Aaron Flint Jamison: Veneer 10 of 18

Episode 5 in Frye Salon, 2013–14 season.

Continuing its commitment to support significant artists of the Pacific Northwest, the Frye Art Museum is pleased to partner with Portland artist Aaron Flint Jamison in the production and presentation of issue 10 of 18 of Veneer Magazine. Since 2007, Jamison has produced a series of publications, the existence of which he considers to be vital to his practice. Veneer10 of 18 is the latest release in that series.

Veneer is a complex project that weaves together the practice of bookmaking with performance, form with content, and ornate materials with intricate production processes. Issue 1, for example, was ceremoniously launched on a battlefield—a paintball arena. The editors and authors read through megaphones, unarmed, to an audience armed with paintball guns. Issue 3 had glossy pages embedded with a cubic zirconium gem, obligatory details for an issue comprised entirely of advertisements stolen from other magazines. Letter-pressed invoices were sent to the unwitting advertisers and cease-and-desist letters were received soon thereafter. Issue 4 was launched by the editors at a stretching session on top of the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland; page 127 was necessarily rubbed with Brut™ deodorant before the issue was packaged. Issue 5 was dedicated to, in the artist’s words, “rhythms, pacing and repetition in yoga and philosophy,” which he equated with “feeling the edges of the ocean, waves coming in and out.” Therefore, the book block of each copy was sealed shut with spray-foam, forcing the reader to “individually pull the pages apart, kind of like peeling away a sunburn.” Issue 6 demonstrated restraint—in all its forms—and each copy was ritually bullwhipped by the editors before shipment. Past contributors to Veneer include Goodiepal, Kevin Kelly, George Kuchar, Ray Kurzweil, Adrian Piper, and Elaine Sturtevant.

Jamison has conceived and produced Veneer 10 of 18 in the context of partnership and negotiation with the Frye Art Museum. As with all issues of Veneer, the production of issue 10 was elaborate. In his print shop in Portland, the cover was letter-pressed, offset, silk-screened, foiled, and thermography printed white-on-white-on-white-on-white-on-white. Contents include texts on integrated flywheel energy storage systems, overclocking computer gaming cards, and magnetic anomalies over oceanic ridges; transcripts of rapid chess matches; a flyer on National Flute Association competitions; surveyor’s certificates for the Desertron supercollider; menus for the Pentagon food court; Franz von Stuck’s account of his capture by the Spartacists; and the 1429–30 epistles of Joan of Arc. Veneer 10 of 18 is presented as part of Frye Salon and will be available for purchase at the Museum. The issue launch will occur at the Pentagon food court in Arlington County, Virginia, where curator Scott Lawrimore and the artist will talk about value.

Aaron Flint Jamison (b.1979, Montana) has recently realized solo exhibitions at Artists Space, New York (2013); Cubitt, London (2013); Centre d’édition contemporaine, Geneva (2012); Artspeak, Vancouver (2012); Air de Paris, Paris (2012); castillo/corrales, Paris (2011); and Open Satellite, Bellevue, Washington (2010). His work will be included in the 2014 Liverpool Biennial, curated by Anthony Huberman and Mai Abu ElDahab. Veneer is in numerous private and public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 2013, Hans Ulrich Obrist named Jamison one of the twenty-seven most important living artists. He co-founded the artist-run center Department of Safety (2002–10) in Anacortes, Washington. Jamison lives and works in Portland, Oregon, where he is the co-founder of the art center Yale Union (YU), and the founder and editor of Veneer.