Above: Muzzle, ca. 1972, by John Ashbery, from Tibor de Nagy
2023 Auction
Ashbery Collage Collages
We sent some of John Ashbery’s collage materials to some of our favorite artists and poets to make into new art works to auction off to support The Flow Chart Foundation (thank you, Susan Bee, for the suggestion).
These new, original works containing Ashbery ephemera can soon be yours!
Ashbery maintained a collage practice throughout his life, expanding his poetics into visual form. The backgrounds of his collages ran the gamut from antique game boards to magazine covers to Renaissance prints. Instead of using the original game boards or prints, etc., he would have an assistant photograph them and have them printed out, sometimes at varied scale. He then worked with these images, usually as backgrounds, though sometimes also as materials he would cut up and use as elements within a collage. The Flow Chart Foundation’s Ashbery Resource Center has a large collection of these materials, from many of the antique game boards to a collection of prints Ashbery had had made but hadn’t yet used. Many of these images appear in collages he already did make (some images even appear in multiple collages).
The work of many of the artists here sell for thousands of dollars and we’re so grateful they’ve created new work for this special auction to support The Flow Chart Foundation.
Place a bid, get yourself a fine piece of art that also contains bits of Ashbery ephemera, and help keep Flow Chart flowing!
Below, images of artwork by Polly Apfelbaum, Susan Bee, Star Black, Todd Colby, Brandon Downing, Julie Evans, Lucio Pozzi, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Ben Gocker, Elizabeth Hazan, Wayne Koestenbaum, Joyce Kozloff, Richard Kraft, Jeffrey Lependorf, Guy Maddin, Debra Pearlman, Archie Rand, Frank Tartaglione, and Stephen Westfall. Click above for more details and to bid.
NOTE: Auction will close at 11:55pm on Thursday, October 27th. All bidding takes place online. Works can be picked up in person, or will be shipped UPS or FedEx (domestically — foreign purchase will require additional shipping).
SEE THE WORKS IN PERSON at a reception on Saturday, October 22nd, 3–5pm, at the Flow Chart Space, 348 Warren Street, Hudson, NY (or by appointment from then through October 26th.
2022 Auction
Rare Books and Ashbery Ephemera
Join us for #AshberyAuction—our very first online auction.
Below are images of just a few of the items up for auction through eBay.
Bidding starts November 1!
It’s possible, it’s just possible, that the god’s claims
fly out windows as soon as they are opened, are erased from the accounting. If one is alone,
it matters less than to others embarked on a casual voyage
into the promiscuity of dreams. Yet I am always the first to know
how he feels. The inventory of the silent auction
doesn’t promise much: one chewed cactus, an air mattress,
a verbatim report. Sandals. The massive transcriptions with which
he took unforgivable liberties—hell, I’d sooner join the project
farther ahead, retaining all benefits, but one is doomed,
repeating oneself, never to repeat oneself, you know what I mean?
—John Ashbery
from Flow Chart (© 1991, 2007, 2017, 2018 Estate of John Ashbery. All rights reserved. Used by arrangement with Georges Borchardt, Inc.)