Category Archives: 2007

3 COMMUNIQUES
Alun Rowlands

SecMoCo is proud to have worked on a number of projects with the independant publishing and commissioning organization Book Works, London, UK. They are dedicated to supporting new work by emerging artists and exploring the innovative possibilities of book production.

For this publication -ostensibly an artists monograph, but resulting in a wryly oblique presentation of  three progressive practices – SecMoCo had the pleasure of engaging with the thorough-going intellect of the artist Alun Rowlands. In conceptual dialogue with him we produced a type of binding appropriate for the formal needs of the project, resulting in an object that hopefully delivers on a conceptual, tactile, and aestheic level.

Published by Book Works in an edition of 1000 copies, London, UK, 2007; edited by Alun Rowlands; 230 x 165 mm; 80pp; thread sewn; 3 x fold-out pamphlets, 4-colour and b&w, 2 colour cover, saddle-stitched with concertina binding.

Context from the Book Works website:
‘3 Communiqués is a documentary fiction charting a journey through the marginal histories of communalism, self-presentation and collective agency. It forges a subjunctive archaeology that renegotiates utopian propositions as a way of both making art and as a tool for progressive thinking.’
‘Stanley Green, ‘The Protein Man’ is embroiled in an argument. He trawls the city streets campaigning for the suppression of desire through diet. His self-published pamphlet, Eight Passion Proteins with Care outlines the connections between nutrition, sedentary life and human sexuality. A second constellation recounts the history of a non-conformist group founded on action-analysis and bohemian schedules. Elsewhere, socialist-utopian Charles Fourier forms the basis of a discussion about the occupation of Sealand, his passional series and visionary designs of the Phalanx rouse the search for an islet of resistance’.

FAMILY HISTORY
Gillian Wearing

Through the investigative and informed eye of it’s director Stephen Bode, SecMoCo is privileged to have worked on many projects for Film and Video Umbrella, London, UK. FVU commission, curate and produces artists’ moving-image works and presents them in collaboration with galleries and other cultural partners.

Originally intended to be a record of the artist’s video installation ‘Family History’; through close and detailed work with the artist, this turned into a varied and visually rich document of the piece, the material surrounding its conception, and that leading up to its production.

Perhaps because of her Midland’s background, Gillian proved to be the most enjoyable and generous of artists to work with, to the point that she presented a painting used on the set for the video installation to SecMoCo as a gift. It’s a rather fine seascape and will be uploaded here at some point in the future.

Published by Film and Video Umbrella, London, and Maureen Paley, London, 2007 in association with at Ikon Birmingham, UK, and Artists in the City, Reading, UK. Edited, and with a text by, Steven Bode; additional texts: Paul Morley, Stuart Comer; 280 x 216 mm; 80pp thread sewn; 4-colour and black and white illustrations; 4-colour printed paper case cover (no dust jacket);

From the Ikon website: ‘This immaculately designed publication traces the development of this project in a visual style whose distinctive aesthetic draws out parallels between the 1970s and the present that are such a feature of the work itself. Continuing the biographical theme of the exhibition, the book brings together film stills and location photographs with other personal and archive material, and features essays by critic Paul Morley and project curator Steven Bode, and an interview between Gillian Wearing and Stuart Comer’.