Umbrella : The Anthology 1978-1998

Santa Monica, California: Umbrella Editions, 1999. Paperback. Fine. Color-pictorial wrappers, offset-printed, glue bound; 164 pp. with decorative end papers and occasional bw illustrations. Edited by Judith A. Hoffberg. Contributions by Clive Phillpot, Ken Friedman, Ita Aber, Walter Askin, Anna Banana, Mariona Barkus, Guy Bleus, Sas Colby, Patricia Collins, Jules Engel, J.C. Gagnon, William Harroff, Dick Higgins, E.F. Higgins III, Ruggero Maggi, Janet Pyle, Marilyn Rosenberg and Miriam Schaer. Articles about and interviews with Ulises Carrión, Warja Lavater, Paul Zelevansky, Phil Dadson, Rod Summers, Maurizio Nannucci, Klaus Groh, Bern Porter, Wolf Vostell, Kevin Osborn, Juliao Sarmento, Paula Claire, Angela Pahler, Peter Kusterman, Leavenworth Jackson, Richard Kostelanetz, Elaine Langerman, Lawrence Weiner, George Maciunas, Jean Brown, and Hoffberg. "It is hard to believe that more than twenty years have passed since the first issue of 'Umbrella' was issued as a fledgling newsletter catering to the ever-changing vicissitudes of contemporary visual art, especially that of artist books, mail art, video art, rubber-stamps, audio art, and everything else that was considered not very important in the realm of the nearly new 'market' which came with the eighties and the boom in contemporary and modern art. ... Many of these articles respond to a conference, symposium, a book art exhibition, all referring to date-sensitive events. But in a strange way, it also marks a trace of a historic moment, one in which there was a vitality and an energy, in which book publishers, resource collectors, multi-faceted artists, and curators did whatever seemed right at the moment. Many of our colleagues are gone, the publishers have quit their businesses, and alternative spaces and foundations which nourished their work are no longer extant. So read these chapters as if you were reading 'you are there' historic moments, traces of memory, and the markers in the history of alternative in the contemporary art world of the past twenty years." -- Judith A. Hoffberg (1934 - 2009) from book's foreword.