CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 1/3/2022

PCG Studio presents Jordan Stein in conversation with Hilton Als for the virtual launch of 'Rip Tales: Jay DeFeo's Estocada and Other Pieces'

Wednesday, January 5 at 7pm EST, Paula Cooper Gallery and 192 Books present the virtual launch of Jordan Stein's Rip Tales: Jay DeFeo's Estocada and Other Pieces, published by Soberscove Press. Stein will appear in conversation with noted writer and theater critic Hilton Als, live-streamed on PCG Studio. There is no login or rsvp required. A recording will be posted shortly afterwards.

Als writes, "Rip Tales is so self-assured, heartfelt and consistently touching, funny and brilliant, that its various intimacies and ideas feel like a gift. And they are. A deeply moving debut."

ABOUT THE BOOK
In 1965, Jay DeFeo (1929–89) was evicted from her San Francisco apartment, along with "The Rose," the two-thousand-pound painting that would make her legendary. The morning after her front window was sawed open to make way for the colossus, DeFeo attempted to salvage "Estocada," a large-scale painting on paper stapled directly to her hallway wall. Unfinished and never documented, the little-known piece—a kind of shadow "Rose"—was ripped down in chunks, saved, and reanimated years later in the studio through photography, photocopy, collage, and relief.

Rip Tales traces "Estocada’s" material history for the first time, sharing previously unpublished archival material and contextualizing the work’s evolution within DeFeo’s artistic practice. Woven into this narrative are other Bay Area stories that likewise privilege transformation, multiplicity, intuition, and absence. Drawing on interviews and personal experience, curator Jordan Stein explores these themes in the work and lives of artists Zarouhie Abdalian, April Dawn Alison, Ruth Asawa, Lutz Bacher, Bruce Conner, Dewey Crumpler, Trisha Donnelly and Vincent Fecteau. Animated by the pursuit of hidden histories, Rip Tales investigates the unpredictable edges of artworks and ideas, using DeFeo’s last-minute rip to illuminate an ethos best defined by its resistance to clear-cut definition.

JORDAN STEIN is a curator and writer based in San Francisco. With Will Brown, he is the author of Bruce Conner: Brass Handles (J&L Books, 2016), and with Jason Fulford, he coedited Where to Score (J&L Books, 2018). He has organized exhibitions at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Artists’ Space, the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago and Matthew Marks Gallery, among others. In addition to working independently with institutions, he operates Cushion Works, an exhibition and program space in the Mission District.

HILTON ALS is an American writer and theater critic. He is an associate professor of writing at Columbia University and a staff writer and theater critic for The New Yorker magazine. He is a former staff writer for The Village Voice and former editor-at-large at Vibe magazine.