GRAPHIC DESIGN + ART DIRECTION | CONTACT
LAURA GRUENTHER
book design

THE SLEEP PIECE | 1993 to 2018 Exterior of Unconsciousness (One Photo Every Morning Before Waking)
A Collaboration by Laura Cooper & Nick Taggart
Essay by Leah Ollman

This book documenting a specific long-term project between Nick Taggart and Laura Cooper is currently in the design phases. The images above are a rough layout, intended to convey the book’s concept, show the design direction, and present a sampling of the content. The preliminary size is 8 x 10 inches and we estimate it might be @ 80 pages plus cover.

Leah Ollman writes in her preliminary introduction:
"Laura Cooper and Nick Taggart are married artists, living in Los Angeles. They each have their own individual art practices, collaborating only occasionally. The most sustaining form of their aesthetic union is “The Sleep Piece.” Daily, Taggart makes a black-and-white Polaroid of Cooper in bed, if she is sleeping when he awakes. He shoots her from a slightly elevated position, at a consistent distance, close enough to see the tranquility on her face, far enough to register the balletic twists of her posture and the sculptural shifts of the sheets. The pictures, arranged in grids of 30, read like stop-motion frames of a cinematic epic: a moment, a moment, a moment...a life. They started “The Sleep Piece (Exterior of Unconsciousness, One Photograph Every Morning Before Waking)” in 1993, and have committed to continuing it until death or divorce. The work now comprises nearly 7000 pictures. What might end up stopping them is running out of instant film."

RACHEL LACHOWICZ
2010 Artist's Monograph
Published by Marquand Books Inc., Seattle in association with
Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica CA
Essays by George Melrod, Amelia Jones, and Jillian Hernandez
Hardcover, 128 pages

"Los Angeles–based conceptual artist Rachel Lachowicz is known for turning her acerbically witty eye on the decidedly male realm of modernism. A mid-career survey as well as comprehensive monograph, Rachel Lachowicz presents an overview of 20 years’ worth of art-making. Labeled a “lipstick feminist” by the art world -- she once recast Yves Klein’s “Blue Venus” in cherry-red lipstick, and frequently uses cosmetics in her work – Lachowicz’s art falls under many headings: appropriationist, conceptual, feminist, postminimalist. Her work is always visually lush and often sexually provocative; through it, she explores the crisscrossing relations between identity and the politics of mark-making."

I was thrilled to have an opportunity to work again with Shoshana Wayne Gallery on a monograph for another one of their gallery artists. Rachel was very clear on what she liked and didn't like. The narrowing of parameters is welcome as it provides a very clear focus on the problem and the goal. The resulting book layout is clean and sophisticated, without clever devices to distract from the artwork. It was very gratifying to come to know Rachel and her work better ~ along with the extensive plates, the three essays are exceptional reads.

RUSSELL CROTTY
 2006 Artist's Monograph  
Published by Marquand Books Inc., Seattle in association with
CRG Gallery, New York NY and Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica CA
Essay by David Frankel
Hardcover, 64 pages including two gatefolds

"This first monograph for Russell Crotty is an extensive overview of his vast body of work, expressing his fascination for astronomy and nature through the medium of drawing. Through his rigorous study of the stars and direct observations through the telescope, Crotty offers a romantic and poetic view of the universe while blurring the line between scientific research and artistic license. His idiosyncratic renderings in ballpoint pen began on flat paper and evolved into compilations of drawings in oversized books and on paper-coated spheres.

I designed the entire book in close contact with Russell, with an intimate knowledge of how he would like to see his work portrayed. (Understandable as we do live together.)  The selection of images came from his galleries and from our own extensive archive of his work. It is rich with installation shots, pages from Russell's artist books, gatefolds and details.

© 2010-2023, LAURA GRUENTHER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.