Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Cecil Touchon On The End Of It All: Vision Of The Valley of Souls [27]


Cecil Touchon, The Fort Worth, Texas artist, performer and curator of The Flux Museum, reflects on how it will all go down in the end.

I think about death frequently. I have been contemplating the subject since the age of 14 when my younger brother Phillip, who was nine, died on a Friday, the 13th of June, 1969. He fell from a train trestle and broke his neck.

I grew up Catholic. I attended nine years of Catholic private school. I was an alter boy and the whole bit. I even considered becoming a priest except for the problem that I liked girls a lot and wasn’t planning to give up the opportunities of having sex, falling in love and all the other tragedies of life.

On the day after my brother died I went to the school fair. Back then the traveling carnival would come around at the end of the school year and set up all the rides and games and everyone – especially kids – had a great time. I had also just graduated from the 8th grade and finally out of elementary school and ready for high school. I was feeling pretty good about that except for the problem that my little brother had just died. I wanted to get away from the grief at home and have some fun but the word had already spread and I mostly had to deal with people consoling me where ever I went. This took the fun out of what should have been a great graduating weekend that I had been planning with my friends for several months. Instead, death came knocking and took the color out of everything.


When my brother died I felt as if we were on a stage and somehow he fell off of it never to be seen again. I guess I was sad about it, I remember being depressed, speculating that if a nine-year old kid can die just like that, with the snap of a finger, where was the pay off in working toward achieving anything in life? After all, no matter what, I figured, we were all going to die. And what happened to him anyway? I had always figured that the adults – and certainly the priest – knew the answers to all the heavy questions and that I really didn’t need to worry about it – I was a Catholic, I was covered or so they tell you. But when I started asking tough questions and tried to peer behind the curtain, I realized that neither my parents nor anyone else had much of a clue as to what came after this business of life. It was as much a mystery to them as it was to me. When I realized that, I became alarmed. Maybe I wasn’t so safe after all.


For Catholics, the afterlife is complicated. Getting passed the the Pearly Gates, statistically, seems unlikely, akin to the percentage of people that make straight As in high school. The more my mind wandered over my brother’s fate and his place in the afterlife, the more depressed I got.

Then one day some many months later, something amazing happened. If you talked to a psychologist he or she would say that I had some sort of psychotic episode – “a loss of contact with reality.” That seemed reasonable; I was a young Catholic struggling with death. Catholics have their own highly ornate version of reality that is much more fleshed out that anything that the field of psychology has yet to come up with. The field of psychology is so puny and underdeveloped, compared to Catholicism and its history, psychology is just a page in a book. Catholicism, on the other hand; an encyclopedia.

So...I was kneeling next to my bed scribbling away on a homework assignment. Kneeling, not because that is what a good Catholic ought to do, but because I didn’t have a chair in my room or, if I did, it was, no doubt covered with dirty clothes. All of the sudden, a brilliant white light filled my room. A flash, like a a bolt of lightning. Everything turned white; appearing in the room two beings made of light with long flowing gowns – angelic beings – appeared. I stood up, in between them; one was to my left, the other to my right, and we disappeared into some kind of a void, a nothingness.  Then all of the sudden we were in some new place; present, past or future, I couldn't tell.  But I knew I was to meet someone, and when I did, I spent time with this person, a man.  We talked; then the two angelic beings returned to retrieve me and carry me off to another place. Soon, I was in Middle Eastern-looking places; it seemed I would spend days or weeks or perhaps months with this or that person I was supposed to meet, a person who, I believed, would teach me things, tell me about life, or death. I can not recall any specifics but this went on for a very long time – going from one place to another. When I was finished in one place the beings would arrive and we would disappear in a flash of light only to reappear at the same moment in a new place where they would leave me.


This continued for perhaps a long time, I can't remember, but I do recall that I became so accustomed to this kind of life that it seemed natural. I forgot that I was a 14-year old boy in his messy teenage room doing his homework. At the end of these visits the two beings took me to a high mountain top and with a kind of mental telepathy told me to look down into the valley below, just as the being on the right passed his arm from left to right in a sweeping motion. I looked below and there before me was a vast expanse that stretched out as far as the eye could see and beyond filled with all of the people who had ever lived or ever would. Above me, perhaps 15 or 20 feet high, was a bright seething white cloud that stretched out in all directions across the sky. From every person in the valley up to the cloud above there extended an endless number of ladders – one for each person.

When I gazed upon the valley below I could see a great commotion of people going here and there. My mind seemed to soar down the side of the mountain toward the valley so that I could see it in detail. Each person was dressed in clothing that represented his or her sense of identity, of who they were, from kings to paupers. At the base of each person’s ladder were a pile of objects that represented the various things that kept that person in the valley. The things were some sort of attachment or desire or fear perhaps. What ever they were, these items could not be carried up the ladders with them and yet they could not leave these things behind. There were even thieves who went around stealing these items from others, and other thieves who were stealing from the thieves when they were out stealing from others.


It seemed that everyone’s root purpose was to climb the ladder up into the cloud above which I presumed represented God or the Divine consciousness. Everyone in the valley seemed to have forgotten about their ladders except for a place to keep their most prized objects except every now and then when, off in the distance a great rumbling got louder and louder causing everyone to become terrified, running to their ladders for safety. Then the rumbling reached its peak and passed over like a wave, leaving everyone to go back about their business. And soon people returned to acted as before until the next rumbling wave came through.

Then my attention fell upon those who were on their ladders and they were of several kinds. The first was a person who would climb a few steps up his ladder. He looked up to the great distance above, then down to the collection of items below and started shaking with fear until he returned to the ground to be with the objects of his desire. Next was a man who climbed up his ladder just far enough to get a good overview of the crowd and the valley. Then he returned to the ground, not out of concern for his objects, but rather to use his experience on the ladder as a way to teach others about what he saw from that vantage point. After this I saw a person who had freed himself from his attachments and set his sights on the cloud above but he became so enamored with his climbing that, as he sped up his climbing and, intoxicated watched himself doing it, that the ladder started going downward at the same speed that he was climbing up until he wore himself out. After this he noticed that he had gone nowhere and so he started over, slowly and soberly climbing. Then my view widened out and I noticed people of all kinds at all different stages of climbing their ladders and the higher they went, the more their clothing lost any sense of uniqueness and individuality suggesting that their ego was slowly fading away. Toward the top of the ladders I saw an old bearded man with nothing more than a loin cloth. He was moving up the ladder very rapidly with his eyes on the cloud above and a look of ecstasy and peace on his face. Then I noticed that there were a few ladders that were empty indicating that some had actually made it up into the cloud.

And when I saw all of this I knew that this was the nature of life and that there was really nothing to fear, there was only our attachments and our ladder that we must one day climb should we choose to. Then all of the sudden I was back in my room kneeling next to my bed with my hand moving between the dotting of an "i" and the crossing of a "t." I looked up in shock and then looked back over the long experience I had just had and the entire memory of this vision seemed like a screen of sand that all fell to the floor, and most of the details of the experience washed away except for what I have stated here.

From that moment the depression that had been hovering over me like a cloud completely dispersed and my feeling of joy returned in full force. That was the beginning of my spiritual journey and the end of my deep fear about death.  – Cecil Touchon, Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Kathleen McHugh : Open Letter [26]


Kathleen McHugh sent us a note about the exhibition and what it meant to her, and she agreed to share it here.  Her work in the exhibition can be seen here, on the site and to the left. It is called "Those Who Pay The Fee."

From: mchughart@gmail.com
Date:  September 29, 2009 4:53:37 PM EDT
To:  MATTHEW.ROSE.PARIS@gmail.com

Matthew:
Since I read the  post  saying that you had some negative reactions from a couple of participants about the project, I want to communicate my reflections about the project to you. First, I am sorry for the loss of your mother.  I think that on some level, we become orphans when our parents die, no matter what our age.

For many years, I have been torn about the idea of artistically expressing death as it has visited my life because I was afraid I would be using other people or exploiting some very raw topics as a way to promote myself through a caused-based marketing scheme. (I mean, that is the way it seems to me). When I saw the notice of your open call, I had gone from a point of emotional fatalistic nihilism, to thinking, "wait a minute, even the most primitive people intuited 'movement' after physical death" ... why is there so much mythology about 'crossing the river'? That thought came to fruition in a series of paintings around the theme of "movement after physical death, but why and where, and how the movement happens who only knows....???"  I also have to confess that I am writing this email as a practicing Orthodox Christian coming out of a tradition of liturgies, poetic chants and icons articulating and conquering death from every angle.- Which is NOT, in itself, a cheap fix for feelings of emptiness and anguish, I believe.

Sometimes I chastise myself because I think my attitude about death "should be different," and that any scrap of faith I might have is simply an intellectual posture. For me, your project has created a cyberspace place I can go to feel in the company of others in an humbling  way that feels real. I am grateful for that, and believe that is one of the reasons your project is widely received and is growing. Someday, I want to be able to share it with the other people in my life who are not ready to look at it yet.

Since you're from the U.S. and have a common knowledge base about one topic of death I have not expressed artistically, I would like to disclose it now in this email. I have not used it as creative material due to fear of appearing to sensationalize the suffering of someone else, shirt tailing major issues as a way to draw attention to personal art making, or being used by unforeseen political voices with whom I don't agree.


This has happened before. ie.,"Please don't take up MY issue as evidence to support YOUR cause!" But, most of all, because my deceased husband, who was a very private person, would be furious. He spent much of his energy trying to keep that part of his life hidden. After he thought that he got his mind together regarding his experience in Vietnam, we got married. We had three children. As soon as his life seemed stable, he started mentally deteriorating and we found ourselves total hostages to the effects of what is now called PTSD. He developed elaborate coping mechanisms to keep anything related to Vietnam out of his conscious thoughts.

I know all this in retrospect. At the time, it seemed as if life was just relentlessly stressful and crazy with no way to change anything and no  hope in sight. Then, (while the children were pre-teens and teens) in 2002, he got a "you have less than six months to live" cancer diagnosis. That threw us all into shock.

I took care of him at home (not having any nursing skills... just dealing with it and learning as I went). I had to quit teaching art, which (as you know) doesn't pay that much anyway. We lived on his disability income. Then, (finally one of the points I wanted to make in this email), as his physical strength waned, all the memories he kept at bay through his elaborate defense mechanisms came to the forefront. While he was physically dying, he was going in and out of war experiences in his mind which made him suffer both mentally and physically. We ended up getting extremely good help from medical doctors and VA psychologists who reduced his agitation through medication and some intervention. However, he died at home without ever having a meaningful conversation with anyone about anything that most affected him. He took it to his grave.

I found myself a widow with three children. His death was determined to be directly connected to service in Vietnam at a time the US was gearing up for Iraq. I felt numb and depressed.   I went into survival mode and managed to get our three children to adulthood. Now the youngest one wants to go over the year of his death in detail to try to get it straight in her own mind, so I am currently remembering the year he died in great detail.

Last year, (2008) I married an extremely thoughtful supportive man and am transitioning into building a new life. However, it can't be one that erases the past. That would be insane. Somehow everything needs to be knit together. This email isn't even expressing what I am trying to say. It's something about how your project has created a sense of sanity and reality for me since the topic of death isn't something people want to listen to on a micro-level.  When I saw the stream of the opening, I thought that your project is responding to a need in people. There must be a lot of people who need a place for death in their lives and your way of providing it seems 'real' to them. It is for me.

Thank you,
Kathleen

River Mill Art Gallery Installation [25]


Michael Chan, artist and director of River Mill Art Gallery in Westfield, NJ, installed the works from A Book About Death in his gallery.  "I tried to juxtapose the cards with artworks somehow related to death or sense of loss," he said.  "A former hospice nurse came in and was very intrigued by the subject matter."

Installations of the exhibition are as varied as the spaces they end up in, and solutions for display, as in River Mill Gallery's mounting of the show, end up mixing the cards with works already on display.  Image right: Cards are randomly stacked, and visitors can thumb through them and examine them closely.

Image, left, shows the cover of the program Michael collected during the opening at the EHF in NYC. Michael notes the placement of the cards is important: "Tibor Swimming In The Ocean," a tribute to Tibor Kalman by Maira Kalman featured in The NY Times Magazine, is just above the program for ABAD.  Tibor was creative director for Interview Magazine and he had given me quite a bit of work before he passed away due to illness in 1999."

Image, right, below: Two of the posters from the exhibition Michael printed out on his gallery printer. Michael notes: "Julia Hoffman's poster is placed alongside Steve Gianako's "Missing Children" series silkscreen prints." The eight original posters, plus the posters by Mark Bloch and Joan Harrison are high resolution PDFs and free to download and print at will. They are all posted here, with links, and on the main web site, here.  Click the images to enlarge.  Visit The River Mill Art Gallery website here.

Geoffrey Giffuni & Geoffrey Hendricks [24]


Geoffrey Giffuni & Geoffrey Hendricks at the opening of A Book About Death. The Fluxus artist came early and stayed late.  See his piece for the exhibition, LIFE/DEATH, a hand-made toe-tag, signed and numbered, here. Geoffrey Giffuni is a friend and supporter of the exhibition. He and his wife Heidi spent 35 minutes on their hands and knees collecting a complete set of the exhibition works. "It was like gardening," he said when all the cards were finally packed away in his Dean & Delucca shopping bag.  Geoffrey Giffuni was also responsible for handing out programs to all the people waiting on line up Broadway waiting to get in to the exhibition. So thank him for that.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Portraits From ABAD [23]



Mobius : ABAD Exhibition Boston [22]


Mobius Artists Group exhibited A Book About Death at the South  End Open Studios, 725 Harrison Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, on September 19 - 20, 2009.  The exhibition set up by artist Jane Wang (#414) - Mobius Artists Group, which she collected at A Book About Death's Opening Night at the Emily Harvey Foundation Gallery in New York City.

From Jane Wang: About the ABAD exhibit at Mobius ( http://www.mobius.org/mobius_events.php?enum=941 )

The current location of Mobius the gallery/performance space is officially and ostensibly part of the South End "Art" district in Boston, MA, USA.   We are located on the outer fringes of this area right across from a hospital which means we do not get much foot traffic and additionally, since we aren't really "selling" objets d'art, during the South End-wide Open Studios, we had several "visitors" who actually just wanted to get into the adjoining "Art Block"  building which only had one artist "representin" and who for some strange reason, didn't bother to put a sign up on their locked front door saying which bell to ring to get in to see his work.  This can be somewhat depressing for our little troupe of experimental artists but fortunately, a few visitors (I had a feeling these might be "real" visitors when I saw the punked out Kool-Aid hair and Goth-like black) actually enthusiastically leaped on the ABAD books which I had so carefully put together and I'm happy to say, they must have looked at every single card and read everything on the cards, even taking copious notes.

When I put together my sixteen books for the ABAD exhibit, I wanted to make sure that both sides of any cards that even just had a little stamp or handwritten text on one of the sides would be visible to the visitors - on the other hand, I wanted to protect each of the cards from too much handling or sticky fingers as the case may be.  It came down to cost and what I felt would look interesting and perhaps even vaguely library/museum-like.  I bought several small Itoya Art Profolio Books (Made in China - oh well what can you do?) and one Recycled Brown Binder, one generic white small binder and one Itoya portfolio large enough to fit the largest card by Jacob Mann as well as several packs of Avery protective sheets.

It was fun to try to come up with some underlying link for each of the books - some were restricted because of size, and I didn't really want to categorize cards by artistic field (partially because I'm somewhat ignorant about this although I probably miscategorized several into two Fluxus-centric books).  I went for my own personal taste in colors and progressions from card to card as one flipped through a book.  Some cards ended up being uncategorizable, so I left them together in a group which in turn perhaps put them ironically in a little grouping together.  And of course, since my own card was part of the collection, I have just enough egomania that I put a lot of thought into which book I wanted my card to be in and which cards would go before and after my card.

The books I came up with which I ended up titling were (several were left untitled although grouped in my mind mentally):
- The Red Book About Death
- The Blue Book About Death
- The Black and White Book About Death
- The Bodily Function and Nude Book About Death
- The Sepia + Black Book About Death
- The Surreal Book About Death
- The Collage and Text Book About Death
- The Fluxus 4x6 Book About Death
- The Fluxus 6x4 and Confused Book About Death *

* this is where my card is between James Thomas Joseph and Ania Gilmore

About Mobius
Mobius (est. 1977) is a non-profit, artist-run organization, whose mission is to generate, shape and test experimental art. The members of the organization believe an effective strategy for supporting this art is to establish grounds that build relationships among fellow artists.  Mobius is committed to structuring environments that foster projects incorporating a wide range of disciplines.  This approach sets in motion situations where the artist's impact can be seen locally, nationally and internationally.  Constructing art initiatives outside accepted frameworks and encouraging animated discourse with the public are fundamental to Mobius.

Founded by Marilyn Arsem in 1977, Mobius is known for incorporating a wide range of the visual, performing, and media arts into innovative live performance, video, installation and intermedia works. Mobius has produced hundreds of original works that have attained critical acclaim in Boston, nationally and internationally. Works created at Mobius have been presented throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia.

Mobius is funded by the Boston Cultural Council, a municipal agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency; the Oedipus Foundation; by an award for artistic excellence from the Tanne Foundation, and generous private support.

Jane Wang Websites:
http://www.myspace.com/janewangcomposer
http://www.facebook.com/janehsiaochingwang
http://www.mobius.org/mobius_artists.php?id=jane

Sunday, September 27, 2009

A Note On : A Book About Death [21]


A week and some after the closing of A Book About Death, I'm reflective: The whole phenomenon of the show – or what should be described as an event – very closely simulated the experience of death and the dispersal of the estate.

I don't know how many of you have been through a death where family members fight over who got what when a loved one died but, the aftermath of a death – especially a familial patriarch or matriarch, causes a lot of interesting reactions in people. I saw them played out in how people are dealing with this show. It can get really emotional. I know Matthew has had at least a few responses that were very negative from participants related to the 'estate' of the cumulative corpse that was ABAD.

[By the way, ABAD is a name meaning Father in Aramaic and Arabic. So our exquisite corpse nicknamed ABAD might be thought of as a gathering together and dispersal of a Patriarch. I actually have an old Sufi friend by the name of Abad. Here are some definitions found on line...


The boy's name Abad \a-bad\ is a variant of Abbott (Old English), and the meaning of Abad is "father, priest." Or : ABAD - Arabic: Father


First name variations: Abbe, Abbot, Abba, Abbe, Abboid, Abbott. Last name origins & meanings:


1. Spanish: nickname from abad ‘priest’ (from Late Latin abbas ‘priest’, genitive abbatis, from the Aramaic word meaning ‘father’). The application is uncertain: it could be a nickname, an occupational name for the servant of a priest, or denote an (illegitimate) son of a priest. 2. Muslim: from a personal name based on Arabic ‛Abbād ‘devoted worshiper’ or ‘servant’. The banu (tribe) ‛Abbād claims descent from the ancient Lakhmid kings of al-̣Hirah. The founder of the ‛Abbadids of Seville was Muhammad bin ‛Abbād (1023"42), whose son ‛Abbād succeeded his father as chamberlain to the pretended khalif, but was soon ruling in his own right under the honorific title al-Muta‛̣did ‘petitioner for justice (from Allah)’].

The corpse, as it lay there on the gallery floor with several hundred people stooping down to gather the cards, was very much like carrion picking away at a dead body. More than one visitor commented on that to me. One lady was deeply disturbed by it. I explained that this was the whole point of the event. A gathering together from the ends of the earth of a single body into a single place and then to celebrate it as a commemoration and then let it be consumed like a Catholic communion or like the breaking of the fast at Passover. An art feast extraordinaire – a powerful art ritual.

But people clearly 'got it.' What did they get?  The whole spirit of the exhibition from the collaboration to the content to the co-ownership of the show.  For example: The number of people waiting in line outside, many of whom had to be turned away, was also extraordinary in may ways. But folks were very cool. I have been to very few openings in New York City but just imagine: There is a small, unassuming, almost invisible door that says nothing more on it than "537." On one side, a big Lucky Jeans Store, on the other side, a big Guess Jeans store (combined: Lucky Guess) The Lucky Store is having a big event trying to get people to go in the store for free drinks and food, the Guess Jeans manager is standing on the steps trying to keep the line for ABAD from blocking entrance to his store.

And the line of people waiting to get into the almost invisible art show stretches all the way to Prince Street or, in other words, about a block long - and those are LONG blocks on Broadway. Both Matthew and I went out and spent time talking to people in the crowd but eventually many had to be turned away as the time for the performances approached. I am sure there were many disappointed people although they could all come back another day for the cards.


Matthew then got everyone that were upstairs gathering cards to push all the boxes to the sides of the room and stack them so that as many people as possible could be let in for the performances which opened with my Requiem for Rubberbands and chanted by the great artist Melissa McCarthy who is actually a professional cantor. The atmosphere was electric. Everyone mulling around, talking, laughing, and diving into the card boxes. Matthew, I think, handled the event very well as the master of ceremonies. It was just cool. And then to realize later that the webcast actually worked... that was great and I heard from at least one friend – the artist participant Gary Bibb in Colorado – who experienced the entire opening and performances via the web, said that it was really exciting to be a part of it from a distance and to see people from all over the world chatting in real time and commenting on the event as it happened from as far away as Japan, Australia and all over Europe.  [Thank you Jeanne Jo for making the live webcast happen].

Sure, there could have been a number of improvements, $50,000 would have gone a long way to make it a world class event media wise but hey, for Matthew and everyone else working out of their own pockets to pull it all together around one guy's crazy idea - damn impressive! And with the wonderful participation of The Emily Harvey Foundation, Christian Xatrec (director of the EH Foundation in NYC), Deven Marinner, Phil Shinn and many others who simply walked into the space and were suddenly employed cutting apart boxes or arranging the works in a grid Matthew set up, it all came together. And all the more so that it was done on a shoestring by remote coordination and then everyone swooping in from all over the place to meet each other for the first time and pull off two evenings of fresh performances. We should all be very proud. I would say it was a landmark event.

The trick from this point forward will be to keep it alive through further exhibitions of ABAD with documentary photos, artifacts and so forth. So, let's see what some of the participants and artists come up with.  Several exhibitions are already in the works around the world.  Write your comments here...

– Cecil Touchon, Fort Worth, Texas
fluxmuseum.org
ceciltouchon.com
collagemuseum.com

Mark Bloch Poster [20]



Mark Bloch's poster for A Book About Death.  Download the free, high-resolution PDF here.  Print it out at home, office, school, museum.


Visit Mark Bloch's website by clicking here.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Joan Harrison Poster [19]



Joan Harrison's poster featuring Ray Johnson for A Book About Death.  Download Joan Harrison's poster by clicking here.

Visit Joan Harrison's web site.

David Rager Poster [18]



David Rager's poster for A Book About Death is available as a free high resolution download in PDF.  Click here now to download.

Visit David Rager on the web, click here.

Robert Mars Poster [17]



Robert Mars poster, free high resolution PDF for printing at home, office, school.  Click here now to download.

Visit Robert Mars' website.

Cecil Touchon Poster [16]


Cecil Touchon's poster, in high resolution PDF, free for download.  Click here now.

Visit Cecil Touchon on the net.

Osiris Hertz Poster [15]



Osiris Hertz's poster, free download of high resolution PDF. Click here to download. Print at home, office, school.  Visit Osiris Hertz's website.

Matthew Rose Posters [14]




 
Download Matthew Rose's Posters for the project.  The free, high resolution PDF can be printed out at home, office, school, as you like. Exhibit them, offer them to others, see the other posters on the main site:  A Book About Death.

Click here for the 12:05 Poster.
Click here for the Organ/Ocean Poster

Caterina Verde Poster [13]



Caterina Verde's poster for the project.  Download the free high resolution PDF here. Print at home, office, as you like.

Visit Caterina Verde's site here.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Andrei Rozen [11]










Andrei Rozen, Moscow-born, New York-based photographer, helped enormously with the installation of A Book About Death, cutting apart some 300 boxes in a flurry of activity only two days before the opening. Andrei sports a t-shirt fitting to the close of the project at The Emily Harvey Foundation Gallery. He is well known for his photographs of New York City, the Novogrod project and his film, Bums' ParadiseVisit his site here.

A Book About Death : Remake - 2050 [10]

















 A Book About Death : Remake - 2050.  Project headed by Margot Herster:

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Installation [5]



After the opening, September 11, 2009.

Pollack & Krasner : Springs, NY [4]


Jackson Pollack & Lee Krasner : Springs, New York. Another kind of installation.

Charlotte [3]





















Charlotte opened the performances for the exhibition with greetings in English, French and Chinese. (Photo by Cecil Touchon)

Installation [2]



















Installation, A Book About Death, posters (left to right) : Cecil Touchon, Matthew Rose, Osiris Hertz, Julia Hoffmann, Robert Mars, Caterina Verde, David Rager, Matthew Rose. High-resolution posters can be downloaded free (PDF) from A Book About Death.

Installation [1]


Matthew Rose & Dorothée Selz.  Photo: Courtesy The Emily Harvey Foundation, NYC, NY. (September 15, 2009).