Art & Language, Hostage: An Incident and a People’s Flag IV, 1988.
Corrected Slogans (A Publication in Four Acts) is a collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver in conjunction with the exhibition “Postscript: Writing after Conceptual Art,” curated by Nora Burnett Abrams and Andrea Andersson, on view at MCA Denver from October 12, 2012 until February 3, 2013. Triple Canopy’s project is a collective effort by artists, poets, scholars, editors, curators, and designers to establish new critical discourse around conceptual art and poetics. That effort found expression in a series of public discussions, a special online publication, and QR codes affixed to the walls of the galleries at the MCA. Each “act” of Corrected Slogans—dispersed as they are between Triple Canopy’s home in Brooklyn, the exhibition in Denver, the Web, and print—is integral to the same dynamic process; the project as a whole represents Triple Canopy’s ongoing attempt to define an expanded field of publication.
Act 1: Poems for America
“Poems for America,” is a symposium that took place on September 15, 2012, at 155 Freeman Street in Brooklyn. Triple Canopy invited artists and poets to discuss the history and legacy of conceptualism, and asked how conceptual strategies of writing have transformed conventional notions of expression. Participants included Michael Corris, Aaron Kunin, Margaret Lee, K. Silem Mohammad, Ken Okiishi, Katie Raissian, Gretchen Wagner, and Matvei Yankelevich.
Act 2: Automatic Reading
“Automatic Reading,” is a roundtable discussion Triple Canopy convened on October 20, 2012, also at 155 Freeman Street. Erica Baum, Franklin Bruno, Corina Copp, Jim Fletcher, R. H. Quaytman, Ariana Reines, and Mónica de la Torre, along with moderators William S. Smith and Lucy Ives, debated how the legacy of conceptualism has challenged traditional notions of reading both as an exchange between an individual and text and as a public activation of the written word.
Act 3: Corrected_Slogans
“Corrected_Slogans” is a special issue of Triple Canopy’s online magazine, accessible to MCA Denver visitors via QR codes on the gallery walls. The issue includes new Web-based artworks by artists Erica Baum and Gareth Long and poet Caroline Bergvall, whose works were also included in the MCA exhibition, as well as a selection of projects from Triple Canopy’s archive that reframes the exhibition’s questions about conceptual art and writing in terms of digital publishing.
Act 4: Corrected Slogans: Reading and Writing Conceptualism
The fourth act is Corrected Slogans: Reading and Writing Conceptualism, a book generated by the symposia and designed by Franklin Vandiver, published in January 2013. Corrected Slogans documents the previous acts but also elaborates, edits, amplifies, and contradicts; the form and content of the public discussions are reinterpreted using tools specific to print. The critical debates represented in this book remain unresolved as they circulate to wider audiences through new channels of distribution. Corrected Slogans features annotated transcripts of previous events along with contributions, new essays, artworks, and poetry from Nora Abrams, Andrea Andersson, Erica Baum, Franklin Bruno, Corina Copp, Michael Corris, Brian Droitcour, Jim Fletcher, Zachary German, Lucy Ives, Aaron Kunin,Margaret Lee, Paul Legault, K. Silem Mohammad, Ken Okiishi, R. H. Quaytman, Katie Raissian, Ariana Reines,William S. Smith, Mónica de la Torre, Gretchen Wagner, Hannah Whitaker, and Matvei Yankelevich.