Commonwealth & Council presents recent artist’s editions by Margaret Honda and Akina Cox printed by New Byzantium, a design studio and press in Los Angeles.

New Byzantium celebrates its first year with the release of two new artist’s editions: a large scale silkscreen print, 4366 Ohio Street Living Room by Margaret Honda and an artist’s book, Prologues by Akina Cox. In addition to these releases, a review of other materials from the first year will be on view. New Byzantium also announces its forthcoming subscription based quarterly publication of artist's editions, scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2013.

Margaret Honda's print 4366 Ohio Street Living Room is the 5th work to be published from the ongoing project 4366 Ohio Street. The 3 color silkscreen print, produced in an edition of 202, is a full-scale reconstruction of the living room of the artist's childhood home in Southern California. To date the series has taken on the form of multiple print editions, each reproducing one room and published as an insert or as pages within a catalogue or periodical. The conditions of a specific publication determine an edition’s size, printing method, dimensions, paper, and color. An edition is developed by dividing a room’s surface area—walls, ceiling, and floor—into a grid with hundreds or even thousands of cells of equal size. The dimensions and total number of the cells are calculated so that a single cell is contained in each copy of the publication. An edition consists of individual prints of these cells at 1:1 scale, accompanied by a diagram of the room in which every cell has been assigned a different number. Each print bears a hand stamped number corresponding with that of a cell in the diagram, designating its specific location in the room’s construction. Both the number and singular placement make each print unique.

Akina Cox's Prologues is a hand letterpressed and bound book produced in an edition of 100. It contains a dialogue between the artist and Oprah Winfrey interspersed with various prints of the artist’s work. The pair discuss the artist's practice and lifestyle, touching on themes of self inquiry and self improvement and Oprah gives her brand of advice in response to Cox's plaintive self questioning. Somewhere between a catalogue raisonné and a discrete work, Prologues, continues to explore themes present throughout Cox's work, while examining the artist’s practice directly.