Secondary Occupants on the Street

I was recently commissioned by Buffalo restaurateur Mark Goldman to do a wall piece on the side of Allen Street Hardware, one of Buffalo's better night spots. I adapted the design from the cover of Secondary Occupants, one of my faux books from the Secondary Occupants Collected & Observed project. The mural is part of a street art initiative started by Goldman in the Allentown district of Buffalo. A number of other artists have work on adjacent buildings, more about it here.

Montague Projects in Gestalten's Fully Booked

I'm happy to say that there is a page dedicated to my faux books (Volumes from an Imagined Intellectual History of Animals, Architecture and Man) in Gestalten's Fully Booked: Ink on Paper. There is a lot of great work in the book.

Secondary Occupants @ SUNY Fredonia

I had an installation open last night at the Marion Art Gallery at the State University of New York at Fredonia. It was a mix of work from the Secondary Occupants Collected & Observed project. Thanks to everyone who helped out with the show.

Secondary Occupants at UWAG

I spent last week at the University of Waterloo (Canada's M.I.T.) installing my Secondary Occupants Collected & Observed project at the University's art gallery. The show is up until December 17th. Check it out if you are passing through the Waterloo/Kitchener area. Thanks to everyone at UWAG and the students and faculty in the art department. 

Montague Projects in "The Modernist"

I just received my copy of The Modernist from Gestalten in the mail. I knew I had some of my faux book covers/posters in the book, but I was super excited to see that I had six pages! Gestalten is such an incredible publishing house, and this book is full of amazing work. I feel honored to be included.

UPDATE:

Make that eight pages, I just realized that there was another spread in the book featuring my cover for the Beyond/In Western New York Biennial and two of my faux record covers (Although the blue one is bizarrely cropped). It's a bit weird, my "fake" and "real" graphic design together.

Big in Japan

Last year Graniph, a Japanese T-shirt company, asked me to license the above faux book cover to be used on a shirt. I just received a box of shirts in the mail on Friday, you can check it out here. It's a crazy, globalized world!

Secondary Occupants in Frieze Magazine and Vogue

I just found out that my installation was mentioned favorably in Frieze Magazine's review of the Beyond/In Western New York Biennial by Steven Stern. The quote:

"Julian Montague’s droll Secondary Occupants Collected and Observed (2008–9) is a nutty mixture of graphic design and taxonomic brio, a multi-dimensional catalogue of non-human home invaders – rodents, birds and insects – that suggests the work of a deranged but thorough researcher."

The whole review is here, you have to register to view the contents but it's free and worth it, Frieze is one of the best art magazines. Secondary Occupants here.

Also, I finally got a hard copy of the issue of Vogue Italia that uses one of my spider banner photographs, apparently it takes forever for Vogue Italia to find its way to the Barnes & Noble in Buffalo. Between Beyond/In Western NY, the show at the Norton Museum, and my presence at the Pulse Fair in Miami I have had a pretty good few months as far as press goes. In addition to Frieze and Vogue Italia, my work has been mentioned in Art in America, The Miami Herald, Art Daily and The Buffalo News.

Secondary Occupants in Vogue Italia

One of my spider banner photographs appears (heavily cropped) full page in this month's Italian Vogue. It accompanies an article about Non-profit spaces in NYC. I think the writer found her way to my work through visiting my gallery's booth at the Pulse fair in Miami (Black & White Gallery's outdoor space is non-profit). I'm really excited about this, particularly because this series of photographs, part of To Know the Spiders and Secondary Occupants / Collected & Observed, has not received all that much attention. I still have not gotten my hands on the print copy yet, Vogue Italia is not that widely available in Buffalo, New York. Link the Vogue site here.

New Installation Shots from the Burchfield

I took some new shots with Tullis Johnson from the Burchfield using a Nikon D3 with a wide angle lens.

Secondary Occupants Collected & Observed Record Covers

I didn't have time to get proper documentation shots of the faux record covers in Secondary Occupants / Collected & Observed before the install, but I have them now. My fictional Hampshire University Records label is meant to resemble Smithsonian Folkways covers from the Ronald Clyne era.

Beyond/In Western NY Biennial installation at the Burchfield Penney

As I previously mentioned, things have slowed down on the blog because I was busy for the last couple weeks installing the second incarnation of my Secondary Occupants Collected & Observed installation. I've never had this much space to work with so it ended up being the biggest thing I've done to date. The whole show at the Burchfield had a curatorial sub theme (apart from the theme of the Biennial) of architecture. I was reunited with my Ecologies of Decay partners J-M Reed and Dennis Maher along with Michael Beitz, Joe Bochynski, Karen Brummund, Kyle Butler, Carl Lee, and Jamie O'Neil. I'm biased but I think all of the work in the show is fantastic, I'll post some images of the other work soon. The opening on Sunday was great, there were over 1000 people in attendance. Thanks to everybody who came out and thanks to everyone at the Burchfield Penney for making it happen.