A Recharged Octet
Look back, look forward, but also stand still and just look.
New to this? Catch up on previous installments and playlists.
Happy 2024. I hope you all had as peaceful and restful a holiday as possible and are looking forward to the year ahead. I’m planning to kicking off a number of new projects and share them with you, here, along with the usual assortment of links and recommendations. — Hamish
Humbug, pastel on cotton paper, 25” x 18”, by the Yorkshire-based artist, Anna Roberts.
Overshare, a full-career survey of Sophie Calle’s work, wraps this month at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. I’ve loved her work for 25 years—in fact she’s somewhat instrumental in my being in the United States at all, but that’s another story—and I’ve collected a good number of her books over the years. For those who can’t make the show, the exhibit has been collected beautifully into a new book published by the Walker, and come March the show will move to the Orange County Museum of Art in Costa Mesa.
Above right: Sophie Calle, North Pole (detail), 2009. © 2024 Sophie Calle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Photo by Steven Probert. Courtesy of the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.
I’m currently teaching my 9-year-old Adobe InDesign and in restraining myself from stressing pixel perfection and encouraging the wild abandon of imagination, I’ve been revisiting the George Brecht-edited Fluxus newspaper, with works by Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Joseph Beuys, and others. There’s a great collected facsimile of all issues in a book published by Primary Information.
I added some more Japanese movie posters to my ephemera store, including a rare 2021 Eric Rohmer festival one-sheet and a beautiful Roman Holiday sheet from 2023.
A mid-issue pause to marvel at the beauty of the 1960 Porsche 356 B Zagato Coupé 'Sanction Lost' — one of only nine produced. Easily the most Italian-looking Porsche ever made. (Here’s one that got away.)
My sister gifted my this charming David Hockney egg cup, sent over from London. The Morgan Library was selling them stateside, but seem to have sold out, however the UK’s National Portrait Gallery still has some.
Enjoy Thomas Flight’s deep-dive into the return to Neo-expressionism in cinema.
Ending on a song. Still can’t get enough of Courtney Barnett’s duet with Paul Kelly, covering Archie Roach’s “Charcoal Lane,” during her MTV Unplugged set.
The Octet: October 2024, poster edition of 88. Available at hamishrobertson.com
The Octet is supported by SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, a select shop for artist multiples, collaborations, printed works, and an ever-changing collection of vintage ephemera, books, periodicals, and objects. The current collection, Hand-to-Hand: Cinema Japan, showcases of rare, vintage film posters from Japan and unique items inspired by them.
Visit specialcollections.org
Always a good day when The Octet arrives.