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Specific Object (2004 – 20013) was a gallery, bookstore and think-tank dedicated to art post 1960s – specifically pop, Fluxus, minimal and conceptual – with an interest in the art that informed the 1960s and 1970s, as well artists whose works organically followed from the era.
Specific Object worked to isolate distinct works of value – historically, monetarily and / or intellectually valuable – and show them in an isolated context allowing these works, or objects, their own place, space and time. The material Specific Object presented ranged from artists’ publications, ephemera, prints, multiples and other editions to literature, music / audio works and unique artworks of the contemporary world.
In November 2004 Specific Object acquired the inventory of Barbara Moore’s bookstore Bound & Unbound. Through her bookshops Bound & Unbound and its predecessor Backworks, founded in 1976, Moore has been a seminal and innovative champion of artists working in alternative mediums.
From 1998 through 2004 David Platzker was the Executive Director of the non-profit institution Printed Matter, Inc. He is also the co-author, and co-curator – with Elizabeth Wyckoff – of Hard Pressed: 600 Years of Prints and Process (International Print Center New York & Hudson Hills Press, 2000); and – with Richard H. Axsom – the book and exhibition entitled Printed Stuff: Prints, Posters, and Ephemera by Claes Oldenburg : A Catalogue Raisonne 1958-1996 (Madison Art Center & Hudson Hills Press, 1997), which was awarded the George Wittenborn Award for Best Art Publication of 1997 by the Art Libraries Society of North America.
He has curated exhibitions of the works of Art & Project, John Baldessari, Marcel Broodthaers, Documenta 5, Conceptual Art, Marcel Duchamp, Donald Judd, Bruce Nauman, Oldenburg, Raymond Pettibon, Dieter Roth, and Edward Ruscha in addition to commissioning or curating exhibitions at Printed Matter of Angelblood, Larry Clark, Erin Cosgrove, Meg Cranston, General Idea, Jenny Holzer, Reverend Jen, Allan Kaprow, Yoko Ono, Ryan McGinness, Sonic Youth, Tom Sachs, David Tremlett, Richard Tuttle and the Guerrilla Girls.
Platzker was also the host of WPS1.org’s Recorded Matter on-line radio program. Archived programs can be found at www.artonair.org.
On May 15, 2013 David Platzker became Curator in the Department of Prints and Illustrated Books at The Museum of Modern Art, New York (until 2018).
Raymond Pettitbon
Raymond Pettibon’s exhibition at Specific Objects in 2008. Here is the checklist, a pdf.
Roberta Smith in The New York Times: ” With their sharp shadows, pulpy imagery, explicit sex and random violence, Raymond Pettibon’s drawings have been likened to film noir, which preceded them, and Southern California punk rock, which developed parallel to them. Focusing on the latter symbiosis, this exhibition examines Mr. Pettibon’s circuitous path toward art.
His public exposure began in 1978, when his brother, Greg Ginn, the guitarist for the punk band Black Flag, published Mr. Pettibon’s first zines while using images from them for Black Flag fliers, album covers and gift items (T-shirts, stickers and skateboards). All were published by SST Records, founded when Mr. Ginn was 12 as a mail-order company for World War II surplus radio parts and converted into a record label when no one else would work with Black Flag. SST Records became central to the development of American indie rock, releasing albums by groups like the Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, the Meat Puppets and Sonic Youth.”
art by telephone
Vinyl 33-1/3 LP record issued as exhibition catalogue for show held November 1 – December 14, 1969. “Shortly after its opening, the Museum of Contemporary Art planned an exhibition to record the trend, incipient then and pervasive today, toward conceptualization of art. This exhibition, scheduled for the spring of 1968 and abandoned because of technical difficulties, consisted of works in different media, conceived by artists in this country and Europe and executed in Chicago on their behalf. The telephone was designated the most fitting means of communication in relaying instructions to those entrusted with fabrication of the artists’ projects or enactment of their ideas. To heighten the challenge of a wholly verbal exchange, drawings, blueprints or written descriptions were avoided.” – Jan van der Marck from record jacket. Artists on LP include Siah Armajani, Richard Artschwager, John Baldessari, Iain Baxter, Mel Bochner, George Brecht, Jack Burnham, James Lee Byars, Robert H. Cumming, Francoise Dallegret, Jan Dibbets, John Giorno, Robert Grosvenor, Hans Haacke, Richard Hamilton, Dick Higgins, Davi Det Hompson, Robert Huot, Alani Jacquet, Ed Kienholz, Joseph Kosuth, Les Levine, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg, Dennis Oppenheim, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, Guenther Uecker, Stan Van Der Beek, Bernar Venet, Frank Lincoln Viner, Wolf Vostell, William Wegman, William T. Wiley. Artist notes and texts on gatefold interior. Source
