D.L. Short List #27: Occupations – Art, Squatting, and Contested Spaces, 1969 – 1994
In honor of Independence Day, we’ve put together a catalog of 20 items relating to the theme of occupation, drawing from very different milieus. The list inaugurates a new category on our website entitled Occupations, which will feature new arrivals on a weekly basis. If you’d like to sign up for new arrivals emails in this or any other of our categories, please get in touch.
The proceeds from sales of material from this catalog will be donated to The Circulating Library, to help cover printing costs for their public projects.
Division Leap is excited to be exhibiting as part of the inaugural San Francisco Art Book Fair, July 22 – 24 at 1275 Minnesota Street, along with more than 70 booksellers, artists and publishers from around the world. We’ll be exhibiting new arrivals from antiquarian material, as well as new publications and material from the Circulating Library. Please visit us in Booth C6.
Click through for full catalog entries and additional images on our website.
Proposal to Designate the Second Floor at 125 Delancey Street as a Cultural Center
The Committee for the Real Estate Show
New York: The Real Estate Show, 1980. Oblong 4to, 17 sheets photocopied in b/w on rectos only, and stapled once at the upper right hand corner. Illustrated with full page b/w reproductions of photographs of the exhibition.
Artists' book documenting the Real Estate Show and the struggles with the city and HPD issued as a proposal to the New York City Planning Commission to designate 125 Delancey Street as a Cultural Center, supporting arguments, and reproductions of photographs of the space and exhibition by Alan Moore, Annette Messner, Peter Moennig, Barbara Brooks, Christof Kohlhofer, and Joseph Nechvatal (his photograph being documentation of the careless way in which the works of art seized by the city were stored in a warehouse.)
The final leaf is a sheet issued by Fashion Moda which reproduces an article in the New York Times on established art institutions in places of commerce, here slyly appropriated for the current campaign. A key document from the downtown arts scene at the dawn of the 1980's.
Paper lightly toned, with a couple of small spots of soiling; near fine.
Bilingual Poster for the Real Estate Show
[The Committee for the Real Estate Show]
New York: The Committee for the Real Estate Show, 1980. 11 x 17", printed on recto in two colors, with English text, and on the verso in b/w with Spanish translation. Original poster for the Real Estate Show, which took place at the dawn of the 1980's, and eventually led to the creation of ABC No Rio. The poster recapitulates the early chronology of the show and struggles with the HPD until the January 11th seizure of artwork.
Locked Up Ideas
The Committee for the Real Estate Show
New York: The Committee for the Real Estate Show, 1980. 4to, three sheets printed on rectos only from a hand-corrected typescript. Illustrated with a drawing by Rebecca Howland and a photo of 123 Delancey.
A manifesto for the reopening of the Real Estate Show and announcement of an upcoming press release on January 8, 1980. The release is illustrated with a drawing of an octopus clutching buildings and cash, perhaps an illustration of the HPD. Of special note is an announcement that the Real Estate show would exhibit documents related to related environmental and legal problems in the city, including arson, the failure of the Red Hook waste treatment plant, and a proposal for a circumvention of Con Edision by forming an electricity coop. The final page reproduces a flyer entitled “An Urban Development Insurrection” and which explains the reasons of the Real Estate show and dedicates it to Elizabeth Mangum, the African American woman who was killed in Flatbush during an eviction the previous year.
A hasty but cogent presentation of the aims of the show at the very dawn of the decade.
Heavily toned at recto of first leaf and verso of last, where there is also some evidence of dampstaining.
New York: ABC No Rio, [1983]. 11 x 17", offsep printed. Illustrated with a drawing by Rebecca Howland. Addressed and postmarked [September 12, 1983] to Martha Wilson.
A poster advertising ABC No Rio’s installation Fountain Cafe, the sculpture garden installed in the back of the building. The poster was designed by Rebecca Howland, and is signed in plate by her. The installation featured Howland's legendary large scale fountain sculpture entitled “Brainwash”, a powerful critique of capitalist society which continued the critique of power structures via sculptural fountains such as her Oil Rig Fountain, which had been installed in the men’s room as part of the Times Square Show. The poster also advertises a Cafe Salon by Peter Francis (aka Peter Cramer) and Jack Waters, and solicits performers.
New York: The Shadow, c. 1990 – 94. First edition. Each issue offset printed on newsprint and saddle-stapled into color wraps.
All issues published of this periodical issued by the longrunning East Village periodical The Shadow. The first issue prints a history of squatting on the Lower East Side as preface. With work by Siobhan, Seth Tobocman, Eric Drooker, Lawrence van Abbema, Cosmo, Will Sales, Mac McGill et al.
In Hollan Staat Un Huis. Het Witte Huizen Plan
Provo
Amsterdam: Provo. 8 1/2 x 13 1/2", mimeographed on recto only.
A leaflet announcing the Provo movement’s White House Plan, which addressed the low inventory for family housing in Amsterdam due to rampant real estate speculation by advocating squatting.
Old fold lines, with some creasing, short nicks and toning to extremities. Very good.
Invitation to a Celebration of Indian Liberation at Alcatraz
Indians of All Tribes
Indianland, Alcatraz: Indians of All Tribes, inc. 1970. First edition. Single sheet folded once to 5 1/2 x 8 1/2", offset printed in two colors. Illustrated with a reproduction of a drawing which is signed in plate “Dana.” With union printing slug.
An exhibition announcement and invitation for one person and a guest to the celebration, held Sunday, May 31 on the island of Alcatraz, noting that the invitation provides the invitee “with an Indian mid-day meal and passage from pier 40, san francisco to Alcatraz Island and back. RSVP.” The date would have been in the last days of the occupation, shortly before the fire which destroyed several buildings on the island, and less than two weeks before the forcible eviction of the remaining occupiers by Government forces on June 11.
Toned at margins, with some fraying along the fold line, and some light pinpoint indenting tp paper, else good to very good.
Stop the Terror at Pine Ridge. Support the Indian Resistance
American Indian Movement
np: nd [c. 1975]. 8 1/2 x 11", offset printed.
A poster created two years after the occupation of Wounded Knee, and protesting ongoing conditions at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and announcing a boycott of South Dakota entitled “See South Dakota Last.”
Very good with some light toning to margins, and a small 1/2" stain to verso at upper margin.
Berkeley: [1969]. 8 1/2 x 14", offset printed in two colors. Union slug (for Berkeley Graphic Arts) to lower margin.
One of the most iconic posters issued during the first wave of the People’s Park events, which prints a text by Bardacke, with specific reference to Native American land rights and specifically the Costanoan tribe. The manifesto also appeared in a contemporary issue of the Berkeley Barb. The poster was re-issued at least once, in a larger b/w format, for the 40th anniversary celebration of the movement.
A couple of horizontal old fold lines, and some additional creasing and toning to lower margin, else very good.
Berkeley: People’s Park Defense Union, [1991]. 8 1/2 x 11", original xerox in b/w.
A flyer for a proposed rally by the group in their campaign against the construction of volleyball courts in People’s Park, in the same year that the University built the courts. The flyer concludes with the slogan “NO BLOOD FOR VOLLEYBALL.” The volleyball courts stood, but were little used by the public and were finally dismantled in 1997 due to their high maintenance costs.
Staple holes, and two spots of glue remnants on verso from being posted, else very good.
Straßenfest der Bewegung Hier & Jetzt
Einstürzende Neubauten
Berlin: 1981. 18 1/2 x 26", offset litho in two colors.
Large format poster for this movement festival in the Winterfeldtplatz in the Schöneberg district of Berlin, which was organized by the 2nd of June movement in collaboration with local groups and squatted houses in the area. The event was notable for being a relatively early performance by Einstürzende Neubauten, only a month or so after FM Einheit had joined the project.
Folded twice, with some light handling creases, else a bright and near fine example.
Even geduld deze straat is gekraakt: Vondelstraat februari, maart 1980
Babielowsky, Paul, Joop Blom, Maurice Boyer, et al.
Amsterdam: Lont, 1980. First edition. Small oblong 4to, unpaginated. Photographically illustrated wraps. Profusely illustrated with b/w photographs. Text in Dutch.
With photographs of graffiti, street protest scenes, leaflets, barricades, squatters and police tanks, this book documents protests following the eviction of squatters on the Vondelstraat in Amsterdam in 1980. The title reproduces contemporary graffiti and can be translated “Be Patient This Street Is Squatted.” The standoff is described by Lynn Owens in “Cracking Under Pressure,” pp. 67-68.
A series of illustrations are printed at the lower right hand margin on the recto of each page, turning the book into a flipbook depicting the disrobing and vanquishing of a porcine riot cop by a pair of anarchist jack-in-the-boxes.
Spine heavily creased, with some additional creasing to wraps and moderate rubbing. A good only, but intact and supple example of a book usually found heavily worn.
OCLC locates no holdings in the Americas at the time of cataloguing.
Frestonia: Tribal Messenger, 1977. First edition. 8 1/2 x 14" sheet, roneographed on recto and verso from typescript and holograph. Some chipping and marginal tears, including a 2" closed tear at right margin, still very good.
A single, but pivotal issue of the newsletter which became the official organ of the country of Frestonia, the squatted area of London which seceded from the U.K. in the month following the publication of this issue due to the redevelopement plans discussed here. The verso prints the text of a letter to the GLC tendering an application with the squatters' counterproposal to the industrial redevelopment proposal which would eventually lead them to secede, and is a docu. Writer Heathcote Williams became ambassador to the UK, and actor David Rappaport became the Foreign Minister. The country was host to the Car Breaker Gallery, and issued their own postage stamps. The Clash album Combat Rock was recorded at the People's Hall in Frestonia, and Motorhead practiced there.
The history of the Country has become more prominent in the last couple of years, with the attention garnered by a public art project by Nathan Coley on the country, as well as the success of Robert Kerr's documentary film 'The Republic of Frestonia', which won the best screenplay award at the 2014 London Independent Film Festival.
Rare. The first copy we've seen of any issue of the Messenger. OCLC locates no holdings.
[London]: [Paddington Print Shop?], [c. 1976-77]. 17 1/2 x 21 3/4", offset printed in two colors.
A late 1970’s poster made to protest the crackdown on squatters and squatting and the housing crisis in London. The catalogue entry for the Institute of Social History copy suggests that it was produced by the Paddington Print Shop, who several years later also issued a poster that played upon the same design elements and phrase.
The Paddington Print Shop, founded in 1974 by John Phillips and Pippa Smith and inspired by the printing projects of May 1968, became an an important community printing resource in West London, doing work for various social causes as well as the 101-ers, the Sex Pistols and Lucian Freud. It later became the London Print Studio.
Two old fold lines, with small tack holes at tips; a very good, bright example.
New York: La Ocupación, 1974. 8 1/4 x 1 5/8", printed on recto only.
A statement made by the General Assembly of the squatters who had, since the summer of 1970, occupied 500 W. 111, 500 W. 112, and 1046 Amsterdam, near St. John of the Divine and Columbia University. The squatters had been threatened with eviction by Morningside House, an organization that had close ties to the clergy of St. John of the Divine.
A note printed at the foot of the flyer notes that this is a reissue of the first version of the flyer, which was printed for a protest on the front of the church several days before, this reissue coming four days before the eviction date, though the struggle would continue when the case went to court in the following year – a case in which the judge was the legendary Bruce M. Wright, who twice through the case out on the basis of improper eviction notice procedures by Morningside House.
Folded twice, with some light additiona creasing. Very good.
Dokumentation über die Polizeiüberfälle am 5.3.75
George-von-Rauch-Haus, et al.
Berlin: George-von-Rauch-Haus, 1975. First edition. 12mo, 112 pp, offset printed and perfect bound in photographically illustrated wraps. Illustrated with b/w photographs.
A joint publication of the Georg-von-Rauch-Haus, Tommy-Weisbecker-Haus, Schöneberger Jungarbeiter- und Schülerzentrum, which documents the police raids upon those centers following the Peter Lorentz kidnapping.
Very good with some faint foxing to edges of text block.
Christiania et Samfund I Storbyen. En Bog, Af Christianitter, Udgivet af Nationalmuseet
Christiana
København: Nationalmuseet, 1975. 24 x 39", offset lithograph in color.
A large format wall poster advertising the 1975 publication about Christiania, illustrated with a striking pastoral bird’s eye view of the community, framed in the background by looming industrial structures.
Very good with a couple of closed tears to margins, and some slight discoloration and foxing to margins only.
Np: 1981. 16 3/4 x 22 3/4", silkscreen on white paper.
A poster likely made to protest police oversight and actions during the Carnival march of 1981 in Notting Hill, after tensions between police and the squatters in the neighborhood were high.
Some creasing and closed tears and nicks to margins; very good.
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