April 2013
Publication: David Hartt, for everyone a garden, Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago (Exhibition on view 5 April–11 May 2013)
for everyone a garden, Chicago-based Canadian artist David Hartt’s first exhibition at Chicago gallery Corbett vs. Dempsey, features three large glass sculptures, a diptych based on two of his drawings, a painted wall and a single photograph, collectively expanding on Hartt’s research into the relationship between the built environment and ideology. The title references a 1974 publication by Israeli/Canadian architect Moshe Safdie (best known for his Habitat 67 metabolist housing complex in Montréal).
Accompanying the exhibition is a 60pp publication, also titled for everyone a garden, designed by James Goggin, featuring photography by Hartt, documentation of the exhibition’s glass sculptures in production, and an essay by John Corbett. The publication’s design, in a UV-coated perfect-bound magazine format, is the result of a collaborative exchange of references and ideas between the designer and the artist, taking in Swiss office furniture company USM, 1970s Québec counterculture journal Mainmise, Montréal architect/artist François Dallegret, French architect Jean-Louis Chanéac, and 1960/70s public transport system design, among other sources of inspiration.
Pictured: Detail view of David Hartt’s Mutirão III, 2013, composed of a USM table, nine hand-blown glass sculptures, a “New Man” neon sign, and an open copy of the magazine publication included as an intrinsic part of the installation. (Courtesy of the artist and Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago. Photograph by Tom Van Eynde)
February 2013
Publication: Amalia Pica, MIT List Visual Arts Center, 8 February–7 April 2013; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 27 April–11 August 2013
The MIT List Visual Arts Center (Cambridge, MA) and MCA Chicago present Amalia Pica, the artist’s first major solo museum exhibition in the United States, curated by João Ribas (MIT List) and Julie Rodrigues Widholm (MCA Chicago). The exhibition provides an in-depth look at the last ten years of this London-based, Argentinian artist’s work and is accompanied by a new catalogue, Amalia Pica, designed by James Goggin and Scott Reinhard.
The publication is the fourth in the MCA Monographs series co-published with Artbook|DAP. The catalogue, edited by MCA Director of Publications Kate Steinmann with MCA Editorial Assistant Molly Zimmerman-Feeley and Consulting Editor Lisa Meyerowitz, features an interview between the artist and the curators, along with essays by Ana Teixeira Pinto and Tirdad Zolghadr. It is now available from the MCA Chicago Store and will be released by Artbook|DAP for general distribution on 30 April 2013.
Pictured: Detail of the catalogue’s transparent yellow dustjacket and back cover, showing Pica’s Eavesdropper, 2011
December 2012
Publication: Goshka Macuga, Exhibit, A, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 15 December 2012–7 April 2013
On the occasion of the first survey exhibition of work by Polish-born, London-based artist Goshka Macuga, MCA Chicago has released a new catalogue, Goshka Macuga: Exhibit, A, designed by James Goggin and Alfredo Ruiz as part of the MCA Monographs series co-published with Artbook|DAP. The catalogue, edited by MCA Senior Curator Dieter Roelstraete with essays by Roelstraete, Adam Szymczyk, Grant Watson, and Goshka Macuga, is now available from the MCA Chicago Store and will be released by Artbook|DAP for general distribution on 31 January 2013.
Pictured: Detail from Dieter Roelstraete’s essay ‘Untangling: Making Sense of Goshka Macuga’
October 2012
AIGA 50 Books/50 Covers
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago’s publication The Language of Less: Then and Now, designed by James Goggin and Alfredo Ruiz, has been nominated and selected for the American Institute of Graphic Arts’s annual 50 Books/50 Covers Competition in the ‘50 Books’ category.
Pictured: Detail of The Language of Less’s die-cut and debossed cover
October 2012
Society of Typographic Arts: Chicago Design Archive
The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago publications Rashid Johnson: Message to our Folks, designed by James Goggin and Alfredo Ruiz, and This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s, designed by James Goggin and Scott Reinhard, have been selected for inclusion in the Chicago Design Archive by a jury convened by the Society of Typographic Arts.
July 2012
Lecture: Who Am I?, Graham Foundation, Chicago, 18:00, Thursday 19 July 2012
James Goggin will explore the evolving definition of and possibilities for identity in graphic design, from an ongoing questioning of cultural identity since his peripatetic childhood, to a current interest in institutional identity with his work in progress at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. An argument for identity as a critical and speculative platform will be made with illustrated case studies in contemporary art and architecture from his design practice in the UK and the Netherlands, alongside current design and publishing at MCA Chicago and a recent exhibition project in France involving an identity which questions the very need for identities.
Pictured: James Goggin, Passport Photo Colour Test, Rainbo Club, Chicago, November 30, 2011
June 2012
Workshop: Reading Inglewood, MFA Graphic Design, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, 11–15 June 2012
On the invitation of Department Chair Kali Nikitas, James Goggin was a Visiting Artist during the annual MFA Graphic Design ‘Design Week’ at Otis, running a workshop alongside fellow visiting artist Hugo Puttaert (Belgium) exploring and analysing the neighbouring city of Inglewood with students from Otis, University of Art and Design Karlsruhe, and Werkplaats Typografie, as well as Otis faculty Yasmin Khan, Davey Whitcraft, and Hazel Mandujano. The week concluded with a presentation of projects documenting and participating with Inglewood and its residents, and a one-day symposium with lectures by JG and HP along with Ludovic Balland, Peter Biľak, Jan en Randoald, Florian Pfeffer, Hansje van Halem, and Boy Vereecken.
Pictured: Workshop final presentation, including Moderate Area sign produced with a local signwriter in Inglewood by Mathew Whittington
June 2012
Exhibition: Confusion, International Graphic Design and Poster Festival, Chaumont, France, 26 May–10 June, 2012
The third, and largest, project by James Goggin taking place at this year’s Chaumont festival is an audio-visual installation in the exhibition White Noise: Quand le graphisme fait du bruit, which explores the relationship between music and graphic design with work by designers Experimental Jetset, Moniker, Shoboshobo, and Laurent Fétis, as well as an incredible rare survey of work by seminal British designer Barney Bubbles selected by British journalist and author Paul Gorman.
For the exhibition, JG was commissioned to design the identity and (with curators Étienne Hervy and Sophie Demay) formulate the approach for a conceptual record label titled Confusion. The label operates as a platform not only for music, but for design, art, and such ephemeral phenomena as exhibitions, events, even just ideas. In this vein, the installation itself is actually the sixth official Confusion release, catalogued CNF006, comprising an iPod and speakers playing the Confusion identity manual (a 20-track mp3 album written and produced by JG titled Confusion Manual [CNF002]), several oversized 12-inch record covers including a short essay in the form of physical sleeve notes for the manual, titled Confusion Manual Sleeve Notes [CNF003], and a custom-printed felt turntable slipmat, ‘playing’ on infinite loop for the duration of the exhibition [CNF005].
While it was decided that the Confusion label identity does not need a logo, the cataloguing of each release is marked by a logo-like catalogue stamp which happens to be the very first release from the label, catalogued by itself as CNF001 (visible in the picture above). A new release for 2013, the Confusion website [CNF008], is currently under construction.
Pictured: View of the Confusion installation in Les Subsistances, an old military warehouse in Chaumont
June 2012
Exhibition: Moving Picture Show, International Graphic Design and Poster Festival, Chaumont, France, 26 May–10 June, 2012
For this year’s Chaumont Festival, Swiss designer / developer / artist Jürg Lehni was invited to take over town’s the opulent 17th century Jesuit Chapel and fill it with laser equipment usually used by the film industry for etching subtitles out of film emulsion, along with a 35mm projector, and a screen spanning the chapel’s apse. JL spent the duration of the festival experimenting with the equipment, reappropriating the precision etching laser by altering its range and replacing the software interface with one that allowed typographic, animated, and drawn experiments to be etched onto existing film stock or black, non-developed film. Participating in the resulting Moving Picture Show exhibition with Jürg were designers Maximage, Karl Nawrot, Jonathan Puckey, and David Reinfurt. Running a student workshop by day (conveniently located in the chapel school next door), James Goggin worked over several nights with JL to make a series of moiré test films exploring the overlap of one optical process (moiré) with another (analogue film projection).
Pictured: Moiré Test by James Goggin and Jürg Lehni (Vimeo)
May 2012
Workshop: Showmont: Post-Poster Chaumont, International Graphic Design and Poster Festival, Chaumont, France, 28 May–31 May, 2012
James Goggin is involved in a range of activities at the Chaumont Graphic Design and Poster Festival this year including the contribution of an essay (‘A Means to an End of Print’) to the festival catalogue, a collaboration with designer / developer / artist Jürg Lehni, an audio-visual installation in the exhibition White Noise, and first of all, a workshop. For the four days leading up to the festival opening, a programme of student workshops is being run in a variety of locations around the city, by a selection of international designers including Cataloged, Colophon, Pinar & Viola, and SA|M|AEL. JG, together with London-based French graphic designer (and ex-MCA Chicago intern) Carole Courtillé, invited their students to question the role of a two week poster festival in a small French town by exploring the town and asking locals and visiting designers alike: what happens in Chaumont for the other 50 weeks of the year?
Pictured: Workshop in progress at Chaumont’s Collège Camille Saint Saëns
May 2012
Lecture and workshop: Art Made Visible, MFA Graphic Design, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island, 4–6 May 2012
As part of RISD’s 2012 Spring Visiting Designers programme (featuring designers Jürg Lehni, Sulki and Min, and Leonardo Sonnoli) James Goggin will give an (optimistic) lecture about the potential for interpretative, speculative, and critical practice in a design, publishing, and new media department at a contemporary art museum. Following the lecture, JG will run a related workshop that takes the current exhibition Spencer Finch: Painting Air at the RISD Museum of Art as its starting point. In this exhibition, Brooklyn-based artist Spencer Finch was given access to the RISD Museum collection, from which he curated a selection of more than 60 pieces—ancient objects to 20th century art—in thematic groupings. The students are asked to take a similar approach, in dialogue with the museum, to make connections between a subjective selection of works in the museum and produce a final project in an appropriate medium that interprets the connected works in a meaningful and engaging way for the museum and its visitors.
Pictured: RISD 2012 Spring Visiting Designers poster designed by RISD student Eunmo Kang, as seen on the MFA Graphic Design noticeboard
April 2012
Workshop: Risograph Print Test, 2D Design graduate department, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, 2–4 April, 2012
James Goggin and MCA Chicago Senior Designer Scott Reinhard were invited by Cranbrook graduate Haynes Riley and designer-in-residence Elliott Earls to work with students in the 2D Design graduate department and share the MCA design department’s experience with the museum’s in-house Riso MZ 1090U stencil printer and kickstart printing and publishing with Cranbrook’s newly-acquired Riso MZ 790U stencil printer. A combination test print book and manual was produced in the course of three days (and nights) for both current and future students to use and reference.
Pictured: Late-night test book collation production line with Elliot Earls and students on the workshop’s final evening
March 2012
Exhibition: Rethinking Typologies: Architecture and Design from the Permanent Collection, Art Institute of Chicago, 3 March–29 July, 2012
The entire File Notes series, over 80 exhibition booklets designed for Camden Arts Centre by James Goggin and Sara De Bondt since 2004, has been acquired for the Art Institute of Chicago’s permanent collection. A selection of the File Notes are currently on view in the exhibition Rethinking Typologies, curated by Zoë Ryan (John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design), Alison Fisher (Harold and Margot Schiff Assistant Curator of Architecture), and Mia Khimm (Rhoades Curatorial Intern), featuring work from the collection by designers and architects including Stan Allen, Jeanne Gang, Aaron Koblin, Christien Meindertsma, and Casey Reas.
Pictured: File Notes on display in the Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago with Path B by Casey Reas for Maharam in the background
March 2012
Workshop: Moiré Workshop, Baker Demonstration School, Evanston, Illinois, 9 March, 2012
Last Friday morning, James Goggin and Shan James visited class 1B at Baker Demonstration School in Evanston for JG to present an abridged version of his Pop Culture Colour Theory lecture followed by a Moiré Workshop. The first grade students produced moiré interference patterns by moving acetate sheets printed with line, circle, and dot patterns over lightboxes, and experimented with chromatic mixing by overlaying coloured transparencies. After finishing off the morning by making colour and pattern badges with SJ, it was snack time.
Pictured: Video of classroom moiré and colour lightbox experiments (Vimeo)
March 2012
Publication: This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 11 February–3 June 2012
On the occasion of curator Helen Molesworth’s survey of art from the period 1979–1992 (from Punk to Clinton), MCA Chicago has produced a comprehensive catalogue, This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s, designed by James Goggin and Scott Reinhard, co-published with Yale University Press. The catalogue, featuring critical texts by Molesworth, Johanna Burton, William Horrigan, Elisabeth Lebovici, Kobena Mercer, Sarah Schulman, and Frazer Ward, is now available from the MCA Chicago Store and from Yale.
Pictured: This Will Have Been’s screen printed cloth cover, with black painted fore edges and Esprit-inspired colour section thumb indexes