For an interview with legendary Canadian artist, filmmaker and pianist Michael Snow, del Pesco and artist Euan Macdonald posed fifteen questions—ranging from the the poetic to the philosophical—and Snow replied with short musical improvisations. Snow has, since the late 1940s, been a virtuosic jazz pianist, and has achieved such fluency with the instrument that his replies are quasi linguistic, communicating at the edge of language through variations in speed, intensity, and rhythm, through repetition and timbre, through the melodic and the dissonant. The responses to each question (listed on the verso of the record) are followed by an Epilogue, offering reflections on the subjects raised by the questions. del Pesco also designed and printed the sleeve with wood type, in black and white, to match the keys of the piano. The 7 inch record was published by The Thing Quarterly in 2016. The limited edition is sold out, but the audio can be heard online.
A letterpress broadside, about food and secrets.
No.1 published in 2020
No. 2 published in 2021
No.3 to be published in 2024
Anthony Discenza’s iterative text artworks have appeared in exhibition venues around the world, and in a variety of formats—from street signs to audio installations. Published by KADIST in 2017, this collection—released as an ebook and printed in a limited run of 500—can be described as "the data set meets guided visualization meets midnight movie." For this book, Discenza collaborated with del Pesco to compile a selection of these texts in a format traditionally associated with narrative fiction: the trade paperback.
Pickpocket Almanack was a program originally launched at SFMOMA and then, thanks to Francesco Manacorda, del Pesco and Dominic Willsdon were invited to present a version at Artissima, the artfair in Torino, Italy. This printed take-away poster was designed by Scott Ponik, and distributed for free at the fair. It included a variety of short itineraries, and collected (then upcoming) events at cities around the world.
A curatorial contribution to THE LAST BILLBOARD, in Pittsburgh,
presented in a two part sequence. The first part presented a graphic poem from Eugen Gomringer’s book CONSTELLATIONS, 1953 (via Susan Howe’s The Quarry). The second part, presented a few weeks later, was a line from Bob Dylan’s song Subterranean Homesick Blues, 1965, as referenced by radical left-wing offshoot of the SDS, the Weather Underground (modified due to available letters, replacing KNOW with TELL)
Published by KADIST in conjunction with Mungo Thomson's exhibition Wall, Window or Bar Signs, in 2014,The Big Bookfeatured hundreds of aphorisms used in the AA community but set in the Brice Nauman 'mystic truths' spiral. The typeface was design by OH no Type specifically for the unique conditions of a spiral. The book was designed by Jon Sueda.
Courtesy Lead Graffiti
Courtesy Lead Graffiti
del Pesco commissioned a letterpress poster that used the word TELEPORT, slowly gaining and losing letters, as if the word itself was being teleported, one letter at a time. The Delaware based letterpress shop Lead Graffiti took this breif as a starting point and designed a poster, using wood and lead type, and also bubble-wrap to print a molecular diffusion pattern in metalic ink. The poster was subsequently included in an exhibition at the Hamilton Wood and Type Museum.
A set of four posters, the outcome of two day-long discussions with a group of artists, was delivered to elected officials in the Bay Area. The series was also republished several times, including in an issue of Proximity Magazine and Artforum (thanks to Julia Bryan Wilson). The edition was also purchased by Blick Art Supply and hung in their stores across California. Published by The Present Group in 2009 and printed by Horwinski in Oakland.