Call it an accidental artists’ book, triple recycling, a found object, a Ben Shahn homage, or simpy a handy way to “uncover a person’s inner secrets and character traits.” I came across Dorothy Sara’s Handwriting Analysis (1956) in a mysterious pile at last year’s New York Art Book Fair. Inside is a note:

These books were previously part of an art project involving the repurposing of abandoned or discarded books…We welcome you to select one…Have a look. 

So I did. Here’s a look at the back cover. —jt

9:56 am  •  8 April 2013  •  57 notes

Pop(-up) elements in Andy Warhol’s Index Book (1967) - one of the great artists’ publications. Can’t ever get enough of this book. -ds 

6:24 pm  •  3 April 2013  •  84 notes

some more of Andy’s Index Book (1967). -ds

6:23 pm  •  3 April 2013  •  141 notes

The art term of the day is Funk Art - ds

3:17 pm  •  2 April 2013  •  376 notes

1975 Gilbert & George screening -ds

7:06 pm  •  28 March 2013  •  43 notes

John Baldessari - Four Rules (1978) -ds

10:06 am  •  28 March 2013  •  2,797 notes

View of the Artists’ Files, MoMA Library Stacks, 2013. 

Our next library exhibition will open in May. It is called Please Come to the Show and it will present a large selection of invitation cards and event flyers from our various ephemera collections. Follow the link for more info. 

1:06 pm  •  22 March 2013  •  49 notes

“Homicidal Frenzy” from John Franklin Hawkins’ portfolio of drawings The Psychoses of War (New York: Domesday, 1943). This psychosis, writes the artist, is

Revulsion from the fear of death: Murder or be murdered…the evil of killing is now a virtue…to destroy is the only revenge…and the only glory remaining.

Hawkins appears to be a visionary, minimally-documented artist. Active in the 1940s, he also exhibited and published drawings on the Psychiatric Analyses of Poe, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and [Thomas Hart] Crane (1944). -jt

12:37 pm  •  22 March 2013  •  159 notes

Bianchini Gallery flyer for the American Supermarket show - 1964. - ds

1:12 pm  •  21 March 2013  •  61 notes

Inflatable Art Alert! Eventstructure Research Group’s Water Walk (1970).

I found this flyer in the group’s file in our PAD/D Archive. It reproduces a letter the group received from the US Army for details about their work, “Water Walk.” I was then curious about what this Water Walk was?! Found it here in an article from the London-based magazine Design (May 1970). -ds

1:22 pm  •  14 March 2013  •  98 notes