Erin Cosgrove
Baader-Meinhof Affair
08/03/2003 - 18/04/2003
Printed Matter, Inc.
535 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011
tel: 212 925 0325
www.printedmatter.org
The Baader-Meinhof Affair
Book Launch and Exhibition by Erin Cosgrove
Opening March 8, 2003
Image: The Baader-Meinhof Affair by Erin Cosgrove, Published by
The Baader-Meinhof Affair
Book Launch and Exhibition by Erin Cosgrove
at Printed Matter, Inc.
Launch and Opening: Saturday, March 8, 2003, 5 to 7 PM
Printed Matter is very pleased to announce a book launch and exhibition
for Erin Cosgrove’s The Baader-Meinhof Affair, to take place at
Printed Matter, Inc., on Saturday, March 8, 2003, from 5 to 7 PM. The author
will be present to sign copies of her book. The exhibition will continue
through April 19, 2003.
Erin Cosgrove is an artist living in Los Angeles. She received her MFA
from University of California at Los Angeles in 2001. Using video,
performance, drawing, digital media and writing, Cosgrove manipulates
traditional forms – such as fetish, romance novels, manifestos and the
bible – to explore the relationship between the public and the profane,
the reasoned and the rant.
In her ongoing project, Seven Romance Novels, she is
simultaneously writing seven romance novels: The Baader-Meinhof Affair, False Puppy
Love, The Hand-Me-Down Boyfriend, Kate’s M.R.S. Degree, Love’s Other Shoe,
Sycophant Love and The Two-Timing Two-Stepper. Each novel is
written from the point of view of seven different authors, all named Erin Cosgrove,
and each novel, in its own way, subverts the romance genre’s formula by
carrying its logic to unromantic extremes. The result of these
examinations fluctuates between criticizing, satirizing and supporting
its subject, accentuating and toying with the ambivalence most of us feel
when confronted with full-throttle romance.
The first book in the series, The Baader-Meinhof Affair, is, at
its core, a study in the unlawful roots of romance. Courtly love – the beginning
of western romance – is by definition adulterous love or love not
sanctioned by the church and state. To this day the arts romanticize the outlaw:
think Hollywood or the avant-garde. The Baader-Meinhof Affair
continuesthis romance with the rebel by depicting the unlikely amour between a
student studying sadistic serial killers and a Baader-Meinhof aficionado.
The Baader-Meinhof Timeline – which will be installed at Printed
Matter from March 8 through April 19, 2003 – spans from the beginning of time
to the moment the heroine gets dropped off at Norden College by her
parents.
The Timeline highlights real and fictional events relevant to
The
Baader-Meinhof Affair including the arrest of the Baader-Meinhof
Gang and the date Fabio – who poses with Cosgrove on the novel’s cover – first
modeled for a romance novel. Ultimately the timeline posits The
Baader-Meinhof Affair as fate, with all of history paving the way to
its inception.
The Baader-Meinhof Affair is the first book to be published by
Printed Matter, Inc. as part of its new Publishing Program for Emerging
Artists, which was made possible through generous support of New York City’s
Department of Cultural Affairs. Additional support has also been
provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts, the Elizabeth Firestone
Graham Foundation, and the Heyday Foundation.
The Baader-Meinhof Affair is a trade paperback with a four-color
cover and
black-and-white interior, 248 pages, 6-3/4 x 4-1/4 inches, ISBN:
0-89439-010-4, and is priced at $14.95. The Baader-Meinhof Afair,
and over 15,000 other artists’ books are available from Printed Matter’s
website: www.printedmatter.org
Printed Matter, Inc. is located at 535 West 22nd Street, between 10th
and 11th Avenue, in New York’s Chelsea district.
For additional information, please contact David Platzker, Executive
Director, Printed Matter, Inc., at (212) 925-0325 or
dplatzker@printedmatter.org
Printed Matter, Inc. is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization
founded in 1976 by artists and art workers with the mission to foster
the appreciation, dissemination, and understanding of artists’ books and
other artists’ publications.
Printed Matter has received support, in part, through grants from the
National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts,
the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The Andy Warhol
Foundation for the Visual Arts, New York Arts Recovery Fund, The Horace
W. Goldsmith Foundation, Art for Art’s Sake, The New York Community Trust,
Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation, The Roy and Niuta Titus
Foundation, Heyday Foundation, The Kettering Family Foundation, CHS Foundation, The
Liman Foundation, Fifth Floor Foundation, The Cowles Charitable Trust,
Philip Morris Companies Inc., Women’s Studio Workshop, Milton Sally
Avery Arts Foundation, and private foundations and individuals worldwide.
Printed Matter, Inc. is not affiliated with, nor a division of, any
other non-profit origination.
