Michael Maranda, ARTFORUMx, 2012. Courtesy of the artist and Arttexte
Michael Maranda
ARTFORUMx
7 February – 25 May 2013
at Artexte, Montréal
ARTFORUMx is an installation that sustains a critical re-reading of the Artforum magazine. The project makes use of a colour coding system that recalls both hard-edge modernist painting and the quantitative methods employed in sociological analysis. The colours in ARTFORUMx reveal the number and size of advertisements placed in the magazine from June 1962 to the summer 2010 issue. Five summary volumes accompany the exhibition, in addition to a series of watercolours.
Michael Maranda, artist statement:
ARTFORUMx is a tripartite project. The trailing ‘x’ of the title evokes a mathematical equation, standing in for a factor, or constant, by which the magazine has been either reduced or explained. As such, the function ‘x’ references a data-driven quantitative research project in the social sciences more than a visual analysis.
ARTFORUMx in fact does delineate the history of Artforum in visual form, with a particular focus on the number and size of advertisements that have appeared in the magazine over the years. Each issue has been catalogued and reproduced with red rectangles standing in for content and black rectangles for advertisements. Reminiscent equally of constructivist graphic experiments and minimalist visual art, the resulting books are reduced to the base level of the economics of publishing, reflecting the ebb and flow of the market, art or otherwise, over the last 48 years. [read the full text here]
Artexte
2, Sainte-Catherine East, room 301
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
H2X 1K4
artexte.ca
Opening hours
Wednesday – Friday: 12h00 – 19h00
Saturday: 12h00 – 17h00
Michael Maranda, ARTFORUMx, 2012. Courtesy of the artist and Arttexte