December 20th was a Tuesday
Jen asked us all at 20x200 to throw in our Top 10 20x200 Prints of 2011 (a list of which I think you’ll all have an opportunity to see soon). We released more prints this year than ever before, and the work—especially considering how much effort was required to release it—is beautiful. In putting together this list, I thought just a little bit about why I picked each print, and I’ll share them with you here. They’re in no particular order, except in how I remembered them.
1. Jason Polan: 50 People of New York
Jason is the quintessential 20x200 artist for me. I’ve followed this
project for as long as I’ve known of him, and that we’re able to sell these originals makes me tingle inside. Megan, our production coordinator, showed me one of the people, marked “Man in Red Pants”, which spoke directly to me, but which I’ve ceded to the random tides; I’d love any one of these in my house.
I still can’t get over
this guy’s last name. Our prints of this work (and its partner) are absolutely some of the most beautiful black and white work we’ve ever released. The way day and night exist at once in the photo, and the level of insanely sharp detail he’s been able to capture… I could stare at these all day—especially at larger sizes, but even at 11x14. They’re so California.
When the tech team here was finishing up our new edition page, I pulled up
Jennifer’s Oranges almost every single time I had to check it. When you first install or start working with a 3D rendering system, there’s a built in prototype of a tea kettle that you can use for testing. The quality of the light in this picture, coupled with the gravy boat, always makes me think of the unreliability of photography.
So playful and so simple, but a total love song to New York at the same time. It’s like what you’d get from a city full of ambitious kindergartners. That
Tom reminds me of that puts him in rare company for me.
I had a hard time picking one of
Laura’s pieces for this list. The way she composes and prints seems tailored to how we remember distant events. This reminds me of how I remember being a little kid, looking out over the sea wall at the beach in Maine near my grandmother’s house, and seeing her walk by the water in a muted green blouse.
Amazing documentary work, and incredibly touching. I was lucky enough to be with Jen and Sara as they looked through
Paul’s picks for these editions, and remembering how he talked about the process of making these photos still gives me the shivers. He couldn’t have known how much he was about to crystallize the emotions of a broken country when he talked his way onto the train that morning, but I’m glad he did, and I’m glad we had the opportunity to share these photos.
How do I pick my favorite word art of the year? Mike Monteiro had some amazing stuff, and Austin’s
Marriage print was wonderfully-timed and beautifully-executed. We released
two prints that prominently read “FUCK” this year, so
Craig faced pretty stiff competition. Having said that, I love letterpress, and I love math, and Craig really gets language and meaning in a way that is so, so funny.
Don told me about this work at the Affordable Art Fair last year. He was still buying the Hot Wheels on eBay, and I was sort of skeptical. Look at this print, though—it’s the kind of car I would have treated like shit as a four-year-old, and this is absolutely the peeled, leaden result—a result that ends up inadvertently reminding me of cop cars from the 70’s, sitting in some burned-out lot in the Bronx. The expression(!) on the cop’s face inside the car is one of “I can’t believe I survived that”. Love it.
How did
Todd make these? Jesus, I loved the OCD versions, but this is what happens when you just let it all go. It makes me think a lot more about the emotional state behind the ordered photos, and how delicate it is, and how much intense emotion and energy is locked in those rows. In a way, the exploding versions feel so relieved.
I love the people in
Jorge’s paintings. I love the Empire State Building. I love his devotion to amateurism and the life of the city. I could have picked any of Jorge’s prints, but this one, of two people in their darkened living room at night, light streaming in from the kitchen, as the Empire State Building lights up at dusk, is such a moment. It’s so perfectly “home”.
Every good top ten list goes to eleven. I’m particularly gratified to have met
Aaron Straup Cope while working here; he’s got one of the sharpest nerd minds I know of, and an incredibly fine sense of color and design. If you ever get a chance to meet him and talk about how he made these maps, and why, you will be a very lucky person. This particular map, of Paris, is a great juxtaposition of an ageless city and the data that emerges from it. Once you have spent time with the print (even if you know nothing about it), you begin to intuit all the things going on inside it. That’s the point of what we do here, and what we want for our collectors. It’s why I love this print and everything else on my list. There you go.
![This martini, and the accompanying post, is why we started Fastest Possible Drawings of Everything in the first place. Our coat of arms, if we had one, would read:
RUSH AND INSTRUCT
fastestpossible:
a Martini, by Laurea, in 6.7 seconds.
We’re always a little disappointed to see a martini glass with anything other than a martini inside it. Think about it: the Fastest Possible Martini is the fastest possible identifiable cocktail, as long as you assume that there is only one permissible use of a martini glass (and you should).
We won’t take sides in the great “gin versus vodka” debate, other than to point out Jim Coudal’s perfect description of the perfect martini. Fortunately for us, when working with a single pen, a blank card, and as little time as possible, all alcohols are clear. Other than that, there is only an olive here, small and perfect, speared with a toothpick; if you have identified it as a maraschino cherry, you have made a mistake, as—again—only a martini can be served in a martini glass, and no martini is served with a cherry.
To that end, does our tautological argument about the quintessential martini-ness of the martini glass hold water? [ed: No.] Could the Fastest Possible Martini be the simple elevated wedge profile of the glass itself? Understand this, reader: We hold ourselves to a higher standard; we are not simply depicting, but instructing. A martini glass holds a martini—there must be a martini within it, and a martini is [either gin or vodka], [shaken or stirred], with only the distant memory of vermouth and an olive (or two). If you did not know this, now you know. You also know that it takes 6.7 seconds to draw it.
Perhaps it is a bit early to put this out there, but it’s always noon somewhere, and history requires that I mention it: This, thrice over, makes a killer lunch. Enjoy them slowly, and converse.](http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyo3xz3tub1qbs5uso1_500.jpg)
