hans ARP
andré BRETON
salvador DALÍ
walter De MARIA
marcel DUCHAMP
max ERNST
richard HAMILTON
rené MAGRITTE
joan MIRÓ
man RAY
“Pharmaceuticals", 1968
Julian Levy Gallery NYC, Multiple from the legendary subscription based art journal S.M.S. (Shit Must Stop), Edition Size apx. 2500,
Publisher: The Letter Edged in Black Press New York.
Condition:
Excellent- pill casings slightly dented as shown (very common, see pics).
Provenance:
Private Collection, France
Note:
The Julian Levy contribution comes from the #1 portfolio, and consists of a specially printed prescription pad with 5 empty pill casings. The prescription pad measures 5" x 5" and consists of 9 sheets. Not signed as issued. One from the first publication from Surrealist painter William Copley’s The Letter Edged in Black Press, SMS had a short (six issue) but rich lifespan. Conceived as a utopian/democratic meeting ground for artists’ projects of all stripes, SMS contributors were not given any direction or restrictions on the work they produced for the bi-monthly portfolio. Whatever the artists created, Copley and his assistant Dimitri Petrov reproduced with scrupulous fidelity to the original, sparing no expense. The work ranged from the purely conceptual to the carefully crafted, from well known and unknown artists alike. Subscriptions were sold and the portfolios were sent through the mail. The first SMS portfolio, whose cover/case was designed by Irving Petling, comes in a cardboard mailer addressed to the original recipient and contains the work of Su Braden, James Lee Byars, Christo, Walter DeMaria, Richard Hamilton, Kaspar König, Julien Levy, Sol Mednick, Nancy Reitkopf, and La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela. A formal announcement card serves as a table of contents. "Founded in New York City by artist, collector and dealer William Copley, S.M.S. was an art collection in a box, filled with small-scale, often whimsical, artworks available by subscription. Delivering art through the post offered Copley, and his collaborator Dmitri Petrov, a way to circumvent the art market and make contemporary art accessible to nearly anyone. Inspired by Copley’s mentor and friend Marcel Duchamp’s Boîte-en-valise, S.M.S. was conceived as an inter-media and intergenerational publication that would present artworks by prominent and unknown artists side by side. The magazine gathered an impressive range including the Surrealist luminaries Man Ray and Meret Oppenheim, Pop artists Richard Hamilton and Roy Lichtenstein, composers Lamont Young and Terry Riley, and an up-and-coming generation of conceptual and post-studio artists such as Joseph Kosuth and Bruce Nauman. Regardless of stature, each was paid $100 for their contribution. This egalitarian spirit extended to the communal atmosphere of Copley’s upper west side Letter Edged in Black Press loft which functioned as an unofficial hangout for many of the participants.