Jack Goldstein
Selectric Works
October 28 to December 16, 2017
Meliksetian | Briggs
313 North Fairfax Avenue
Los Angeles CA 90036 USA
A graduate assistant for John Baldessari's first class in his Post-Studio Artprogram at Cal Arts in the 1970s, Goldstein (1945-2003) became best known as a key figure of the Pictures Generation, a group of artists who came to prominence in the late 1970s and early 1980s, their practice characterized by the embrace of mass media imagery and what critic and curator Douglas Crimp called the "processes of quotation, excerptation, framing and staging."
The Selectric Works, made during a period between 1988 and 1990, are part of Goldstein' practice of writing and making text-based works, following the production of his one-line Aphorisms and the basis of his well-known typographic portfolio, Totems. The name Selectric given to these works refers to the '80s era IBM electric typewriter that Goldstein used to make them, a machine characterized by its rotating type mechanism, an interchangeable ball which gave one the ability to choose various font and type styles. These works centered on 17 x 11-inch sheets of paper introduced a graphic component into his textual work.