The Brother in Elysium

The Brother in Elysium

Thursday, Apr 11, 2013 - Friday, Apr 26, 2013

Location:
Boo-Hooray (Canal Street)
 265 Canal Street, Suite 601
New York, NY 10013

Boo-Hooray is proud to have presented the first comprehensive overview of the artwork and publications of Jon Beacham and his publishing imprint The Brother In Elysium. The work in this exhibition brought together his collages, his serial artist publications, film, photography and hand made books.

Beacham is one of the hardy few that are reinvigorating fine printing in 21st century America. The Brother in Elysium regularly publishes meticulous and beautiful publications that seamlessly join poetics with the aesthetic of early American architecture and landscape, and thoughtfully chosen materials. The publications have a balanced and clear understanding of form, focusing on space, typographical choices and the placement of type on the page.

Beacham acquired a printing press in January of 2008 while operating Hermitage, his bookstore and gallery in Beacon, NY. As he introduced letterpress printing to his methodology, his precise and melancholy collage work opened up into the ongoing creation of books, multiples and ephemera as components of a grand unfolding American narrative.

The American landscape is at the core of Beacham’s work alongside the documentation of place and experience through the use of film. Found and selected materials are also integral to Beacham’s process of collage. His methods of making books through hand set type and hand bookbinding in this contemporary era of book production and publishing is viewed by him as an artist practice.

The Brother In Elysium’s trade editions of books were on display at Boo-Hooray alongside original artworks and artist editions. The focus of this show, spanning the years 2008-2013, explored ideas of the artist / printer / publisher as an inherent lineage in post WWII American art and literature.

BOO-HOORAY exhibits both at home in New York City as well as internationally. We also stage collaborative exhibitions with the Hayward Gallery and Rough Trade in London, Tsutaya Daikanyama, Hysteric Glamour, and United Arrows in Tokyo, Galleri Operatingplace in Stockholm, Colette in Paris, PopMontreal in Montreal, Mishka Los Angeles, Printed Matter at both MOCA/LA and PS1/NYC, and Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, the New York Public Library, the Grolier Club, and Milk Gallery in New York.

Boo-Hooray exhibitions have included shows featuring Larry Clark, The Velvet Underground, Ray Johnson, Afrika Bambaataa, Jonas Mekas, Ed Sanders, Linder Sterling and Jon Savage, Spencer Sweeney, Houston Rap, private press vinyl, Wallace Berman, anarcho-punk group Crass, Jason Polan, Jack Smith, cult-filmmaker Ed Wood, and Situationist Times editor Jacqueline de Jong.

The exhibitions are drawn from cultural archives that Boo-Hooray excavates, organizes, and places in institutions such as Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Cornell University’s Division of Rare Manuscript Collections, Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library.