Quadrat-Print / Quadrat-Blatt / Feuilles-Cadrat / Kwadraat Blad

Les Levine: HOUSE [Quadrat-Print / Quadrat-Blatt / Feuilles-Cadrat / Kwadraat Blad]. Hilversum: Steendrukkerij De Jong & Co, 1971. First edition [limited to 1,000 copies]. Printed brown chipboard wrappers. Unpaginated. 26 black and white photographs. Publishers errata sheet laid in. Designed by Pieter Brattinga.

9.75 x 9.5 square octavo with 26 black and white photographs by Les Levine. “Each photograph in this book is a working plan for a sculpture or monument. The person who acquires this book should attempt to erect one of the monuments according to the scale of the space that he finds available. He may do this alone or in conjunction with a group. When he has finished his work on the monument or is tired of it, he should send photographs to Les Levine, 181 Mott Street, NYC, 10012 USA.”

"The main issue for me is the mind. The main aspect is what is going on in the mind when one is experiencing a work of art. It could be highly visual or highly conceptual, but it doesn't in the long run make any difference. I'm interested in how this is contributing to thinking." — Les Levine

Les Levine (b. 1935) is a conceptual artist and one of the originators of media art. Early on, he recognized the potential of television as an art medium and a means of mass dissemination. He was one of the first artists to use videotape. Levine regards himself as a "media sculptor" and has used outdoor advertising, posters, television, radio, and telephone conversations in his work. He studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London and exhibited and lived in Canada during the 1960s and early 1970s. In 1973 he was an artist-in-residence at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. He has been based in New York City since 1964.

At the beginning of his career, Levine introduced the idea of disposable art, earning the name "Plastic man." In 1966 he exhibited thousands of vacuum-formed plastic reliefs in various colours, selling them for between $3 and $6 each. This was considered a populist response to art world conceptions of art as unique and precious objects. Wiretap (1970), in the National Gallery of Canada collection, consists of 12 speakers on the wall, each playing a loop of 12 hours of recorded telephone conversations that Levine made on his home phone. The audience listens to the taped document of actual inquiries and conversations about the production of artwork over a period of one year. For its time, Wiretap was radical in proposing that the activity surrounding the process of making a work of art is as valid and interesting as the end product.

Like others of his generation, Levine addresses in his artwork issues of value and consumption in North American society. In the early 1980s, his first billboard campaigns in Los Angeles and Minneapolis followed on the heels of a successful mass media project that featured 4000 images along the NYC subway system. Levine has made over 200 videos and has had over 100 solo exhibitions. [national Gallery of Canada]

"The Quadrat-Prints are a series of experiments in printing ranging over the fields of graphic design, the plastic arts, literature, architecture and music. They are edited by Pieter Brattinga and are not for sale."

"The Quadrat-Prints appear at irregular intervals. They are published only after the most stringent requirements of intellectual and technical production have been met."

Steendrukkerij De Jong & Co. published 34 Quadrat-Prints between 1955 and 1974, with Brattinga serving as general editor and individual designers given free reign with their chosen subjects in the visual arts, literature, music, architecture, typography, etc. None of these publications were for sale -- they were distributed to friends and business associates by De Jong as elaborate self-promotions.

De Amerikaan Les Levine heeft als uitgangspunt dat kunst gebruikt moet kunnen worden. Hij wordt geïnspireerd door de technologie, de massaproduktie en de Amerikaanse 'consumer society'. Levine begon in 1965 met het maken van stoelen, strak gepakt in roze geschilderd vanvas en opgehangen aan de muur of het plafond. Hierna maakte hij 'disposable art' (wegwerpkunst): objecten in grote oplagen, die weggegooid kunnen worden, als ze gaan vervelen. Rond 1968 maakte hij zgn. star-machines, gemaakt van twee manshoge, doorzichtige, gebogen platen perspex, tegenover elkaar opgesteld in een raam van buizen. Wanneer men hierin staat, verandert het ruimtebesef en moet men zijn handen uitsteken om te voelen waar de begrenzing is. Levine heeft zich beziggehouden met het maken van enviroments, pneumatische kunst en televisieobjecten. Hij geldt als een pionier op het gebied van videokunst.

In zijn werk roept hij vragen op over de sociale en politieke reikwijdte van kunst en stelt hij het manipulatieve karakter van de media aan de kaak. De vraag welke rol de kunstenaar speelt binnen het sociale systeem komt in tal van concrete projecten aan de orde. Levine's Restaurant (New York 1968) en het Museum of Mott Art Inc. (New York 1970) zijn pogingen om de communicatie over kunst en haar functioneren te stimuleren.

Uit: Kunst van Nu. Encyclopedisch overzicht vanaf 1960, 1971 en Encyclopedisch overzicht vanaf 1970, Leiden 1995.

House (Kwadraat-Blad). Ontwerp Pier Brattinga, concept Les Levine.Uitgave: Steendrukkerij de Jong & Co, 1971, 25 x 25 cm. (referentie: Stephen Bury, Artists Books, The Book As a Work of Art 1963-1995, Scolar Press 1995).

Elke foto in dit boek is een werkplan voor een beeldhouwwerk of monument. Degene, die dit boek in zijn bezit krijgt, zou moeten trachten een van de monumenten te verwezenlijken op een schaal die in verhouding staat tot de ruimte die hij daarvoor ter beschikking krijgt. Hij kan dit alleen doen, of in samenwerking met een groep. Wanneer hij zijn werk aan het monument heeft voltooid of er genoeg van heeft, wordt hij verzocht foto's ervan te zenden aan Les Levine, 181 Mott Street, New York, New York 10012, U.S.A.

De Kwadraat-Bladen zijn een serie experimenten in druk op het gebied van de grafische vormgeving, beeldende kunst, literatuur, architektuur en muziek. Zij worden samengesteld door Pieter Brattinga en zijn niet te koop. De Kwadraat-Bladen zijn, zolang voorradig, kostenloos verkrijgbaar bij de uitgever.
Les Levine. Museum of Mott Art Inc. Catalogue of after art services 1974, 12 p. 21,5 x 14 cm. New York

A catalogue of 62 supposed services provided to artists by Levine's conceptual Museum of Mott Art Inc. Includes brief description of services and price, introduction, conditions of service and consultation such as: "Activity Selection Service for Artists (What should you do after art? Bring us your biography and a history of your previous work and we will outline a program of activities complete with variations for the next 6 years. Completely tailored to the needs of the individual. Fee - $108 925-0447 for appt), "How to Stop Being an Artist," "Language Services for Painters," "How to Kill Yourself" etc.

"Museum of Mott Art is a consultation service organization, the purpose of which is to provide information and consultation services to the fine art professions and their associates.
1. All services are given on an individual basis only. Lists or other information supplied by Mott Art are deemed to be for the client's use only and not transferable.
2. All inquiries, consultations or conversations between clients and Mott Art shall be held in the strictest of confidence.
3. Information supplied by Mott Art is given in accordance with the highest professional standards. Where an expert is required, a bona fide member of the specific profession will be consulted. Mott Art shall not be held responsible for the outcome of any actions taken as a result of the client receiving information or acting upon the use of any of our services.
4. Fees are charged as per catalogue price or $36 per hour, whichever is the greater. Where particular expertise from a qualified professional is required, the standard hourly rate of that profession shall be charged in addition. All telephone inquiries are billed at $6 per call. Fees are payable immediately as service is supplied."

2D3D Ontwerpbureau | 2D3D galerie | Documentaire Kwadraat-Bladen from 2D3D Design on Vimeo.

Een serie experimenten in druk op het gebied van grafische vormgeving, beeldende kunst, literatuur, architectuur en muziek, uitgegeven tussen 1955 en 1974 door Steendrukkerij De Jong & Co. Speciale aandacht in deze korte documentaire voor Pieter Brattinga, directeur van Steendrukkerij Steendrukkerij De Jong & Co en initiator van de Kwadraat-Bladen.

WHAT WE MAKE: DUTCH GRAPHIC INDUSTRIES

Julie C. Fortier
Born 1973 in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada.
Lives and works in Rennes.

House, 2008
Wood, 530 x 462 x 611 cm
Coproduction Les Ateliers de Rennes / Frac Bretagne

Julie C. Fortier's videos shift between filmed performance and staged disappearances or absences. Her installations and sculptures extend this work, opening up on to an artificial world, reminiscent of cartoons or film sets that plunge us into an unreal world of memory. Her themes are time, emptiness, expectancy and desire.

With funding from the FRAC Bretagne, Julie C. Fortier re-actualizes a concept devised by Les Levine (Irish-born American conceptual artist, born 1935). She carries out a task, suggested by another artist, thus raising the question of artistic authorship, the creative gesture.

Excerpt from the text "Screen façade and haunted sculpture" by Christophe Pichon, published in the exhibition catalogue:

When we peruse Les Levine’s book House, we understand to what extent this lack of information, that certain unforeseen events of reality focus on themselves, requires on the artist’s part such an attentiveness that, in order to pierce the enigma, this latter must take the form of a beat. When, in compliance with the incentive offered by Les Levine, Julie C. Fortier, in turn,

chooses a photograph from the book, in order to make a sculpture “according to the scale of the space that [she] finds available”, she does not create any further information in its regard. Her decision consists rather in assuming and laying claim to, based on an incomplete medium, the image of what she recognises and what she recollects, including if it is in a jumble and even quite remote.

By taking Les Levine’s invitation literally, and by pursuing, in order to include it in reality, what could, at the end of the day, only be a game with no tomorrow, she transforms this proposition for a sculpture that needs activating into a re-animated object, i.e. more dead than alive, on which the film can once more be overlaid. Not a film object (the set it has never been)

but an object that it has been possible to look at, in another time and another place, through film. In this little game of who is haunting whom, or who is haunting what, Julie C. Fortier does not simply contribute to the pursuit of a programme: by taking her part, she plays an active role as well in the preparation of an artistic ethics; the very same one that got Les Levine to say: “I see an artist as a remover of evil spirits”.

Ce projet consiste à appliquer le protocole de travail proposé par Les Levine dans son livre House (© Les Levine 1971, New York/Steendrukkerij de Jong & Co., Hilversum, The Netherland, 1971) au sein duquel il présente différentes photographies d'une même maison de bois en ruine.

House, 2008
Bois, 455 x 640x 650 cm. Coproduit avec l'appui du Frac Bretagne et Les Ateliers de Rennes – Biennale d'art contemporain, édition 2008. Collection FRAC Bretagne.