschached by Andreas Schmidt - Sampled by Jonathan Lewis - Scarred by Burkhard von Harder - Sliced by Heidi Neilson - Stained by Eric Doeringer - Stripped by Paul Soulellis - Uncompleted by Mariken Wessels - Visited by Fred Free - Yellowed by Victor Sira