Vincent Sardon
The Stampographer
September 22–24, 2017
MoMA PS1
2nd Floor, Room R, Tables 4 & 5
Long Island City, NY
“The most exciting book of the Fall publishing season is The Stampographer.” —Steve Heller
Introducing English-language readers to one of the most unusual and original voices in contemporary French culture, The Stampographer traverses the fantastic, anarchic imagination of Parisian artist Vincent Sardon, whose dark, combative sense of humor is infused with Dadaist subversion and Pataphysical play.
Using rubber stamps he designs and manufactures himself, Sardon commandeers a medium often associated with bureaucratic power, then uses those stamps not to assert authority, but to subvert it. He scours the Parisian landscape as well as the world at large, skewering the power-hungry and the pretentious, reveling in the vulgar and profane.
In The Stampographer, there are insults in multiple languages, sadomasochistic Christmas ornaments, and a miniature Kamasutra with an auto-erotic Jesus. Sardon also wields the stamp as satirical device, deconstructing Warhol portraits into primary colors, turning ink blots into Pollock paint drips, and clarifying just what Yves Klein did with women’s bodies. Yet Sardon’s razor-sharp wit is tinged with the irony of his exquisite sense of beauty.
Sardon’s work is provocative in its subject matter as well as in its process and dissemination: he not only stands defiantly outside the art world’s modes of commerce but his artworks (the rubber stamps themselves) are actually the means with which anyone can make a work of their own.
An extensive interview with the artist is included in the book.
Hardback 100 pages, over 150 color illustrations
ISBN: 978-1-938221-16-3
Pub date: November 21
Two September NYC events (free and open to the public)
To celebrate the release of The Stampographer, Paris-based artist and provocateur Vincent Sardon makes a rare trip to NYC. The book will be available only at these two events before its official release.
The Stampographer Sardon at Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair
Friday–Sunday, September 22–24
MoMA PS1, 2nd Floor, Room R, Tables 4 & 5
Sardon will create a little parallel universe of “Le Tampographe,” his gallery-shop near Père Lachaise cemetery in the eleventh arrondisment in Paris. Rich with absurdity, wit and a healthy punch of profanity, Sardon’s visually arresting, highly detailed wall installation at the fair is an imprint of his singular imagination and highly tuned sense of humor. He’ll also have hundreds of rubber stamps on hand (many translated into English for the book).
Siglio will feature the book, along with its other fall title Anouck Durand: Eternal Friendship, and a wide selection of other Siglio backlist favorites by John Cage, Sophie Calle, Dorothy Iannone, Ray Johnson, Cecilia Vicuña among others, all with a special 25% off discount for the fair.
Book launch party at Spoonbill Studio
Monday, September 25, 7–9pm
99 Montrose, Avenue, Brooklyn
Siglio and Spoonbill & Sugartown Booksellers host a book launch party for The Stampographer with a signing and rubber stamp demonstration at Spoonbill Studio. This is a chance to get a personally signed copy of the book, see the stamps in action, and chat with Sardon outside the hubub of the fair.
About the artist
Vincent Sardon is a radically independent artist in Paris. He began his career as political cartoonist for the left-wing newspaper Libération then, disillusioned, he set out on his own to make rubber stamps, of which he’s now made thousands. He has an ardent cult following in France due in part to the illustrious L’Association publication of Le Tampographe, a four-year journal narrating his artistic life and work, which is now in its third printing.
About Siglio Press
Recently relocated from Los Angeles to the Hudson River Valley in New York, Siglio is an independent press dedicated to publishing uncommon books that live at the intersection of art and literature. Artists and writers we publish include Joe Brainard, Marcel Broodthaers, John Cage, Sophie Calle, Karen Green, Dorothy Iannone, Jess, Ray Johnson, Richard Kraft, Robert Seydel, and Nancy Spero.