TEXTS FOR NOTHING
Publication Date: May 1, 2011
5.5 x 8.5 in / 216 x 140 mm
Hardcover / B&W Interior / 68 pp
ISBN: 978-0-9833815-4-9
$16.00 USD
Author: Harold Mendez
Foreword: Tricia Van Eck
‘Glorious prospect, but for the mist.’ A fictional conversation in the form of a tragicomedy. Two characters, Braille Teeth (from a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat) and Nobody (from the film Dead Man by Jim Jarmusch), share a difficult journey across a landscape abstract and universal yet sharply particularized. With appropriations from Sartre, TV on the Radio, Deadwood, Beckett, Ellison, McCarthy, Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber, Lacan.
Harold Mendez is an interdisciplinary artist based in Chicago.  His work concerns the relationship between landscape, visibility, politics, and memory. He earned his MFA in 2007 from the University of Illinois, Chicago.  Solo exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Contemporary Art Workshop, Mess Hall, Polvo, and Western Exhibitions, all in Chicago. Group exhibitions include The Drawing Center, New York; The Renaissance Society, Chicago; the London Biennale, UK; vuspace, Australia; and the Chicago Cultural Center. Harold has taught at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Illinois Chicago; he has delivered lectures at The University of North Umbria (UK), Ox-Bow (Michigan) and the Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago).