I have nothing clever to say by way of an introduction on a week filled with such horrors in Buffalo, NY and Uvalde, TX. Our white supremacist gun-worshiping culture is sick. Police do not keep us safe. That we have politicians who will do more to protect a fertilized egg than living humans is appalling.
Because there is an event opening this evening, I quickly want to honor the work done by others to help share the things I make and announce the first of multiple publications that I will produce in the coming months. Please take care of yourselves and others.
ANGELO'S ASHES -OR- TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A.
Public Collectors booklet #67. The interior text, which is alternately irreverent, painful, funny, and angry, is probably better experienced as a surprise so this listing is deliberately short on scans. From the back cover:
ANGELO’S ASHES -OR- TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. tells the story of how I handled the end of life arrangements for my friend Angelo. This booklet consists of a series of Facebook posts that I made in the months following Angelo’s death. I learned of his death from his landlord who had my phone number because I was Angelo’s emergency contact. Angelo did not leave a will and had no next of kin.
I live in Chicago and Angelo died in Los Angeles. The bureaucracy of dealing with his death was intense and social media provided a place to vent as well as collect advice from friends. I did not want Angelo to receive an anonymous burial in a mass grave so I had to file an Ex Parte Petition to claim his body, have him cremated, and obtain a death certificate.
I knew Angelo for roughly 25 years. He collaborated with the group I’m part of, Temporary Services, on the project and book Prisoners’ Inventions. I was his closest and primary friend. For most of the time I knew Angelo, he was incarcerated. Two years before his death, Angelo was released from prison, in part because of my advocacy and promise to the state that I could care for him. Our friendship, until after his release when we finally met in person, was based solely on postal correspondence and a couple phone calls.
Angelo worked for the post office and dealt with prison administrators for years. He was no stranger to tedious procedures. I think he would have enjoyed this booklet. I hope my writing makes things easier for anyone else who might find themselves in a similar situation.
Publications by Public Collectors, as well as an LED sign version of the text Chest Wound to the Chest, are included in the exhibition rivers, threads, folds at Art Cake in Brooklyn, NY. The exhibit runs from May 26 - June 26, 2022 with an opening reception from 6-8 PM on May 26th.
All of the publications on display will be available to read or purchase. Complimentary copies of Chest Wound to the Chest are available to take.
river, threads, folds is an installation by Wolf Tones (Nancy Shaver, Sterrett Smith, Maximilian Goldfarb and Pradeep Dalal), including works byJean-Philippe Antoine, Hawkins Bolden, Jared Buckhiester, Pam Cardwell, Dawn Cerny, Public Collectors, Kenji Fujita, Charles Goldman, Incident Report, John Jackson, Julia Klein, Ken Landauer, Tracy Miller, Carla Herrera-Prats, Tyler Rowland, Soberscove Press, Steel Stillman, David Levi Strauss, Maya Strauss, Earl Swanigan, Mose Tolliver, Peter Lamborn Wilson.
river, threads, folds is part of The Brooklyn Rail’s curatorial project Singing in Unison: Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale that Society Has the Capacity to Destroy.
Art Cake, 214 40TH Street, Brooklyn, NY 11232 artcake.org
Conversation with Bert Stabler in Visual Arts Research Special Issue: Body Cam: The Visual Regimes of Policing
My longtime friend and sometimes collaborator Bert Stabler and I met up online to produce a lengthy conversation related to my years of work about criminal punishment, from college to the present. Reading this may not be possible without institutional access so please reach out to me if you'd like to see a PDF of my section. You can see the contents of this publication and try to view everything here.
Thank you for reading and I hope to see some of you soon. Sending hugs to whoever needs one, seriously.
Marc / Public Collectors
Public Collectors organizes exhibitions and events, participates in exhibitions organized by others, creates exhibition opportunities for collectors, teaches, lectures, responds to research inquiries, and makes its own publications. The administrator of Public Collectors is Marc Fischer. He is based in Chicago, Illinois.
