Introducing The New Rare
There is a particular kind of object that resists the archive even as it constitutes one. The exhibition invitation. The xeroxed press release. The artist's book was printed in an edition of 300, distributed at a vernissage, and never reprinted. These are not secondary documents — they are primary gestures, often more candid than the work they announce.
The New Rare is a new imprint and online store I have opened to give these objects a considered home.
The inventory is deliberately narrow: rare art books, exhibition ephemera, artist editions, and printed matter sourced with attention to provenance, condition, and conceptual weight. Each piece is catalogued as what it is — an artefact with a specific history, not a decorative object.
Three pieces are currently available:
David Hammons — Harmolodic Thinker, Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles, 2019 An original xeroxed press release from Hammons' 2019 solo at Hauser & Wirth. The xerox is not incidental — it is the medium. Hammons has always understood that the document is already the work.
Jochen Gerz — Le Dépôt · Kulchur Pièce 4, Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris, 1979 An original invitation from Gerz's 1979 installation at Baudoin Lebon. Gerz's practice — language as monument, the invisible as inscription — makes this small card a charged object. The invitation to witness something that questioned the act of witnessing itself.
Jenny Holzer — Private Property Created Crime, 1984 A photo-illustrated catalogue from 1984 surveying Holzer's early street work and Truisms. A document of a practice that understood distribution as form — that the street, the T-shirt, the LED sign were all the same argument made in different registers.
The full catalogue is at thenewrare.com.
New acquisitions are added as they are sourced. The logic is curatorial, not commercial — each piece is here because it belongs here.
The New Rare is published from London.thenewrare.com
