Produced on the occasion of Laurie Parsons: A Body of Work 1987 at Museum Abteiberg, 15 April–8 September, 2018.

American artist Laurie Parsons (born 1959 in Mount Kisco, New York) was active with a number of exhibitions in the late 1980s and early 1990s and then transitioned away from the art world with consistent and determined gestures of commitment toward something else. A significant body of work was made in 1987 and shown in separate exhibitions at Lorence-Monk Gallery in New York in 1988 and Galerie Rolf Ricke in Cologne in 1989, after which the entire exhibition was purchased by a private German collection. Recently rediscovered and acquired by Gaby and Wilhelm Schürmann, it consists of found objects, mostly from around Parsons’s New Jersey studio—detritus from roads, natural and industrial wastelands. The words “a body of work” invoke Parsons’s terminology in a title-less exhibition that, interestingly enough, did not contain the word “installation.” The artist’s avoidance of this word is probably a key to understanding her attitude. The status of the found objects was shown as-is. As things from the street. Each one individually. Valuable in its origin and strong in its presence, “as strong as a work of art.”—L. Parsons

Includes a reprinted text by Renate Puvogel and a new essay by Maxwell Graham.

This collection of essays by Martin Herbert considers various artists who have withdrawn from the art world or adopted an antagonistic position toward its mechanisms. A large part of the artist’s role in today’s professionalized art system is being present. Providing a counterargument to this concept of self-marketing, Herbert examines the nature of retreat, whether in protest, as a deliberate conceptual act, or out of necessity. By illuminating these motives, Tell Them I Said No offers a unique perspective on where and how the needs of the artist and the needs of the art world diverge. Essays on Lutz Bacher, Stanley Brouwn, Christopher D’Arcangelo, Trisha Donnelly, David Hammons, Agnes Martin, Cady Noland, Laurie Parsons, Charlotte Posenenske, and Albert York.