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Been prepping for the New York Art Book Fair all week and it opened last night. So, this is to say: No damn post this week. However, if you care about heta-uma, King Terry (more Terry stuff than has ever been in North America at one time), psychedelic posters, Karl Wirsum, Moebius and other awesome things, you owe it to yourself (more or less) to come see the PictureBox 300 sq. ft. room at PS1/MoMA. Specially designed, fully immersion. 2nd floor, room 203. It’ll blow your mind. Pix here.

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Alert: Cross posting here, but I can’t resist: Here’s Karl Wirsum talking with me (stress-relieving margherita margarita in hand) about his current show, which I co-curated.

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PictureBox will be in two places at once this weekend: SPX in Bethesda, MD and the Brooklyn Book Festival in NYC!

First: We will be at SPX in Bethesda, MD, tables G5-G8. Frank will of course be occupying one table, foisting his epic back issue selection on you, the unsuspecting yet increasingly discerning consumer!

There will be many wonderful things at PBox for you to blow your cash on:

-We will be hosting Brian Ralph and Paul Lyons as they launch the new issue of Monster, featuring work by Brinkman, Chippendale, CF, Drain, Goldberg, and many others.

-Advance copies of Renee French’s H Day and Julie Doucet and Michel Gondry’s My New New York Diary for sale!

–Karl Wirsum: Drawings 1967-70 – A deluxe oversize new catalog from the master accompanying the exhibition I curated at Derek Eller Gallery, NYC.

–Garo Manga: The First Decade – Ryan Holmberg’s essential history

-A new zine by Matthew Thurber and Billy Grant

-Yuichi Yokoyama’s BABYBOOMFINAL – Yokoyama’s insane art/comics heavyweight tome

-Our full line of vintage Brazilian porn

-Deep and dark publications from the Paris house United Dead Artists, including Permagel by Charles Burns

-And because no one except Jason Miles asked for it: Complete runs of the early 1980s classic: New York City Outlaws!

-We will also have one, that’s right, ONE, copy of If ‘n Oof for you to ogle and be amazed by.

If that wasn’t enough, we will be at the Brooklyn Book Festival on Sunday, with all of the above, and more! Come see us in Suburban D.C. or downtown Brooklyn.

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Ray Yoshida: “Comic Book Specimen – #2 – Right Profile,” 1968

Ray Yoshida: “After an hour,” 1968

I got a rather sad email this afternoon. Ray Yoshida, a crucial figure in the birth of the Hairy Who and their colleagues in mid-late 1960s Chicago art, passed away a few days ago after a sustained illness. He was 78. As an instructor at the Art Institute, Yoshida taught the likes of Roger Brown and Christina Ramberg, and was an older contemporary and champion of Jim Nutt, Gladys Nilsson, and Karl Wirsum, among others. He is credited with being a force for cohesion amongst the artists of the time, as well as an early supporter. His own work, beautifully redered paintings that bring figuration close to pattern-making and abstraction, and luminous, jigsaw puzzle-like collages, is also extremely powerful and important. I never met Yoshida, to my regret, but he was spoken of warmly by Nutt and Nilsson, and his New York gallerist, Adam Baumgold. He is the second crucial figure from that period to pass in recent months. Don Baum, who first exhibited the Hairy Who at the Hyde Park Art Center, died a few months back. Baum, an artist and curator, was an important early champion of the work. I visited him in 2005 and recorded a long interview. He was a very sweet, and sharp man, surrounded by the work of the artists he so loved. I’m grateful to have met him. In any case, all of this reminds me how much I love the work of that period, and how still under-researched it remains. My condolences to the Yoshida family, and, belatedly, to the Baum family.