Some context [January 2021]

I’ve been “making” written word[s] sculpture (i.e. forms in space) for a long-ish time now.

I spent 4 years focused on conceiving/writing a volume (Pulturebook; 2nd Cannons Publications, 2008) that attempted to isolate word/idea/thought in sculptural form (many embarrassing forms linger in that book).

I first conceived salable “word works” at the prompting of Haley Mellin in 2008 (for a rock solid show she curated at Rental Gallery, NY). A couple months later, I did my first solo of these works at gallery.sora, Tokyo. Bob Nickas was the first to express a collector’s interest in them. A few years later, my “brand” had enough traction for Andrew Kreps Gallery to sell the remainders I felt still passed muster. (I’ve “made” a few since, sparingly.)

NB. prior and subsequent to these sales, I diluted the genre by “embedding” the words in material-sculptural “bodies”: fortune cookies; LED signs; hand writing; wall vinyl; photographs; collaborations with artists Jesse Willenbring, Mathew Cerletty, Oto Gillen; etc). The COAs for these state the work as the word-sequence only, but I do have some regrets about the volume of jumbo fortune cookies I produced for sale (all sold; they sure helped pay the bills).

What about Twitter? When it first came to my attention, I was unimpressed—the character limit felt unfeeling to me. And of course it really is social media (which further ruins any literary-sculptural accommodation/appeal it might have to me). But over the holidays, I learned about:

https://v.cent.co/
https://defirate.com/valuables-trade-tweets/

This feels right-enough to me. NFTs as “stewards” of image-based art are not fully convincing (especially if the image(s) ask for a certain scale to radiate/speak at), but NFT as means of “form”ing a verbal artifact/record/keepsake/what-have-you feels sculpturally viable.

I’ve infrequently aspired to be a “mantrist”/aphorist, so 365 tweets/sculptures will hopefully suffice to designate me a wordest. Maybe someday I’ll be included in this Pantheon:

PS. I got some attention 3 years ago for selling an Instagram and Twitter handle “named” @mined_oud. That sculptural inquiry relied on words for context, but never treated word(s) as form.