The Green Lantern Press

Service Media : Is it “Public Art” or Art in Public Space?

admin — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 17:37:03 +0000

Over the course of the 20th century artists have sought to engage aesthetic and social potential latent in traditionally non-artistic sites. Such endeavors seek to activate both artistic and non-artistic communities while privileging the often ephemeral and social interactions that arise, rather than a singular art object or exhibition gallery practice. Service Media contains a collection of 16 essays, artist projects, an interview, and a syllabus around and about socially engaged art practice. Each contribution independently defines, critiques and celebrates art’s action beyond and outside the white cube, “creating community within a community.” Edited by Toronto-based artist practitioner, Stuart Keeler, Service Media features the work of Carol Becker, Juliana Driever, Allison Peters Quinn, Bad at Sports’ interview with Ted Purves, Michelle Grabner, Joyce Fernandes, Shannon Stratton, Jen Delos Reyes, Romi Crawford, Stephanie Smith, Paul Durica, Susan Schuppli, Shawn Micallef, inCUBATE and Oda Projesi.

Palm Trees

admin — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 15:08:12 +0000

“Like us, palm trees are imports, and seem to come from everywhere but here,” writes a reporter for the Los Angeles Times in an article lamenting the dying days of the once-ubiquitous palm trees of L.A. Named for those iconic imported exotics that flank the boulevards of America’s strangest city, Palm Trees is a collection of poems characterized by a revved-up, ruminative musicality, and it issues its swan song in a voice that channels the restless globalism of America in the new century. The poems shuttle from airport to boardroom, boardroom to living room, making the kind of foreboding observations that might issue from a drug-addled and paranoid Delphic Oracle.Within the larger edition of 500, 125 copies of Palm Trees come with silk screen dust jackets. Dust jacket copies are available for $20 (follow the link below), or you can pick up a regular copy for $15 by going here.

The White House

admin — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 15:10:14 +0000

Joel Craig’s poems first reach out with quiet Midwestern sincerity–precise craft mixed with personal invention–but quickly thicken: “Let me try to lay out what I think I understand” leads to “Las Vegas / and the end of Western history.” Ethical without being political, popular without being pop, personal without being sentimental, Craig sings of how we are “stuck near a river / [we] can feel the evidence of / but can’t imagine.” Filled with elegies to aging rock ‘n’ rollers, explorations of skipping romance, and studied frustration with the world as it appears (and a sincere belief that quiet hands, by themselves, can change it), Craig’s book doesn’t so much demand as much as call out to the reader, in sequence like an all-night deejay party, with time to dance, time to rest, time to go to the bar and get a refill, or outside for a quick cigarette, hitting on someone on the way back in, hoping to strut, step and swing with them. Within the larger edition of 500, 125 copies of The White House come with silk screen dust jackets. Dust jacket copies are available for $20 (follow the link below), or you can pick up a regular copy for $15 by going here.

“Odd to find a book of poems whose range of subject matter and modality is this
palatial. Odder still to find no muddy effect or signs of cannibalism among the
poems. Perhaps most odd is the central realization conceived, tested, and by lyric
authority summoned in this gorgeous book—treating one another decently not only
strengthens the intuitive forces and enlarges one’s capacity to make and hear music,
it also just makes for a hipper scene. In so far as that’s true for civilization is another
subject Joel Craig is happy to float, spin, beseech, and entertain at this late hour.”

—Peter Richards (author of Helsinki)

Hip Hop Apsara: Ghosts Past and Present

admin — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 15:07:52 +0000

The city of Phnom Penh, Cambodia hosts public dance lessons most nights on a newly revitalized riverfront directly in front of prime minister Hun Sen’s urban home. Shortly before dusk, much of the city gathers to bust a few Apsara moves and learn a couple choreographed hip-hop steps from a slew of attractive young men at the head of each group. Outside the bustling capital city, the provinces come alive, too, as the nation’s only all-girl political rock group sets up concerts that call into question the international garment trade, traditional gender roles, and agriculture under globalization. Cambodia is changing: not what it once was, not yet what it will be.

Following on the heels of Cambodian Grrrl: Self-Publishing in Phnom Penh, Anne Elizabeth Moore compiled photographs that document Cambodia’s bustling nightlife, the nation’s emerging middle class, and the ongoing struggle for social justice in the beautiful, war-ravaged land.

A series of essays complement the imagery, investigating the relationship between public and private space, mourning and memory, tradition and economic development. It is a document of a nation caught between states of being, yet still deeply affecting.

Sunday Rumpus published an handful of photographs from the book along with a supplementary essay by Moore.

Hip Hop Apsara: Ghosts Past and Present (book trailer) from Anne Elizabeth Moore on Vimeo.

The Brightest Thing In The World: 3 Essays From The Institute of Failure

admin — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:24:37 +0000

THE BRIGHTEST THING IN THE WORLD: 3 ESSAYS FROM THE INSTITUTE OF FAILURE is a collection of essays that touch on seating strategies, Dick Cheney, cuckoo clocks, the Fibonacci series, butterflies and old friends. These threads weave together like a tapestry and by their accumulated resonance create an impression of loss and longing. As in Sebald’s Rings of Saturn, the reader passes through an associative experience. These are the essays of a poet; like a performance of words, each verb is as active as a muscle. While every sentence tends to its end, the reader resists its inevitable conclusion. This book was published in an edition of 500, with book design and silkscreened covers by Sonnenzimmer. It is available for $20, through our in-house bookstore, The Paper Cave, and (eventually) will be distributed by our friends at SPD. 70 pages, perfect bound, 978-1-4507-4217-7

Praise for The Brightest Thing In The World:

“… A few possible answers gleaned from this book include: how to mourn a blur, analyze “an accident shaped like an umbrella”, or create a lecture that thinks like a poem. This book sets itself up to fail, calling itself ‘The Brightest Thing in the World.’ And then suddenly it is.” Jen Bervin, author of The Desert.
“In these three of Matthew Goulish’s lectures on failure, language, thought, and feeling add up with stunningly multiplicative affect, where scope — conceptual, historical, political, intimate — expands and contracts across discontinuous trajectories of domains and sourc- es. They are lectures resonant without intra-subjective expertise, on failure, of failure, of only the most”active, transparent and absorbing, synapse-firing, generous kinds.” Jesse Seldess, author of Who Opens.
“Goulish has in the most humble of ways shown here how negative capability is no longer only the ability to linger in mystery and doubt, but is the active pursuit after those honest ways in which writing must fail in order to succeed.” Dan Beachy-Quick, author of A Whaler’s Dictionary.

On Marvellous Things Heard

admin — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 13:52:42 +0000

Derived in form from Aristotle’s “Minor Work” of the same title, this variation of ON MARVELLOUS THINGS HEARD explores a range of literary appropriations of music, in terms of translation and metamorphosis. Part investigation, part inventory, and partinvention (in the musical sense: a composition in simple counterpoint), this poetically-driven essay assays the narrating subject as she assays the subjects of literature, of music, and of silence.

Kordian

admin — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:53:59 +0000

Kordian is a Polish classic written in 1833 by Juliusz Słowacki and features an amalgam of revolutionary spirit, tradition, modernist bravado and suffering–topics navigated by a young Romantic protagonist after whom the play is named. Within the canon of Polish literature Kordian offers pivotal insight into the development of Poland’s Romantic movement (her literary golden age), and Polish literature as a whole. The Green Lantern Press is pleased to publish the play’s first English translation by Gerard T. Kapolka. Illustrations by Lilli Carré and silk screen covers by Aay Preston-Myint. This book was published in an edition of 500.

Writing Art Cinema 1988-2010

admin — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 13:02:51 +0000

Stephen Lapthisophon brings his skills as an installation artist to the page with six essays written over the last 20 years. For fans of both continental philosophy and modern poetry and prose, Lapthisophon shows how writing about writing, art, and cinema can dissolve into its subject, becoming all of those things or none of them. With an introduction by Devin King. Printed in an edition of 250 by The Green Lantern Press. 2011

The Mutation of Fortune

admin — Sat, 21 May 2011 14:50:49 +0000

THE MUTATION OF FORTUNE documents the parallel fortunes of one protagonist living multiple lives. As she navigates her Märchen landscape, she goes through varied transformations, becoming at times a wolf, a thief, an amputee, a hunter, a rabbit and a runaway. She sleeps with swans and suffers a sister that bites the back of her knees. The world of this book is unstable, delicious and carries with it an inexplicit sense of danger. Printed in an edition of 500 with silk screen covers by Aay Preston-Myint, this book hosts a series of color plate collages made by the author.

Visions for Chicago

admin — Sat, 21 May 2011 14:39:43 +0000

Visions for Chicago is a politically charged public art project taking place in front yards, empty lots and public spaces throughout Chicago, Illinois during a historic mayoral and city council election season. The question of “What is your vision for Chicago?” is important at this time because the mayor and the city council he controlled for over 20 years are retiring and the political culture of corruption, defeat and disengagement they have encouraged has an opening and opportunity to be changed. But change doesn’t happen in the small and busy window of time afforded by elections, it happens over long periods of time through the implementation of strategic vision by people acting collectively and individual-level internal transformation of how we think, behave and consider ourselves in relationship to other people and our surroundings.

This project has been organized by Daniel Tucker. Featuring photography by Lauren Cumbia and Hillary Strack. With an introduction by Micah Maidenberg and an interview by Abigail Satinsky. Produced with support from Lantern Projects and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Published by Green Lantern Press, 2011. Visions for Chicago contributors: Aaron Hughes, Abigail Satinsky, Adam Kader, Alex Han, Alexa Roberts, Alice Kim, Amanda Klonsky, Amy Ellison, Amy Mall, Ana Katsenios, Athena Thasiah, Augie Montes, B. Loewe, Ben Helphand , Bill Ayers, Brad Thomson, Carlos Fernandez, Carolyn Thomas, Carrie Spitler, Charlie Vinz, Chasity White, Courtney Moran, Coya Paz, Dalin and Lightie, Damon Locks, Dana Carter, Dara Epison, Darlene Gramigna, Dave Pabellon, Dave Stovall, Dawn Herrera Helphand, Dayna Kriz, DeBrina Moore, Devin Mcintosh, Eden Thasiah, Elise Zelechowski, Elizabeth Thasiah, Ellen Rothenberg, Elly Fishman, Elvia Rodriguez-Ochoa, Eric Rogers, Eva Preus, Fausto Lopez, Fereshteh Toosi, Frank Edwards, Gabby Higgins, Graham Stephenson, Grant Buhr, Harishi Patel, Hazel Bee Womac, Hector Gonzalez, Hillary Strack, Ida Rocket Xoomsai, Jackie Ingram, Jaiya Ovid, Jeanne Walker, Jen Blair, Jerome Grand, John Preus, Kai Preus, Karen Furlong, Kathleen Duffy, Keshawnda Eggleston, Khila Clay, Kristina Pilman, Kyla Lyles, Lauren Cumbia, Lillie Mccartin, Liz Goss, Louisa Womac, Manchershaw Engineer, Marcus Thomas, Mariame Kaba, Mark Shipley, Marquesha Mance, Martin Macias Jr., Marvin Scott, Maximiliano Benitez, Melissa Dean, Micah Maidenberg, Michelle Lugalia Hollon, Miguel Colon, Mike Phillips, Nat Zorach, Neil Brideau, Nicole Mauser, Nina Xoomsai, Peter Zelchenko, Rachel Caidor Rebecca Zorach, Roxy Trudeau, Ryan Lugalia Hollon, Salem Collo-Julin, Samuel Barnett, Sara Brodzinsky, Sarah Jane Rhee Solveig Preus, Talib Becktemba-Goss, Theaster Gates, Tiana Jones, Tyra Williams, Tzitlalli Cienfuegos, Victor Thasiah, and Vinay Ravi.

You can see the entire contents of this book online by going here.