Derek Sullivan’s work responds to systems of distribution and how the meaning of objects change as they circulate in the world. His recent drawings look at the structure of books and their subjects, exploring the relationships between physical reproduction and the spread of information.
In this new publication of drawings, Sullivan reprints Evidence of the Avant Garde Since 1957, first published by Art Metropole in 1984, one of the first books (and exhibitions) to curate and catalogue distributed art practices – artworks that required wide circulation to fulfill their intent.
Based on Sullivan’s own copy of the original catalogue purchased from a library book sale, the original pages are interrupted by other kinds of distributed objects: prisms scatter rainbows, ragweed’s pollen gives the reader a runny nose, metro tickets spill out of pockets, invasive dandelions are dug out of a garden, recent art pamphlets pile up on the table. In reproducing these moments, Evidence of the Avant Garde Ex-Library examines the poetics of circulating artworks and the content that they pick up along the way.
Published by Art Metropole, Struts Gallery and the Owens Art Gallery.
This project is a part of Umbrella Projects, a partnership between the Owens Art Gallery and Struts Gallery designed to pool our resources, energies, and respective strengths in order to facilitate off-site, in-print, online, and onscreen programming during the COVID-19 pandemic.
