A new book on U.K. artist Nicola Green’s “In Seven Days…”, a print series chronicling Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, will publish this October from HENI.
It will be the first major publication devoted to Green’s series, offering the first in-depth examination of its full scope and publishing archival material including sketches, drawings, and previously unseen photographs Green took on the campaign trail. Between 2008 and 2009, the artist and social historian was given unprecedented access to Obama’s campaign, election, and inauguration. Green was a special guest across six trips, including the Democratic National Convention in Denver, campaign stops in Concord and Philadelphia, election night in Chicago, and two visits to Washington, D.C., including the inauguration festivities. Green’s husband, the U.K. politician David Lammy, met Obama at Harvard Law School and has remained a friend of his for more than three decades.
That access culminated in seven silkscreen prints, titled Day 1, Light through Day 7, Peace. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has called the series “an artistic and historic masterpiece.” Made with water-based enamel ink and 24-karat gold leaf on Coventry Rag cotton paper, the prints were produced in an edition of 20 at Axelle Editions in Brooklyn and an edition of seven at London Print Studio.
The forthcoming book pairs an opening statement from Obama and artist statements for each print with 10 new essays, including contributions from Serpentine Galleries artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist, former Obama national security advisor Ben Rhodes, Obama Presidential Center Museum founding director Dr. Louise Bernard, London’s National Portrait Gallery’s curatorial and collections director Dr. Flavia Frigeri, and former Library of Congress curator Katherine Blood. It also draws on Arkhe, Green's seven-part archival work, which situates the prints alongside artistic touchstones including Raphael, Claude Monet, Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, Alexander Calder, Robert Rauschenberg, Kerry James Marshall, Joe Overstreet, and Rosalyn Drexler.
The series is held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the U.K. Government Art Collection, the Library of Congress, and Washington’s National Portrait Gallery, and is currently on view at the newly opened Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. The book also chronicles Green's two-decade relationship with the former president, tracing photographs from the 2008 campaign trail through election night in Grant Park, the 2009 inaugural celebration, the Oval Office presentation of the finished series just before he left office, and a 2021 reunion at the Library of Congress, which acquired the series in 2019.
from Artsy News https://ift.tt/tGonrDz
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