
Various Artists
Marcel Duchamp; James Lee Byars; Roy Lichtenstein; Claes Oldenburg; Mel Ramos
Complete series of six portfolios with a total of 72 multiples in various materials and techniques.
This particular set was in the exhibition "SMS: A Collection of Original Multiples" at Reinhold-Brown Gallery (NYC) in 1988 and includes individual plexiglass slipcases produced for the exhibition.
In 1968, Surrealist artist William Copley created S.M.S. (Shit Must Stop) by asking seventy-three artists, including Marcel Duchamp, Roy Lichtenstein, Joseph Kosuth, and Ray Johnson, among others, to contribute works to be reproduced in six portfolios, and published by the Letter Edged Black Press. S.M.S. embodies artists' desires for freedom from galleries, critics, and curators and to dissolve boundaries between types of art.
Irving Petlin, Su Braden, James Lee Byars, Christo, Walter de Maria, Richard Hamilton, Kaspar Koenig, Julien Levy, Sol Mednick, Nancy Reitkopf, La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, Nicolas Calas, Bruce Conner, Marcia Herscovitz, Alain Jacquet, Ray Johnson, Lee Lozano, Bernard Pfriem, George Reavey, Clovis Trouille, John Battan, William Bryant, Dick Higgins, Joseph Kosuth, Ronnie Landfield, Roland Penrose, Man Ray, Hannah Weiner, Terry Riley, Robert Stanley, Paul Bergtold, John Cage, Hollis Frampton, Roy Lichtenstein, Lil Picard, Domenico Rotella, Robert Watts, William Anthony, William Copley, Edward Fitzgerald, Neil Jeanney, Angus MacLise, Bruce Nauman, Yoko Ono, Mel Ramos, Robert Rohm, William Schwadler, Diane Wakoski, Lawrence Weiner, Richard Artschwager, Ed Bereal, Diter Rot, Betty Dodson, Ronoldo Ferry, John Giorno, Adrian Nutbeam, Claes Oldenburg, Micha Petrov, Jean Reavey, Bernar Venet, Paul Steiner, Marcel Duchamp, Tom Westermann, Toby Mussman , On Kawara , Arman , Congo
S.M.S (Shit Must Stop) is a collection of artist's portfolios that are conceived by William Copley and Dimitri Petrov as they speak about the long relationships with the artists. The collection has been published biweekly from February to December 1968. Each issue is composed of diverse art pieces, created by individual artist that were important at that period. The portfolios has a wide range of different aspects such as dada, surrealism, and pop art that includes photography, sound, drawings and writings.
Six portfolios containing eleven to thirteen objects were produced in unsigned editions of 2000. There were 100 copies for a deluxe edition. Almost all of the 73 artists solely signed their contributions for the deluxe portfolio, while a few others chose to sign, number and/or date. Reportedly, there were also a very small handful of artists who did not sign at all.
This project has been inspired by the Fluxus movement, which encouraged diverse artists to come together as a form of a protest against galleries, not agreeing to them having the authority to determine the value of art. So by bringing artist together without any establishments, which by means, without being judged and determined, played equally in their specific art areas. Each portfolio within the issue, is a dossier about the subject of personal impressions, and the way to establish their relationship between artist’s impulse and impersonal meanings of practical reproduction. After merging them with the daily life, "Shit must Stop" shows the artist how to come to terms with forces that often drive them into the seclusion of the studio.