Your House is Mine. [Poster Artists Combating Homelessness, Documenting a Social Movement]

New York: Bulletspace, etc., 1991. First Edition/Limited Edition. Hardcover. Fine in Fine Rubber Wrapper.. First Edition/Limited Edition. Hardcover. "This project is a collection of images and texts, defining and expressing the broad and essential issue of housing on the Lower East Side, and is a statement of the underlying force of ‘art as a means of resistance'. It is both a documentation and expression of social/political issues in our neighborhood, and on a larger scale to symbolize similar conflicts in other parts of the world." [Bulletspace]
Printed at Bullet Space (an anarchist squatter community since 1982), The Lower East Side Workshop, Black Cat Printshop, Cooper Union, and the Brandywine Workshop. Funded by Art Matters, Artist Space, Northstar Fund, Andy Warhol Foundation. The work includes 32 silkscreened posters [on Mohawk vellum paper], all signed by the artists: Paul Castrucci; John Fekner; Stash Two; Tom McGliynn & Emily Carter; Day Gleeson & Dennis Tomas; Nadia Coen; Anton Von Dalen; Juan Sanchez; Martin Wong; Miguel Pinero & Andrew Castrucci; Betzaida Concepcion; Seth Tobocman; Sabrina Jones; Red Rodriquez; Marguerite Van Cooke & James Romberger; Neighborhood News; David Wojnarowicz; Lee Quinones & Eduardo Galleano; Lady Pink; Sebastian Schroeder; Missing Foundation; Salter Sipser; Bruce Witsiepe; Will Sales; Vincent Galgliostro & Avram Finkelstein; Eric Drooker.
"This project is a collection of images and texts concerning the broad and essential issue of housing on the Lower East Side [of Manhattan]." It presents a series of posters created to bring attention to New York City's campaign of condemning entire blocks of decent low-income housing in order to demolish them and build more taxable high-rise housing. It is a document of an impressive and provocative public art project featuring some of the most well-known artists of this activist art movement centering on housing, economics, healthcare, gay and lesbian and other civil rights...and of the American art world of the time. Many of the artists have become well-known in recent years, with their works represented in collections at the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of the City of New York, El Museo del Barrio, the Brooklyn Museum, etc. Several artist included have emerged as major figures in the Graffiti Art Movement. Several are now faculty at prestigious colleges.
Each of the posters was printed in an edition of approximately 300, half formed the core of this book series, the rest were posted in the neighborhood. These posters catalyzed and sometimes escalated the intensity of the dialog around the ongoing issues of gentrification, conservation, urban development and social justice that is the bedrock of the Lower East Side experience. Beyond that, culturally the posters embody a 20th Century movement where artists combined innovative materials, design and aesthetics with radical and populist politics that had a great impact on the art world of New York and beyond. The unusual, heavy, lead-covered binding was designed to convey the feeling of oppression.
The significance of the work...and a reason for its increasingly scarcity...can be seen in an overview of institutions who now hold a copies: Brooklyn Museum, NY; Cooper-Hewitt, NY; Fogg Museum at Harvard University, MA; Getty Institute, Los Angeles, CA; Gutenberg Bibliotek, Germany; Herzon Museum, Germany; Mainz Bibliotek, Germany; MoMA, NY; Museo del Commune di Milan, Italy; Offenback Bibliotek, Germany; Pesci Museum, Italy; Smith College, MA; Spencer Collection at Yale University, CT; Staadt Museum, Germany, Stielich Bibliotek, Germany; University of Kansas, KS; Kohler Art Library at University of Wisconsin, WI; Victoria and Albert Museum, UK; Wellesley College, MA; the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY." [Bulletspace]
The final line of the forward to Your House is Mine reads, "We have taken this opportunity to unite the following people in this collaborative project, as a statement of ‘art as a means of resistance.'" It is a remarkable statement. Very minor shelf/edge wear to spine, else tight, bright and unmarred. Black rubber sheet wrapper, numbered in white ink with the limitation. Wooden boards, rubber hinges, bolted spine, boards/spine covered in lead, painted lettering on boards. fo. np. Illus. (color and b/w plates). Limited numbered edition, this being ___ of 150. All posters signed by the artist.