The Futility of Making Salad

Joseph Kosuth, in “Art and Its Public” defined an artist community as “…a community of artists who collectively, through individual effort, define what is meaningful at a particular historical moment concretely within the practice of their activity.” And comedian Stephen Fry, while viciously ripping into a head of lettuce, asks why making a salad (with no other motive other than love!) (and a decent desire!) is so frustratingly futile. A number of artists and writers were invited to address the question: is there such a thing as an artist community? Do they feel a part of one? What constitutes it? What would it mean to be able to collectively define meaning today, in a diverse and ever-changing art world? 



Insert Press in collaboration with MATERIAL, an artist-run journal publishing and supporting the artist’s voice, has collected the responses to this question and created a publication of these texts that begin to describe our ‘particular moment.’ With cover design and screenprinting by Maggie White Lomeli and Insert Press, and interior layout design & typesetting by Daniel Lucas, The Futility of Making Salad features texts by the following artists: Harold Abramowitz
, Stan Apps, 
Marcus Civin, 
Ginny Cook, 
Dorit Cypis, 
Robin Dicker, 
Bradney Evans, 
Nicholas Grider, 
Dan Hockenson, 
Peter Kirby, 
Elana Mann, 
Melanie Nakaue
, Julie Orser, 
Adam Overton, 
Putting On 
Declan Rooney, 
Kim Schoen, 
Charlotte Smith, 
Jesper List Thomsen, 
Mathew Timmons, 
Jason Underhill.