The sea-hibiscus flowers start off pale yellow with deep red centres, and mature into rich striated sepia, at which point they fall, still beautiful. A few weeks before, a photo of fallen blooms had appeared on my phone, sent by a friend who lives around there. I recognised them at once. What are these flowers doing on your side of town? I wanted to know. They belong over here, near the champak trees. And there are others, too: I think of the guava trees that unashamedly drop their steamy musky crop around them when in season; and someone has planted, with wavering success, a moringa (I know it as drumstick tree); and I have even seen a Java apple — Malacca jambu to some — attempting to fruit. I know these flowers, I tell my friend. They’re where I’m from.

Text and images by Simryn Gill. Typesetting by Ruud Ruttens. Edition of 50.

Here and there are industrial white buckets, some with the ends of the entrail-tubes from the processors falling into them; others full of chemicals and with their lids still on; others yet empty. There are racks of PVC and metal rollers for the machines, and standing in the space between them, a jerry-rigged mini-crane to help her lift the lids off the monster-machines when she needs to dip inside to dislodge stuck paper or adjust or change something. A deep metal sink runs the narrower length of the room, large rubbery black gloves hanging off the edge. Plastic trays of various dimensions, once white and now in various hues of brown and yellow, lean against the back. In one corner there is a silver recovery unit for the metal that washes out of black-and-white printing, and which brings in a little bit of cash now and again. (There’s a second, similar machine stored away, Sandy tells me, given to her by the technician who comes to take out the silver; there’s not much call for them anymore).

Images & Essay by Simryn Gill. Typography by Ruud Ruttens. Edition of 60.

The Matrix by Norman H. Pritchard (1939–1996) gathers a selection of the Concrete and Black Arts poet’s work from 1960 to 1970. The seventy-one poems collected here might be regarded, as Charles Bernstein has written, as “sound” poems, being tethered not only to the literature of the Black Arts Movement but also to jazz culture and urban life in New York. Drawing as much from the visual arts and concrete poetry as from sound-based experimentation and music, Pritchard utilized the simple tools of spacing and typography to create syncopations, vibrations, and musical rhythms. What emerges is nothing less than a self-contained system of mimetic codes that challenge modernist modes of perception and representation. Formally innovative and anticipating what Michael Riffaterre would come to call the semiotics of “ungrammaticalities,” the book is a syntactical and visual experience in repetition, stutters, and structure.

A Letter to Danila: What You Hoped For Through Your Lifetime pays homage to the life and work of Russian born painter and sculptor, Danila Vassilieff. Vassilieff is credited with exposing Australian modernism to the figurative traditions associated with Russian decorative and folk art, influencing an entire generation of unapologetic young artists including Joy Hester, Arthur Boyd, Charles Blackman, and Sidney Nolan.

Domenico de Clario first encountered Vassilieff’s work as a teenager, when he stumbled across an old catalogue on the shelves of his high school library. Leafing through black and white reproductions of Vassilieff’s inner city neighbourhoods summoned memories and sensations of arriving with his own family from Trieste, Italy.

Produced on the occasion of Michael E. Smith’s exhibition at the Staatliche Graphische Sammlungen, München, 2 September–24 October, 2021.

Michael E. Smith makes sculptures out of cast-offs, waste and other residues of our consumer society. He assembles and manipulates this found material in an unusual way. He isolates objects, makes changes to their form and seeks out the limits of their imaginative power. His presentations are characterised by an intense yet sparse choreography of the exhibition space.

Writings 1973–1983 on Works 1969–1979 is an essential document of a decade of formative work by Michael Asher. Originally published in 1983, the book presents 33 works through the artist’s writings, photographic documentation, architectural floor plans, exhibition announcements, and other ephemera.

Initiated by Kasper König, Writings 1973–1983 on Works 1969–1979 was originally co-published by the Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and was largely shaped by Asher’s close collaboration with art historian Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, who succeeded König as editor of the press.