Peruvian Publisher Meier Ramirez Wins Ch.ACO’s Ograma / Nave de Ediciones Contest
Image courtesy of Ch.ACO
For Ch.ACO’s 10-year anniversary, to be held from November 22nd through the 26th, one of the celebratory milestones is the contest organized in association with Ograma Printers, that seeks to give a publishing house the opportunity to print and publish an art related project. After a month of deliberation, with over 80 applicants, we finally have a winner!
The jury, made up by Camila Opazo, Tonic Magazine Director and Curator of Nave de Ediciones section at Ch.ACO Art Fair; Paula Escobar, Editor in Chief of El Mercurio supplements; Irene Abujatum, Director of FAVA Foundation; Gonzalo Oyarzún, Sub Director of Dibam’s National System for Public Libraries; and Andrés Urrutia, Director of Virtual Advertisement on behalf of Ograma, established that the winner project is “Blue Pieces” by Jerry B. Martin, presented by Andres Marroquín’s publishing house, Meier Ramirez Books.
The editorial project rescues the work done in 2001 by Colombian artist Jerry B. Martin. Owner of a model #17 Remington Rand Standard typewriter, all of his work from that time period was created using this machine; he carefully reproduced contemporary art works using the sole letters produced by the typewriters keyboard, as one would use a stylus to draw. The text that makes up the image, and gives it context, is inspired on critical essays about the art piece in question. In 2007, Martin exhibited a more extensive series of this work for the first time, following the same production method, and called it Blue Pieces.
As Andrés Marroquín told Ch.ACO, the use of the Remington Rand Standard and the ink tapes itself was not only a way of showing his interest for concrete or experimental poetry and the work of conceptual artists, but also a way to relocate the productive impulse in a context in which new digital media in the fields of art are at an exponential increase. In that sense, pressing a Remington key was a way of going against the floating and spectral ubiquity of a pixel, but also a way of taking a position in the debate on the conditions in which an art practice is developed.
The book will be published as a joint project between Ch.ACO and Ograma Printers, and will be launched in Ch.ACO Art Fair 2018.
Image courtesy of Ch.ACO
ABOUT MEIER RAMIREZ BOOKS
In 2014 Andrés Marroquín Winkler creates Meier Ramirez, an editorial platform based in Lima, Peru. His mission is to work with Peruvian and international artists, so as to translate their work to a paper friendly editorial language. Since 2017, all limited editions of Meier Ramirez Books are part of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
