Mungo Thomson: Mail

Mungo Thomson

ISBN 10: 1941753345 / ISBN 13: 9781941753347

Published by Inventory Press LLC, US, 2020

About this Item

An artist's book compendium of the Hammer's Museum's entire incoming mail, designed in the style of a mail-order catalogFor Mail, Los Angeles-based artist Mungo Thomson (born 1969) asked the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles to let its incoming mail accumulate unopened during the run of the exhibition. Over the course of the show a pile of correspondence and packages grew, forming a temporary archive.This book functions both as an artwork and as an elaborate and exhaustive documentation of the work as realized by the artist. Every letter, package, notice, magazine, flyer, restaurant menu, exhibition postcard, vendor catalog and piece of junk mail is represented.Featuring an essay by Hammer Museum curator Aram Moshayedi, Mail performs a kind of autopsy of the sculpture, displaying every facet and revealing the infrastructure of both the artwork and the museum.The design of the book loosely mimics a popular mail-order catalog, and Thomson's photography of the items in the mail pile at the Hammer was undertaken with this catalog design in mind.

Seller Inventory # LU-9781941753347

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Mungo Thomson: Mail
• Publisher: Inventory Press LLC, US
• Publication Date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1941753345
• ISBN 13: 9781941753347
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

An artist’s book compendium of the Hammer’s Museum’s entire incoming mail, designed in the style of a mail-order catalog

For Mail, Los Angeles–based artist Mungo Thomson (born 1969) asked the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles to let its incoming mail accumulate unopened during the run of the exhibition. Over the course of the show a pile of correspondence and packages grew, forming a temporary archive.

This book functions both as an artwork and as an elaborate and exhaustive documentation of the work as realized by the artist. Every letter, package, notice, magazine, flyer, restaurant menu, exhibition postcard, vendor catalog and piece of junk mail is represented.

Featuring an essay by Hammer Museum curator Aram Moshayedi, Mail performs a kind of autopsy of the sculpture, displaying every facet and revealing the infrastructure of both the artwork and the museum.

The design of the book loosely mimics a popular mail-order catalog, and Thomson’s photography of the items in the mail pile at the Hammer was undertaken with this catalog design in mind.