100 MORE JOKES FROM THE BOOK OF THE DEAD
Price: $25
ISBN 0-9709179-0-2

"100 More Jokes From The Book of the Dead," documents a collaboration between poet John Yau and visual artist Archie Rand.

Both have collaborated with each other for nearly 20 years in a variety of mediums (watercolors, paintings, the comic book, among others). "100 More Jokes From The Book of the Dead" documents a humorous and subversive approach to the etching medium while addressing notions about general artistic approaches. The 91 images in the book were created simultaneously without revision, thus questioning the notion of etching as an art of refinement. In considering his collaborative process with Rand, Yau quotes Frank O'Hara’s statement, "You have to go on your nerve alone."


Archie Rand has exhibited in more than 80 solo and 200 group exhibitions. He is represented in international museums and numerous private collections. A Guggenheim Award recipient, Rand created "The Letter Paintings," a 1970’s series that challenged both the political and aesthetic status quo. Rand further expanded traditional notions of art when he painted a significant 8,000-square-foot mural inside the Orthodox B’nai Yosef synagogue in Brooklyn, currently the only functioning, completely muraled synagogue in the world. Archie Rand’s work also inspired The Jewish Museum’s highly acclaimed 1996 exhibition "Too Jewish? Challenging Traditional Identities," an exhibit which enjoyed a three-year national museum tour and helped to catapult religious subject matter into the contemporary art scene.

John Yau received a BA from Bard College and an MFA from Brooklyn College. He is a poet, fiction writer, art critic, curator, editor, publisher, researcher and teacher. His poetry collections include the forthcoming Borrowed Love Poems (Penguin Putnam); Forbidden Entries (Black Sparrow, 1996), Edificio Sayonara (Black Sparrow, 1992); and Radiant Silhouette (Black Sparrow, 1994). Publications of fiction include My Symptoms (Black Sparrow, 1998); and Hawaiian Cowboys (Black Sparrow, 1995). He was also the editor of Fetish (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1998), an anthology of short stories. Since 1978, he has written for American and European magazines (Artforum, Art in America, Art News, El Pais, Interview, Tema Celeste and Vogue) as well as contributed essays to more than two hundred catalogs and museum publications. In addition to having a collection of essays on poetry and art, entitled The Passionate Spectator, forthcoming from University of Michigan Press, he is the author of In the Realm of Appearances: The Art of Andy Warhol (Ecco, 1993) and The United States of Jasper Johns (Zoland, 1996). As Ahmanson Curatorial Fellow (1993-1996), he organized a retrospective of paintings and drawings by Ed Moses for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Other curatorial activities include, "Murder," Bergamont Station, Santa Monica; and "Original Scale," Apex Art, New York. He has engaged in collaborations with numerous artists including Enrico Baj, Norman Bluhm, Max Gimblett, Toni Grand, Bill Jensen, Jurgen Partenheimer, Ed Paschke, Archie Rand, Peter Saul, Pat Steir, and Robert Therrien. Fellowships include the Lavan Award from the Academy of American Poets; the Jerome Shestack Prize from American Poetry Review; and the Richard Hugo Memorial Prize from CutBank. Grants include the National Endowment for the Arts; the Ingram-Merrill Foundation; New York Foundation for the Arts.

Available from Meritage Press, or from Small Press Distribution.