Plant Light Curtain

Rey Akdogan

Minerva Press
March 2023

42 x 29.7 cm (16.5 x 11.7 in)
100 pages; 45 tipped in, color images printed recto verso
Wire-O Binding
Clothbound slipcase w/ foil stamp
Booklet insert with conversation between Sarah Demeuse and Rey Akdogan

Limited edition of 30 copies + 2 artist’s proofs and 3 hors commerce
Signed and numbered by the artist

$600 - To order, contact katherine@sequencepress.com

Consultant to the artist and the publisher: Three Star Books, Paris; This book has been made possible by significant support from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Chicago; Hannah Hoffman, Los Angeles; and Sequence Press, New York.

Drawing on an archive of tear sheets from magazines covering interior design, architecture, and lifestyle, Rey Akdogan uses subtraction to transform the way in which these images can be recognized and read. Experimenting with the plasticity of the paper and the porousness of pigments, these subtractions scramble the societal and economic hierarchies embedded in advertising media. The artist focuses on the recurrence of light, plants, and curtains as atmospheric elements; and in an accompanying conversation with writer and curator Sarah Demeuse, reflects on classification systems, the subtle ways value is constructed through principles of organization, and how these ordering approaches have shifted in the distracted pandemic years.

The project tests the format of the swatch book—an important tool for various disciplines: architecture, interior design, theatre, cinema, and graphic design. The visualization of languages of classification underscores the ways environmental atmospheres are projected on the basis of small, standardized fragments and the manner in which these samples reflect hierarchies of value.

Rey Akdogan (b. 1974, Germany) completed the Whitney Independent Study Program in 2004 after receiving her MA from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London in 2001. Recent solo exhibitions dedicated to her work include Lost Record, Commercial Street, Los Angeles (2022), Subtractions, Galerie Anke Schmidt, Cologne (2021), Rey Akdogan, Hannah Hoffman, Los Angeles (2017), Faction, Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York (2017), Rey Akdogan, Radio Athènes, Athens (2016), Crash Rail, Miguel Abreu Gallery (2015), Rey Akdogan, Hannah Hoffman (2014), night curtain, Miguel Abreu Gallery (2012), off set, MoMA PS1, New York (2012), and Silent Partner, Andrew Roth Gallery, New York (2012). She was included in the XIV Bienal de Cuenca in 2018, as well as in group shows at Dia:Beacon, Real Fine Arts, Venetia Kapernekas Gallery, Simone Subal Gallery, Elisabeth Ivers Gallery (all in New York), Galerie Anke Schmidt (Cologne), Galerie Max Mayer (Düsseldorf), FraenkelLAB (San Francisco), Galerie Balice Hertling (Paris), Galerie Tatjana Pieters (Ghent), and Rodeo Gallery (Istanbul), among others. #46, a book of the artist’s work, was published by PPP Editions in 2012.