LIFE IS TO BLAME …
Jeremy Deller

Through the the foresight of Rebecca Gordon Nesbitt, SecMoCo were pleased to be approached to design the first monograph on the early work of Jeremy Dellar, who has since become a Turner Prize-winning, internationally acclaimed artist. An absorbing feature of the design was a diagramatic key of the images, with corresponding numerical listing, incorporated on the inner front and back cover pages. It was a small publication, designed to be a pocket-sized reference tool, easily carried about the person.

First published, in an edition of 1,000 copies, by Salon 3 London, UK, 1993. Edited by Rebecca Gordon Nesbitt. Texts by John O’Reilly and Dave Beech, with additional artist annotations of featured works.
170mm x 118mm; 96pp; 136 colour and 36 b&w images; 4-colour softback cover with flaps; printed by Jim Pennington, Lithosphere, UK.

Context from the Cornerhouse website:
‘In many cases, this book provides the only permanent record of Deller’s ephemeral output, documenting the stickers, flyers and posters that have been lost forever […] This pocket-sized book, containing over 130 colour images, is a delightful illumination into Deller’s work.

Context from Amazon:
‘This is a great collection of work from the turner prize winner Jeremy Deller. This charts all of his early work from when he held an exhibition in his mum and dad’s house to when he sold t-shirts emblazoned with slogans such as ‘my booze hell’. There are also some great quotes and his style and work make you feel like you know him personally. Equally captvating for artists and non-artists, this collection of work will inspire you to create your own interventions and will help you to see society in a more positive way.’

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Your new best mate
By “davegarratt2001” on 25 April 2005
Format: Paperback
Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 641,967 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

SMASH THIS PUNY EXISTENCE
Inventory, Book Works

SecMoCo were invited by the magnanimous Mattew Higgs, via the excellent publishers Book Works, to help design and produce Smash This Puny Existence with the artfully subversive collective known as Inventory. This resulted in the publication taking the form of broadsheet posters– large format, double-sided sheets housed within long cardboard tubes.

First published by Book Works 1999 in an edition of 1,500 copies; edited by Matthew Higgs as part of the series Publish And Be Damned; 6 x b&w double-sided sheets, 678 x 478 mm, rolled and housed in a cardboard tube

Context from the Book Works website:
Smash This Puny Existence emerged from street actions staged by Inventory in streets in London and Glasgow. Overnight, the collective fly-posted a series of newly-commissioned texts and images along with ‘found’ material, transforming two busy thoroughfares into public ‘newspapers’. The street became a discursive, polemical space, a place for the exchange of ideas and information. […] It is a significant contribution to Inventory’s ongoing determination of a ‘fierce sociology’.

Links:
www.bookworks.org.uk/node/1560
https://www.bookworks.org.uk/node/1131
https://www.bookworks.org.uk/node/1126

TRIPLE BLUFF CANYON
Mike Nelson

Commissioned by the elegantly exacting Suzanne Cotter, this book was published to accompany the exhibition by 2004 Turner Prize nominee Mike Nelson at Modern Art Oxford.

The front cover utilised an Arts Magazine cover from May 1978 depicting a seminal work by Robert Smithson that the artist had recreated in the gallery at MAO. As such, the title and cover information was transferred to the reverse, adopting the typographic style of the gallery ads of that period.

First published, in an edition of 1000 copies, by Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, UK, 01 January 1999; edited by Suzanne Cotter; texts: Jeremy Millar and Brian Aldiss; 210x170mm; 72pp; 58 images, including 8pp colour plate section, 50 b&w image in uncoated section; paperback with 4-colour cover thread sewn; printed by Art Quarters, UK.

Context, from Andrew Mead at the Architect’s Journal website:
‘Entering a Mike Nelson installation is like stumbling into a minicab office in the early hours of the morning in the wrong part of a town you don’t know – and then things get worse’

PERFORMANCE RESEARCH
Journal

From its inception SecMoCo devised the identity, design and layout of the journal Performance Research, for the Centre for Performance Research, Cardiff. Working closely with its editors Richard Gough, Claire MacDonald and Ric Allsopp, from 1995–1999.

For visual and textual information on each issue go to: http://www.performance-research.org/past-issue.php