This week I am very busy at Surtex so my good friend Matt Leines has graciously agreed to take time to tell us about some of his favorite books. Matt, by the way, is an incredible artist who I have written about a couple of times here and here. His work has been shown all around the world from Japan to Sweden. He has recently shown at Galleri Loyal and Roberts & Tilton. His work has been featured in all kinds of books and magazines including Live Through This, The Drama, Juxtapoz, and the current issue of Swindle. He has a show opening in London, Ontario on June 8th. And now for his favorite books-

I really don’t know much about this book because I don’t read French or Cyrillic but this is a book of Russian artist Mihail Chemiakin published in 1975, that i picked up used a few years ago. Apparently he was exiled from the USSR and these drawings could very well be political in nature, but I’ll only be focusing on the quirkiness of it all, since I never bothered to google Comrade Chemiakin until just now. So, we have 80 pages of what I think are ink drawings (but might be etchings) that bring to mind James Ensor if he were a current Canadian doodler. Most of the plates are black and white but some have areas of color, including some that are printed on a blue/grey paper. Almost every drawing has a penis, however, this book is pretty interesting for someone I don’t think many people are aware of. You can read a brief bio here.

© Julia Rothman 2007