“Brannon offers us a different perspective and, just maybe, a higher level of understanding when it comes to this great American disaster story.” –Clive Martin, CNN
Hbk, 8 x 11 in. / 176 pgs / 110 color. | 7/18/2019 | In stock $50.00
Published by Gregory R. Miller & Co.. Text by Matthew Brannon, Veronica Roberts. Interview with Mark Atwood Lawrence.
New York–based artist Matthew Brannon (born 1971) has spent the past five years exhaustively researching the Vietnam/American War, seeking his own understanding of one of the most pivotal confrontations of the 20th century and translating that research into intricate silkscreen works that collage military documents, maps, logos, memoranda and contemporaneous ephemera.
Concerning Vietnam distills a picture of the war and its ongoing effects in vivid, densely packed images that employ the bold graphic design for which the artist is known. Alongside these works are Brannon’s notes on the objects and situations they depict, constructing a detailed chronology of the war and a complex overview of the consequences of US intervention in Southeast Asia. Designed by Studio LHOOQ in close collaboration with the artist, Concerning Vietnam collects the entire series of prints and texts, with a new essay on the work by curator Veronica Roberts and a conversation between the artist and Vietnam historian Mark Atwood Lawrence.
Published by Art Gallery of York University. Text by Philip Monk.
To Say the Very Least is the first comprehensive publication on the print and installation work of the rising New York artist Matthew Brannon. Everything takes place on the surface, or just under it, in Brannon's work, just as everything is public or takes place in public there. The prints exploit their generic relation to advertising and posters, but the benign appearance of the illustrations, reminiscent of 1950s cookbooks and cocktail manuals, is undercut by the fine print of embossed texts, which teeter towards inappropriate confessions and unpardonable acts. These texts, with their hint of literary genres tinged by noir, are little melodramatic scenarios of success and failure, careerism and alcoholism, substance abuse and sexual misadventure. Each set of prints stages Brannon's principal question, "Why are people their own worst enemies?"
Matthew Brannon: To Say the Very Least