Multiple Strategies exhibition - curated by Matt Distel and Peter Huttinger ~ edition by Mark Patsfall Graphics, 2001

Three Pillows

Three embroidered linen boudoir pillow cases, comes in an aromatic cedar box, 13.5"x17.5"x1", and was published in an edition of 12.

~~This piece came out of a collaboration between the sculptor Barbara Westermann and poet William Allen, one which consisted of a room- a hospital room or a prison cell, of white pristine bedclothes on a simple 19th century barracks cot. From the juxtaposition there of Allen's texts, always shards of poems or narratives, enlivened by being hand painted and naive, with Westermann's sculptured monoliths, arose the need for pillows to live by- in the 18th century philosophical tradition of familiar quotations, and the domestic home- spun wisdom of HOME SWEET HOME, the pillow came, a forum for linguistic play and sentimental education, a discovery of the imaginative space that surrounds what we think we read when we know what we are reading. So THREE PILLOWS was born, for Virginia, who's ill and proper and loves the Victorian sense of beauty.

(In English,German and Middle English) William Allen and Barbara Westermann

"The idea of multiples is the distribution of ideas" -Joseph Beuys

Multiple Strategies at the Contemporary Arts Center of Cincinnati

November 20, 2004 - August 21, 2005

Multiple Strategies, a nine-month exhibition, will explore the varied strategies that artists have utilized in creating works that expand the category of artist's multiples created within the context of artist directed and/or collaborative efforts. The designation of certain works as artist's multiples is often problematic as it accounts for an extraordinarily wide variety of artistic practices throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. As a distinctly 20th century phenomenon, the term "artist's multiple" was first used in the 1960s as a catchall phrase for certain artist conceived mass-produced, mass-distributed or editioned objects that did not fall into pre-existing categories such as painting, drawing, sculpture, or installation.

Artist multiples and editions are often seen as secondary, or less significant when considering an artist's entire body of work. For many artists, however, published works are not only images or objects duplicated for commercial distribution, but are created with a specific social agenda.

Artists represented in the exhibition include: Sally Alatalo, Joseph Beuys, Daniel Buren, Jessica Diamond, William Allen and Barbara Westermann, Marcel Duchamp, Sylvie Fluery, General Idea, John Giorno, Damian Hirst, Richard Hamilton, Paul McCarthy, Ben Patterson, Jason Rhoades and Dieter Roth.

This exhibition is organized by the CAC and curated by Assistant Curator Matt Distel and guest-curator Peter Huttinger. Exhibition sponsor Robin & Murray Sinclaire.