This collection of poetry, prose, and other texts is the first publication dedicated to the writing of the late performance, video, and visual artist Stuart Sherman.

The Stuart Sherman Papers presents a selection of facsimile reproductions from his archive. This collection of entries is not exhaustive but conveys the diversity in Sherman’s writing, which used the ever-expanding vocabulary of the English language as a plastic material to study the abundance of meaning that can be derived through playing with combinations, order, and proximity of words. The texts reproduced here leave his edits, scribbles, and notes to self intact, presenting the page as Sherman last engaged with it.

Stuart Sherman (1945–2001) was a New York- based artist best known for his performances and video, but working in a variety of visual and literary media. He performed, exhibited, and lectured throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. Sherman died of AIDS in San Francisco in September 2001.

Edited by Michiel Huijben and designed by Loes Verstappen. Texts by Sally Banes, Mark Bradford, Michiel Huijben, and Nicholas Martin. Photography by Nathaniel Tileston and Paolo Rapalino.

The main portion of this book is a reissue of the texts Annette Wehrmann compiled in her self-made publication in the 1990’s. The publication was produced in a small edition for which Wehrmann chose the format of an 18 x 21 cm spiral bound notebook with a plain, red-orange cover. Her booklet contained a total of 38 single-sided photocopied pages of text whose introductory title-page bears the heading LUFTSCHLANGEN-TEXTE 1+.

The name LUFTSCHLANGEN-TEXTE refers to the performative context for which the texts were originally conceived. In the 1990’s and 2000’s, Annette Wehrmann participated in a large number of projects with her performances where she read passages typed out on serpentine streamers, inching along the colorful winding strips she’d placed throughout the room.

A key figure in the New York art scene, Amy Sillman is renowned for her singular approach to painting and drawing. Her writings extend a practice that challenges traditions and theoretical frameworks with criticality and humor, and advocates subjectivity: she reevaluates Abstract Expressionism with a queer eye, explores the meanings of color and shape, and discusses in depth the work of other artists—from Delacroix (and Cézanne!) to Maria Lassnig to Carolee Schneemann to Laura Owens. In Faux Pas, a collection of her most recent essays, alongside her cartoons and original drawings, art—as personal as it is political—is a practice that responds to today’s struggles.