“What is an edition, anyway?”

McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco, 2019

This group exhibition presents artworks from the McEvoy Family Collection and the collection of Thomas Cvikota alongside new and commissioned projects by Enrique Chagoya, Daniel Clowes, Ala Ebtekar, Jonn Herschend, Stephanie Syjuco, and Hank Willis Thomas. Alison O’Daniel: The Tuba Thieves, a related daily video program guest organized by Tanya Zimbardo, features works that explore acts of listening and producing sound.
What is an edition, anyway? is the Bay Area version of an exhibition of the same name co-curated by Cvikota and Susan Tallman for Chicago’s Mana Contemporary in 2018. For this iteration, or “edition,” artistic approaches in photography, performance, illustration, technology, and installation further explore the notion of an edition as an idea reproduced in limited quantities.
Featuring limited-edition artists’ books, prints, album covers, film ephemera, and other objects dating from the mid-20th century to the present, the exhibition provides a historical context to editions-based practices while engaging six contemporary artists to contribute creative projects that reflect their personal interpretations of the concept. Themes of politics, ownership, authenticity, sampling, distribution, creative autonomy, and empowerment run strongly through the presented objects and artworks.

Participating artists:

Diane Arbus, Richard Baker, Mary Ellen Bartley, Erica Baum, Tammy Rae Carland, Anne Collier, Natalie Czech, Moyra Davey, Marcel Duchamp, Haris Epaminonda, Kota Ezawa, Sigurdur Gudjónsson, Martin Kersels, André Kertész, Christian Marclay, Dennis Morris, Yuji Obata, Marilù Parolini, Richard Prince, Taryn Simon, Wayne Thiebaud Hank Willis Thomas, Mickalene Thomas, Panos Tsagaris, John Waters, Richard Artschwager, John Baldessari, Joseph Beuys, Bruce Conner, Allen Ginsberg, Ann Hamilton, Richard Hamilton, Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, David Ireland, Jasper Johns, Barbara Kruger, Glenn Ligon, Raymond Pettibon, Richard Prince, Allen Ruppersberg, Ed Ruscha, Andy Warhol, Lawrence Weiner.