Very good.
Minor creasing and edgewear to covers.
Barbara Ess' copy with her Just Another Asshole stamp to title page.
Scarce artists' book.
This staple-bound, text-based publication accompanied Austrian-born, Brooklyn-based artist Josef Strau’s 2018 exhibition of the same name. His fourth solo show at Greene Naftali Gallery, the exhibition presented a new group of paintings, drawings, and text posters, although none of these are featured in this booklet. Standing as an enigmatic confession-memoir on its own, Tears and New Tears traces Strau’s autobiography and thoughts on contemporary art through highly eloquent and semi-sardonic automatic writing, linking together memories of his alleged dissipation into artmaking, penitent divulgences es of his inner mindscape, and discussions of Archangels.
On the exhibition itself: “The new paintings, inspired by a trip to Mexico and Strau’s interest in Byzantine iconography, are made of tin and soldering wire. Within deliberate erosions and incisions on the tin surfaces, Strau paints in a palette reminiscent of one of his childhood heroes, the Austrian-born artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Here, as in previous exhibitions, Strau pairs the tin-and-wire works with printed texts: automatic writing, infused with Strau’s memories and autobiography, organized visually into concrete forms.” — Greene Naftali Gallery
