Bootlegging Not As Something It Is, But As Something It Does (2024)
Text, Bookmaking
Each written by hand in blue pen on a page in the book I Don’t Bootleg (Second Edition) (2024), Bootlegging Not As Something It Is, But As Something it Does appears in an edition of ten books produced and shown in the 2024 NY Art Book Fair (NYABF).
The text reads:
‘I put the holes on the cover of this thing like I'm Gordon Matta-Clark. Pope.L says “hole theory” explains nothing and this is in order to create a platform from which to engage everything. Whether black and brown kids from New York challenging corporate white supremacy or Nöl Collective in Palestine doing what they can to undermine capitalism itself; artists in the Chinese village of Dafen painting Van Gogh's to Yasiin Bey rapping MF DOOM; from indigenous scribes in scriptoriums thousands of years ago to my baby niece mimicking my brother's movements just yesterday, we're talking bootlegging not as something it is but something it does. I don't bootleg—my life as homage to language and action forming in real time. If we didn't copy eachother would we even know how to breathe? Diamond Stingily writes of our bodies as piles of fabric, sand dunes rubbing together.’—
Shirt, 2024
Unlike the shortended 44-page first edition bootleg Shirt made available for the occcasion of the panel discussion at MoMA Ps1 a month before, this second edition is the full 430+ page Unlicensed: Bootlegging As Creative Practice book, redesigned by Shirt and printed in official collaboration with the original publishers, Switzerland-based Source Type. Inverting the original book’s black and white negative print design back to positive, Shirt also punched the holes in the front cover by hand using the strip of cardboard made to say ‘Unlicensed’ on the spine.
See more information about the boolegged book of interviews here.
Additional photos available upon request
Text, Bookmaking
Each written by hand in blue pen on a page in the book I Don’t Bootleg (Second Edition) (2024), Bootlegging Not As Something It Is, But As Something it Does appears in an edition of ten books produced and shown in the 2024 NY Art Book Fair (NYABF).
The text reads:
‘I put the holes on the cover of this thing like I'm Gordon Matta-Clark. Pope.L says “hole theory” explains nothing and this is in order to create a platform from which to engage everything. Whether black and brown kids from New York challenging corporate white supremacy or Nöl Collective in Palestine doing what they can to undermine capitalism itself; artists in the Chinese village of Dafen painting Van Gogh's to Yasiin Bey rapping MF DOOM; from indigenous scribes in scriptoriums thousands of years ago to my baby niece mimicking my brother's movements just yesterday, we're talking bootlegging not as something it is but something it does. I don't bootleg—my life as homage to language and action forming in real time. If we didn't copy eachother would we even know how to breathe? Diamond Stingily writes of our bodies as piles of fabric, sand dunes rubbing together.’—
Shirt, 2024
Unlike the shortended 44-page first edition bootleg Shirt made available for the occcasion of the panel discussion at MoMA Ps1 a month before, this second edition is the full 430+ page Unlicensed: Bootlegging As Creative Practice book, redesigned by Shirt and printed in official collaboration with the original publishers, Switzerland-based Source Type. Inverting the original book’s black and white negative print design back to positive, Shirt also punched the holes in the front cover by hand using the strip of cardboard made to say ‘Unlicensed’ on the spine.
See more information about the boolegged book of interviews here.
Additional photos available upon request