Eileen Quinlan

New York–based artist Eileen Quinlan had her first solo exhibition at Sutton Lane in London this past September, is currently working on a project with Cheyney Thompson and Lucy McKenzie for the Arnolfini in Bristol, UK, opening in July, and will have a show at Miguel Abreu Gallery in New York in the fall of 2007.

1. SCORCHED EARTH Conceived around my kitchen table by Gareth James, Sam Lewitt, and my husband, Cheyney Thompson, Scorched Earth (SE) is a magazine about drawing’s place in theory and practice, which has employed several strategies of engagement, including talks and exhibitions, although it has yet be published. SE kicked off with a lecture by Scott Lyall, and, for the duration of its office’s one-year lease on Ludlow Street, coaxed me out of bed on a dozen Sunday afternoons. Who knew the lowly doodle could inspire such spirited discourse on musicology, radical activism, and cultural theory? Expect the publication of all twelve issues at once, sometime this year.

   Jutta Koether performing as Lee Williams at the Scorched Earth office, January 29, 2006.

2. UNITED ARTISTS, LTD. Founded in 2005 by artists Meghan Gerety and Michael Phelan, United Artists, Ltd. (UAL), organizes three-person exhibitions in a reclaimed gas station in Marfa, Texas. UAL’s dual mission is to bring new art to the area and to provide a site for meaningful exchange between people whose engagement is usually confined to banter at openings and after-parties. Having participated this past summer with Anne Collier and Peter Coffin, I can say that UAL is a gift. Best of all, what happens in Marfa stays in Marfa.

   Matthew Brannon, exhibition poster for United Artists, Ltd., 2006.

3. WIERD COMPILATION Pieter Schoolwerth’s magnum opus is a three-LP compilation of musical acts that intersected with his famed and temporarily defunct Brooklyn party Wierd [sic]. Martial Canterel, Epee Du Bois, Three to Forgotten, Xeno and Oaklander, Sleep Museum, and Tobias Bernstrup have kept me company through many a darkroom night shift. Provisionally classified as minimal synth, goth, or industrial, these bands defy simple characterization. In today’s music world, that’s very rare.

   Wierd Compilation band Blacklist performing at the Annex, New York, December 2, 2006. Photo: Naomi Ramirez.

4. GRAPHIC NOTATION A type of musical score that eschews traditional notes and scales for graphics that resemble waveforms and cryptic texts, graphic notation challenges not only the established iconography of music but also how it is read. “The graphic score,” as my friend composer and cellist Alex Waterman puts it, “relocates compositional autonomy and transforms it into a social act of reading, composing, and interpreting.” The only way to “get” graphic notation is to experience it, with eyes and ears, so don’t miss Waterman’s program of events on the subject at The Kitchen in New York this September.

5. HARMON Trained as a sculptor, Andrew Harmon cut his designer’s teeth while working for fashion mavericks–cum–craft addicts Susan Cianciolo and Miguel Adrover. An expert tailor, Harmon can piece together a fierce, sleek suit one moment and a flowing, romantic wedding dress the next. His spring/summer 2007 collection is his best to date, most directly reflecting Harmon’s own style with its layered sensibility, unexpected details like attached scarves, and unisex appeal.

   Two outfits from Harmon’s spring/summer 2007 collection.

6. CONCRETE PHOTOGRAPHY This 2005 essay collection is the first book I know of that takes a serious look at a genre that has been with us nearly as long as the photographic medium itself. Concrete photographs should not be understood as abstractions trafficking in transformed representations of the “real world.” Rather, they are works that refer only to themselves. I would not describe my own pictures as concrete (they’re, more accurately, abstract), but I am interested in photoworks that resist storytelling and don’t pose as illustrations. The standouts here include Frantisek Drtikol, Kilian Breier, and Liz Deschenes.

7. CENTURY OF THE SELF In this BBC documentary series, Adam Curtis investigates how consumer society, the self-help movement, and contemporary politics have all put Sigmund Freud’s theories of the unconscious into action. Over four episodes that span the invention of public relations by Edward Bernays—who first aligned consumer products with unconscious desires—to the Me Generation, Curtis draws shocking conclusions that suggest mass conspiracy. Seemingly sensational but difficult to refute, Century of the Self is nothing short of a revelation.

8. THE WIRE The best show on TV, if not the best show ever, HBO’s The Wire renders most television unwatchable. Masquerading as a crime drama, the series casts Baltimore as its main character and tells the city’s story through multiple perspectives—including those of drug-dealing kids on the corner, the police brass, and the mayor himself. The show’s creator, David Simon, claims that his purpose is to demonstrate how institutions affect and compromise individuals. The Wire has changed the way I look at everything from political ads to people on the street.

9. ANDY WARHOL’S SHADOWS I first laid eyes on this 1978 work, referred to by Warhol as “disco decor,” at Dia:Beacon, where it is installed as part of the permanent collection. Resembling a filmstrip, the work comprises 102 colorful paintings hung in serial fashion. Warhol claimed that his subject was glimpsed in the corner of his studio, but it was later disclosed to be the result of a carefully lit maquette. Either way, Shadows makes claims for the transcendency of art while slyly remaining close to the ground.

   Andy Warhol, Shadows, 1978, acrylic silk-screened and handpainted on 102 canvases. Installation view, Dia:Beacon, New York. Photo: Bill Jacobson.

10. ORDEAL BY HUNGER Published in 1936, this book is George R. Stewart’s account of the ill-fated Donner Party, who sought western passage in the 1840s but instead, having become trapped in the frozen Sierra Nevada Mountains, found only unimaginable horror. Often condemned for its descent into murder and cannibalism, the Donner Party is shown in a more generous light here. Incorporating letters and diary entries in the text, Stewart portrays the pioneers as ordinary people under the pressure of extraordinary circumstances. The lessons of the Donner tragedy—the price of the American dream and the limits of our civility—remain just as relevant a century and a half later.