Max Blagg
LATE START FOR MARDI GRAS
$40
*SIGNED COPY*
This 192 page compendium mirrors the LSFMG booklet series that features a collaboration between Max Blagg 21 artists. The 6"x9" softcover, with full color reproductions of each of the 21 collaborative artworks and the corresponding poems was published May 2024 and launched at James Cohan 48 Walker St NYC on May 29.
LATE START FOR MARDI GRAS began in 2019 with a 200-page printout of one of M. Blagg’s 2011 manuscripts, randomly stitched onto raw canvas by J. Huminska, and tacked to his studio walls for further editing and redaction while he convalesced from a tick-borne illness.
These ‘text-canvases’, ranged in size from 12”x 60” to 48”x 72”, each comprising anywhere from 4 to 16 pages of text. With a couple dozen of these ‘ready-mades’ on hand, Blagg began inviting artists to collaborate. They chose their piece by title or text, working directly on the canvas or in some cases creating an entirely new piece. The project took it's name from the first piece that was completed by Walter Robinson, entitle LATE START FOR MARDI GRAS.
LSFMG culminated in a collection of 21 poems and 21 artworks, and a 7 volume series of individually red thread stitched signed booklets presented in a hand assembled box in an edition of 50 copies, and now this compendium. The project spotlights a collaboration between Blagg & these artists:
Golnar Adili, Ellen Berkenblit, Ernesto Caivano, Michael Combs, Peter Dayton, Sally Egbert, Eric Fischl, James Gilroy, Nan Goldin, Michael Halsband, Curtis Kulig, Justen Ladda, Ruth Marten, Jamie Nares, Walter Robinson, Nick Rule, Will Ryman, Ken Tisa, Walter Schrank, Ryan Wallace and Lucy Winton.
Published and printed in the USA in an edition of 250 copies.
About the Author
Blagg was born in England and has lived in New York City since 1971. He is the author of four collections of poetry and several other books, chapbooks, and literary ephemera. Dead Folks Talking, a series of interviews with dead celebrities, many of which have originally appeared in 10 Magazine, will be published in 2017. He is editor-at-random for Man of the World magazine as well as contributing editor to Oyster magazine (Australia) and 10 Magazine (London), and a member of the photography faculty at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. His ‘typewriter’ wall works are in several important private collections. They were exhibited at SHOW ROOM gallery (NYC) in 2013, and 6 Decades Books (NYC) in 2014. Five new works will be featured in a group show at Tripoli Gallery, Southampton, which opened on November 26, 2016.
