The Thing Quarterly

Final Game of the tournament

On the 21st of January 2010, from 6pm on into the night, Ryan Gander’s issue 9 of THE THING Quarterly was  publicly released at Lisson Gallery , 29 Bell Street location in London. This issue is the third edition of a parallel card project that Gander created in collaboration with Europa, and was used in a special card tournament played at the gallery.

Lisson Gallery’s Bell Street location was briefly turned into a card room and became the site of a full-on tournament open to 64 players with a cash prize for the winner. Players were following the rules of Parallel Black Jacks, as set forth in the informational poster that accompanied the issue.

On the 21st of January 2010, from 6pm on into the night, Ryan Gander’s issue 9 of THE THING Quarterly will be publicly released at Lisson Gallery , 29 Bell Street location in London. This issue is the third edition of a parallel card project that Gander created in collaboration with Europa, and will be used in a special card tournament played at the gallery.

For one day, the Lisson Gallery’s Bell Street location will be turned into a card room and will be the site of a full-on tournament open to 64 players with a cash prize for the winner. Player’s will be following the rules of Parallel Black Jacks, as set forth in the informational poster that accompanied the issue. Will and Jonn will be in London for the tournament. If you are in that part of the world, come out and double down.

For more information on the tournament visit:  www.lissongallery.com/#/news/

On December 16, 2009, Ryan Gander’s issue 9 was wrapped with the help of much pizza from Haystack Pizza and several cases of Anchor Beer.  We wrapped 700 issues in under two hours at studio 227.  Big thanks to everyone who came out and to Lenny Gonzalez for the great pictures.

THE THING is a recipient of the Southern Exposure Alternative Exposure Grant!
We are very honored to announce that we were selected as one of the recipients of this Warhol funded grant for our proposed project SASE. More info on this will be coming soon. Virginia White, THE THING’s Associate Editor, will be the Managing Editor on this project.

Have you seen McSweeney’s latest issue, The Panorama, a one day newspaper for San Francisco? It’s amazing. Through a turn of events we were invited to place an ad for THE THING in this issue… in the book review section as it turns out, and we decided to ask artist Dave Muller to create an ad for us. The result is amazing. You can have your very own copy of this advertisement if you purchase McSweeney’s #33.

We are very excited to announce that artist, writer and curator, Matthew Higgs will be creating issue 13 for THE THING, which will be released fall 2010.

We will be wrapping Ryan Gander’s issue (#9) on Dec. 16th at our San Francisco Studio at 3435 Cesar Chavez, studio 227.  San Francisco, CA from 5-8PM.  If you are in San Francisco, drop by and have a beer and help wrap a few issues.  This issue will be mailed out to the subscribers on Thursday the 17th.

Thursday Night, Oct. 22nd 8:00-9:00PM at the Temple Nightclub and Prana Restaurant in San Francisco, 540 Howard St San Francisco, CA 94105

Oracuolution by Lucas Murgida

As part of an ongoing series of  projects, THE THING has commissioned Bay Area performance artist Lucas Murgida to create a performance for the opening night party of the San Francisco Film Society’s Cinema By the Bay.  The party, which takes place Thursday, October 22, 8:00 pm at the Temple Nightclub & Prana Restaurant, is the kick-off for the Film Society’s the three-day festival which will feature new work produced in or about the San Francisco Bay Area and provide a compelling window into Bay Area film culture and practice at its best.

THE THING was asked to participate, and we decided to commission Lucas to create a performance for the event.

Lucas’ performance, which is titled Oracuolution, will work something like this: An oracle will be placed on the sidewalk in front of the club.  Predictions of the future will be dispensed for real.

Through performances and interventions Lucas engages the public in a dialogue concerning their notions of service, perception, liberation, and derivations of power. To do this, he earns a living as through employed “research” to inform his artistic practice. He finds employment in a particular area of interest and then constructs pieces that expose the embedded metaphors inherent in the job structures. In doing this, he employs overlooked aspects these environments such as  furniture, service people, locks or teachers. This process has included extensive projects dealing with his careers in cabinetmaking, restaurant work, locksmithing, and yoga instruction.

This performance is part of THING Projects: an ongoing series of projects commissioned by THE THING as a way to make better things out in the world.

image by Lenny Gonzalez

Issue 7 of THE THING will be released to the public on Tuesday September 15 at Printed Matter in New York City.  Jonathan Lethem will be on hand to sign issues from 5:00-7:00PM.  If you are around, come and join all of us.  We would love to see you and say hi.

The issue, which is titled “Chaldron Optical System,” consists of a clam-shell case, a care and maintenance instruction booklet (written by Jonathan and the editors), and a pair of glasses with text embedded on the inside arms.  It was designed and manufactured in collaboration with Matt Singer and Selima Salaun of Selima Optique.  This is their first collaborative endeavor under the banner of Project Selima & Matt.

Jonathan Lethem is the author of The Fortress of Solitude and six other novels. His stories and essays have appeared widely. In 2005 he was named a Fellow of the MacArthur Foundation.

Jonathan’s issue is based on his ongoing interest in “impossible objects.” In describing his work on this issue, he says, “ for the last few years (and in another sense, for my entire life), I’ve been concerned with fictions that among other things present human encounters with “impossible objects”, a description that encompasses instances as diverse as Henry James’ THE  GOLDEN BOWL, Arthur C. Clarke’s RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA and Dr. Seuss’s ON BEYOND ZEBRA. I’ve finished a novel, to be published in October, called CHRONIC CITY, in which the object in question is called a “chaldron”. During the years of this book’s writing I found myself by chance repeatedly drawn into collaborations with a series of other artists or art-presenters (see: Jennifer Palladino, Matthew Ritchie, and THE THING) and in each case I used it to further the foolish postulate that “chaldrons” were a part of the world outside the novel, an error shared by my book’s characters.”

Issue 7 will be available on-line at thethingquarterly.com and through Printed Matter in New York City; The Curiosity Shoppe in San Francisco; and Ooga Booga in Los Angeles.  The price of the back issue is $60.

all images by Lenny Gonzalez

Jonathan Lethem’s issue 7 was wrapped and sent out to the subscribers on Thursday, July 9th at Southern Exposure in San Francisco.  It also happened to be our second year anniversary of being THE THING.  And we couldn’t think of a better place or way to celebrate than to wrap a couple of hundred issues at the place where THE THING started.  So we celebrated with a bunch of subscribers and friends by wrapping issue 7, drinking beer, eating pizza, and listening to records.  We also had an amazing cake, a cake that looked like a bunch of THING issue all stacked up.  The cake was made by Elinor Diamond.

As mentioned in many other places, these issues are a result of a broad collaboration.  THE THING would not have come into being if not for the help and support of Southern Exposure.  Jonathan Lethem’s idea for this issue came to life thanks to Matt Singer and Selima Salaun of project Selima & Matt.  The insert layout design was by McFadden & Thorpe (who have been working with us on all of our layout and desgin since issue 2).  And finally a big thanks to Brent Hoff at Wholphin DVD, who brought THE THING and Jonathan together.