09 Feb 2016

Hans Ulrich Obrist Hear Us featuring Bill Burns at Los Angeles Artists' Book Fair

Please join our conversation about Hans Ulrich Obrist Hear Us in THE CLASSROOM at the Geffen Contemporary. THE CLASSROOM is organised by David Senior, bibliographer at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It is the forum of the Printed Matter's Los Angeles Artists' Book Fair. The event will start with a reading and will be followed by a conversation between Bill Burns and Tyler Stallings, director of the Sweeney Art Gallery, University of California, Riverside. David Senior will moderate the conversation.

Hans Ulrich Obrist Hear Us is a richly illustrated book of writings exploring Bill Burns' transgressive practice. It speculates on toadyism and brown-nosing with particular reference to hagiography in contemporary art. It poses critical questions about desire, belonging and the kind of world we want to live in. In short, it asks a question that has no answer: 'What do long for?'

In addition to Bill Burns' story entitled 'Hans Ulrich Obrist Hear Us', the book includes essays by Jennifer Allen, Dan Adler, and Dannys Montes de Oca Moreda and a foreword by Jennifer Matotek and Stuart Reid.

About the conversation:

Bill Burns is an artist from Toronto, Canada. His work about art, animals and advanced industrialism has been shown widely. He has published nine books and produced conceptual ruminations at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, England; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany. He is artistic director of the Dogs and Boats and Airplanes Children's Choir in Toronto.

David Senior is the bibliographer at the Museum of Modern Art Library, where he manages collection development, including the library's artists' books collection. Senior lectures often on the history of artists' publications and contemporary art and design publishing. He also curates exhibitions of MoMA Library materials including: Ray Johnson Designs (2014), Please Come to the Show (2013),Millennium Magazines (2012), Access to Tools: Publications from the Whole Earth Catalog, 1968–74 (2011). Please Come to the Show, a book documenting his exhibition of artists' invitations and show flyers from the MoMA Library, was published by Occasional Papers in 2014. Senior organizes a regular program of events for Printed Matter's New York Art Book Fair and the LA Art Book Fair called the Classroom. He serves on the board of directors of Primary Information and Yale Union.

Tyler Stallings is the UCR ARTSblock interim executive director at University of California, Riverside. His curatorial projects focus on contemporary art, with a special emphasis on the exploration of identity, technology, photo-based work, and urban culture. His recent projects include Mundos Alternos: Art & Science Fiction in the Americas (co-curator, working title, Getty Foundation Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA) (2017) and Free Enterprise: The Art of Citizen Space Exploration (co-curator, 2013). His most recent book, Aridtopia: Essays on Art & Culture from Deserts in the Southwest United States (Blue West Books, 2014), is a literary mirage that fuses present day reality and a future imaginary that repositions our view of the world from that of the desert.

About the book contributors:

Dan Adler is an associate professor of modern and contemporary art at York University in Toronto. He is the author of Hanne Darboven: Cultural History 1880–1983 (Cambrige, MA: Afterall Books/MIT Press, 2009), and co-editor (with Mitchell Frank) of German Art History and Scientific Thought: Beyond Formalism (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Press, 2012).

Dannys Montes de Oca Moreda is a researcher, curator, and art critic based in Havana, Cuba. Montes de Oca Moreda has been a member of the curatorial team at Wilfredo Lam Center of Contemporary Art and member of the curatorial team of the Havana Biennial where she organises the theoretical forum.

Jennifer Allen is a writer and critic living in Berlin.

About the publishers:

Black Dog Publishing specialises in beautifully produced illustrated books that represent a fresh, eclectic take on contemporary culture. Starting from a base in art and architecture, it has grown to embrace subjects as varied as design, fashion, music and environmental concerns.

YYZ Artist's Outlet is a Toronto based not-for-profit gallery and performance centre and YYZ BOOKS is its small press imprint dedicated to critical art and writing. YYZ has been operating since 1979.