HERE IT IS HERE IT AINT

Jonathan Ellery / Lawrence Weiner

Generated by a series of fertile exchanges between two artists, Jonathan Ellery and Lawrence Weiner, HERE IT IS HERE IT AINT is a quintessential artist book — in that it has no foreword, appendages or footnotes; and the meaning, as indicated by the title, is far from absolute.

It is apparent that while there are clear distinctions in the work of Lawrence Weiner and Jonathan Ellery, they comfortably inhabit the same context. For both of them, art and life manifest in an objective, concrete synthesis. Their statements function as catalysts for conversations whose composition craft a seductive mise-en-scene.

DOES NOT REFER TO ANYTHING BUT ITSELF

Fragments tussle, collide and interrupt, negotiating all four corners of the glossy pages. Weiner’s works, as material language, are countered by Ellery’s material abstractions; arrows shift, tape flows in undulating tracks, generic dots and dashes collide, i.e. a conversation in morse code. Everything is non-hierarchical. Words, drawings, objects, photographs are used with equal measure to bring about a change of state.

Focused on details that go unnoticed:
HERE IT IS HERE IT AINT.

ROTATION IN A BLUE SKY

Between its cerulean blue silkscreened linen cover, the pages dissipate into a final emptiness – the nature of human communication, showing, not telling. Differing sensibilities complement and collide. The book appears to be that of two virtuosos, each riffing their distinctively different sounds (ostinato) to the end.

Edition of 300
230 x Standard edition

20 x numbered and signed by the artists.
Price available on request:
[email protected]

50 x Hors commerce

Published 2018
Published by Browns Editions
Hand screen printed cloth cover
5-hole stitch bound
235 × 317.5 mm
72 pages
41 images
ISBN 9780992819484

The New York Times article by Randy Kennedy
nytimes.com