Neither storybook nor autobiography, Something to Put Something On is rather a "questioning book" for children, at once moving and intriguing in its candor: I WAS A CHILD &amp; AS MOST CHILDREN I DID MAKE THINGS I TRIED TO FIND A PLACE TO PUT THE THINGS I HAD MADE AGAIN &amp; AGAIN I FOUND THAT THE SUPPORT OR PLINTH OR TABLE ALL RESTED UPON THE EARTH &amp; I REALIZED THAT ALL PEOPLE OF ALL AGES WHO HAD MADE SOMETHING HAD TO FIND A PLACE TO PUT WHAT THEY HAD MADE THOSE PEOPLE WHO ASK THE QUESTION &amp; THOSE PEOPLE WHO TRY TO ANSWER THE QUESTION ARE FUNCTIONING AS ARTISTS. I WAS A CHILD &amp; DECIDED TO BE AN ARTIST. Something to Put Something On poses direct questions about art-making to and for young readers. Generously endowed with its maker's legendary wit, it is also, appropriately, the first title in the Little Steidl program.

Lawrence Weiner: Something To Put Something On

Reference

Little Steidl

When confronted with the opportunity to make a children's book, the internationally renowned painter, photographer and printmaker Chuck Close quickly took to the idea of a publication without words. Scribble Book, presented in two accordion-folded volumes, is a self-portrait that emerges incrementally from the printing process--one plate and one color at a time. In the first volume, the viewer follows a series of nine individual plate proofs; in the second, we follow along with a corresponding series of nine progressive proofs, culminating in a nine-color self-portrait. By comparing the plate proofs against the progressive proofs, the viewer can ascertain not only the cumulative effect as each color is added to create the final nine-color etching, but also the compositional decisions and modulations made by Close at each stage of the project. The two accordion-folded volumes are accompanied by a separate text in which the artist gives a personal account of the drawing process.

Chuck Close: Scribble Book

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

It all began many years ago with an innocent interest in the way people like to anthropomorphize. Animals, objects, just about anything can be given human characteristics. Following his curiosity, John Baldessari was soon enough making his own pictures of objects with barely perceptible human features. Maybe they would be detected, maybe they wouldn't. It was akin to seeing the Virgin Mary in a tortilla. Next came a series of noses and ears gleefully placed on colorful, flat, somewhat lumpy and rounded shapes: faces. Much to Baldessari's surprise and his publisher's amusement, he recently looked again at these mustard and cobalt colored face shapes that populate his studio and came to a decisive conclusion: "Potato chips! Those faces are potato chips!" He handed over a stack of prints of chips with just visible full faces peering out, only to issue a kind-hearted warning: "These are really too perfect. Life isn't perfect. Potato chips break, pieces crack off. Think of the 'Venus de Milo,' and I think you'll know where I'm going with this book. And look, I have a title too...

John Baldessari: Miracle Chips

Individual Artists

With secrets drawn from her archive, Graciela Iturbide creates a curious world in which the human subjects we encounter in her widely-known portraits are absent. In Asor, the human subject is the reader alone, dream borne, on a journey in which all places remain nameless, time cannot be ascertained and the course is lost to the imagination. Loosely inspired by Alice in Wonderland, Iturbide constructs her intimate and contemporary extension of Lewis Carroll's classic tale without words, making equal use of the narrative and compositional elements of Iturbide's photographs to startle her readers with visual riddles and quick shifts of perspective. To accompany a reader along this unlikely journey are six electroacoustic works by composer Manuel Rocha Iturbide. These works, composed over a 15-year period from 1990 to 2005 from sources taped by Rocha Iturbide during his extensive travels, were selected by the composer in response to his mother's photographs.

Asor

Lawrence Weiner - Something To Put Something On

Lawrence Weiner