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Untitled

AFTER LIFE. ELIZABETH PEYTON'S PRINCESS KURT,
IN WHICH HE WEARS A
DRESS AND TIARA, WAS
TAKEN FROM FOOTAGE OF NIRVANA IN CONCERT IN
1993. IT IS THE SAME FILM
FROM WHICH PEYTON TOOK THE STILLS THAT MAKE UP
THIS 1995 ARTISTS BOOK. OF WHICH WE HAVE ONE COPY.

AFTER LIFE. ELIZABETH PEYTON'S PRINCESS KURT, IN WHICH HE WEARS A DRESS AND TIARA, WAS TAKEN FROM FOOTAGE OF NIRVANA IN CONCERT IN 1993. IT IS THE SAME FILM FROM WHICH PEYTON TOOK THE STILLS THAT MAKE UP THIS 1995 ARTISTS BOOK. OF WHICH WE HAVE ONE COPY.

AFTER LIFE. ELIZABETH PEYTON'S PRINCESS KURT,
IN WHICH HE WEARS A
DRESS AND TIARA, WAS
TAKEN FROM FOOTAGE OF NIRVANA IN CONCERT IN
1993. IT IS THE SAME FILM
FROM WHICH PEYTON TOOK THE STILLS THAT MAKE UP
THIS 1995 ARTISTS BOOK. OF WHICH WE HAVE ONE COPY.


*SIGH*.  Everything we love; the xeroxed images, the staples, and the tracing paper. And, if that is not already the world, Elizabeth Peyton and Kurt Cobain! This has to be the most highly desirable superbook we have found for some time. Untitled is the title. Unimaginable is the scarcity x cool factor! 
 

And that's why. Him. This book was published by Matthew Higgs's independent press, Imprint 93. It is part of a series of artist's books that include works by Jeremy Deller, Martin Creed and Peter Doig. Imprint 93 was a mail art project. The books or art multiples were mailed to a limited number of Higgs's friends and contemporaries - maybe no more than 200 such recipients. 
 

Elizabeth Peyton's Untitled book was the nineteenth edition by Imprint 93 and was printed in 1995. Peyton had listened only to classical music in art school and came to Nirvana late via the MTV Unplugged session. By the time she started working on Kurt paintings in the summer of 1994, he was dead, albeit not as dead as Peyton's previous favourite subjects, Napoleon and King Ludwig II of Bavaria. 
 

Peyton definitely considered Cobain to be a living icon of her own time. The paintings of him, including Princess Kurt (which shares a source with the cover of this book), led the way to portraits of Jarvis Cocker, Liam Gallagher and then Peyton's own friends and acquaintances. 
 

And that is all you get by way of a colophon* The artist name stamped to each copy. No date. No number of edition. Certainly no ISBN. In fact none of that stuff we really don't care about. 

*massively boring publishing term you won't read about here
 

Look familiar? It is Peyton's xerox page above on a horizontal flip. It took us forever to find and involved an entire night of youtubenirvanaremembrance. It's a hard life! But we found it: Nirvana live in 1991 at the Paradiso in Amsterdam. This made particularly special for being the origin of a very early IDEA superbook, Paradiso Stills. Watch the gig on this link. Try very hard to buy the book on the link below!
 

Bonus content this week! Technology really is the best thing to hit humanity since inter-personal relationships. Isn't it. We now can't find this clip again but you wil have to believe us that 'Internet' was supposed to be 'intense' and 'focused on the form of diseases carrots' was actually the narrator quite clearly saying '... felt kind of badly for him because he was scared'. Find it!  
 
No comment required. Although today - 20th February - was Kurt's birthday. Fact. 



EVERY WEEK CLOSER TO THE SUMMER. EVERY WEEK MORE STUNNING EIGHTIES IBIZA FINDS. AND MOVE ASIDE ALL REGULAR BOOKS, KU KISS ME DARLING IS BACK.

EVERY WEEK CLOSER TO THE SUMMER. EVERY WEEK MORE STUNNING EIGHTIES IBIZA FINDS. AND MOVE ASIDE ALL REGULAR BOOKS, KU KISS ME DARLING IS BACK.


It may have been the first time we ever used the word/phrase 'superbook'. When we first found this book we fell up to space. The most remarkable book ever published by a nightclub! Ku Ibiza Kiss Me Darling . Click this link to see what we first wrote about, how we used to write, how excitable we were once... And then try to buy on the link below.


And this is a poster. Ku circa 1988. September remember! In the usual irreverent super style there are two plates of food at the top of the poster. The bento tray on the left is upside down. Of course. 
 

And this is another poster. To not want that would be somewhere to the far west of inexplicable. Back of the bathroom door? Hello! 
 
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