NO NEW WORK exhibition 1999
NO NEW WORK ARCHIVE BOX
Produced for the NO NEW WORK retrospective exhibition this sturdy 23x32x7cm box is
specially designed for safe and convenient storage of your collection of badges, books, collages,
enamel plaques, mailart, postcards, prints, rubberstamps, stickers t-shirts & other Pawsonalia!
Limited edition of 200 signed and numbered boxes,hand silkscreened with your choice of White,
Rust Brown or Dark Green print on light brown cardboard comes with a selection of press
clippings/reviews/show invites/no new work badge... these boxes are currently stacked precariously
in my bedroom, blocking out the light and threatening to topple over and rain down on me in the
middle of the night! Filled boxes available from £50 upwards-ask for details...
here's a review...
ART MONTHLY SEPTEMBER 1999, All Things Lowbrow, Clive Phillpot

Around the corner from Waterloo Station in Lower Marsh is the Last Chance Saloon. Describing itself as an
'eclectic emporium of all things lowbrow', and containing posters, books, clothes and decorative objects, it
provides an appropriate location for Mark Pawson's retrospective. Previous exhibitions have included: Billy
Childish, Vince Ray, The Art of Kitsch Bitch and Coop. Frank Kozik is next in line after Pawson.

It is fitting that Pawson's work is on view in both the basement gallery and the street-level shop since the line
between his art and his other, more commercial products is a fine one. In the gallery he is showing mostly
xerographic works described as multi-overprints or unique copier prints. Upstairs in the shop, there are more such
works, but these are obliged to jostle with the other merchandise on display, as are other Pawson objects, like
T-shirts, books, postcards and badges. Confirming Pawson's beginnings in mail art ( and its lasting effects) are two
exhibits that make specific reference to artists: the first, an editioned postcard, commemorates the death of Ray
Johnson; the second is a limited edition toilet seat covered with Achille Cavellini's ubiquitous stickers.

The works in the Saloon's basement gallery, generally framed and hung around the walls, seem to be more
artworks than shop fodder. Their manifestations of mulitple repetition and the variability of machine reproduction
link them with Warhol. Here for example, instead of cow-head wallpaper are sheets of multiple, colourful Mr
Blobbys. Many works are produced in series, but the variability of Pawson's overprinting procedure leads to the
creation of unique works featuring layers of appropriated or subverted graphic images in various colours. These
pieces exhibit not Warhol's lush silkscreen effects, but the rich layering of colour xerography, though some of the
most alluring effects are similarly produced with less beguiling embedded imagery. Note the detail of the motif
entitled "Aggressive Paisley" which includes bombs and scalpel blades.

Labels such as copier art or mail art certainly fit aspects of Pawson's work, but they do not describe its totality, for
as important as printing, publishing and assembling are to him, so too are collecting and retailing. But there is an
unusual continuity among these preoccupations that can be illustrated with one example: Pawson has a collection
of the small card wiring-diagrams that have been fixed to new British electric plugs for many years. Drawing on
this collection he published a small book of xerographic reproductions of 40 of these surprisingly different
diagrams, some in colour. (Hundreds of these books have since been sold, and some have been designated as
'artists books') Subsequently he made small badges bearing images of plugs, and then recently published a line of
T-shirts emblazoned with plug wiring-diagrams. All these items can not only be bought at the Last Chance Saloon
and a few other stores, but they can also be found at Pawson's weekend stall at the Camden Stables Market
(together with choice items from other sources). And for the full range of Pawson's merchandise you can go to
www.mpawson.demon.co.uk.

Does this mean that Pawson is a 'business artist'? Has he taken 'the step that comes after art', as Warhol put it?
Probably not. Like most other artists Pawson has to sell work to support himself, at least in part, but his values -
evident overtly and covertly in his art - are not capitalist. The economy in which he participates is not far from the
implicit barter of mail art and street-market survival commerce. Furthermore, the name of his phantom
organisation, the "Aggressive School of Cultural Workers" (pace Johnson), and the slogans, logos and icons that
feature across the whole range of his work, such as "no copyright", "demolish serious culture" (from Henry Flynt)
and "art strike" (from Metzger and Home), give a better idea of his ideological playground. Similarly the
counter-cultural tendency of these expressions is in line with the other products that he sells and with his 1994/95
wide-ranging exhibition and its catalogue: Counter-Intelligence: Zines, Comics, Pamphlets, Flyers ... Self-Published
& Autonomous Print-Creations.

Pawson himself has likened his practice to an accumulation of hobbies that fortunately also provide him with a
livelihood. While his works sometimes possess the more negative features of hobbies, particularly the accumulative
ones, others of his works simply exude the pleasures of assembling and making that can be obtained from such
pursuits. But over and above this Pawson disseminates his striking graphic work and messages through a variety
of means that are very effective in reaching a mixed and diffuse audience.

Mark Pawson's 'No New Work' is at Last Chance Saloon until September 16.

Clive Phillpot has an essay in the new catalogue raisonne Edward Ruscha Editions 1959-1999 published
by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

5 July -16 September 1999 at the Last Chance Saloon

PRESS RELEASE

For the last 10 years, Mark Pawson an unashamed Image Junkie and self-confessed Photocopier Fetishist has
beavered away producing a constant stream of self-published work; posters, prints, books, artists books, t-shirts,
badges, collages, postcards, enamel plaques, and other assorted ephemera thats come to be known as Pawsonalia.
No New Work will feature as much of Pawsons eclectic production as we can possibly squeeze into the
Last Chance Saloon; displayed throughout the whole shop and exhibition spaces.
Marks Little Book about Kinder Eggs is Pawsons best known and loved work, with over 7000 copies of this
best-selling chocumentary sold, his Die-cut Plug Wiring Diagram Book seems to be equally at home either on
display in the Tate Gallery or being featured on the Big Breakfast!
Described by the Modern Review as a Lounge Lizard of the Subculture Salon , International Postal Art Superstar,
Pawson chooses to work autonomously on principle, distributing and selling his work directly through his mail
order buisness and the mailart network, intentionally avoiding conventional gallery systems.
Preferring accessible working methods, the photocopier and rubberstamps, and focussing on producing affordable
work such as books and t-shirts,. Mark sees a photocopied booklet and a handbound limited edition book as being
equally important and valid pieces of work. A perfect example of this approach is the rubberstamped Bicycle
Wheel Theft commemorative postcard,75p, which is also available as alimited edition enamel plaque, £75.00, buy a
postcard while you save up for the plaque...
A limited edition storage box will be produced specifically for no new work, on sale during the exhibition. This
highly practical multiple has been produced as a direct response to collectors and customers repeatedly asking
"Where do we put our accumulated pile of all your books and cards Mark?", and because Pawson finds the idea of
selling empty cardboard boxes strangely attractive! Signed limited edition NO NEW WORK cardboard storage box ,
Edition of 200 hand silkscreened boxes printed in white, rust or dark green.
NO NEW WORK T-shirts also available in a motley assortment of colours and sizes!
There will also be a display case crammed full of objects from Pawsons varied and numerous collections, expect
gonks, furry wooden vikings, psycho-ceramics and novelty ashtrays together with other car boot sale treasures,
which provide inspiration and often source material.
See press coverage in The Guardian Guide, Creative Review, Sleaze Nation and The Evening Standard...
Subject: Have you decided what you are exhibiting?
Sent: 25/5/99 9:00 pm
To: iain@underbelly.demon.co.uk

>Have you decided what you are exhibiting? some or all of the following;

remixed felt appliques( dead/drunk with alien eyes) in small gilt frames

photocopy overprints-various "textured" prints-most of the stuff I had framed for the exhibition at the
Living Room cafe (apart from the ones that sold!)

a big frame with about 600 aggressive school of cultural workers badegs in it-each one is a different colour
combination

a couple of large 4 x 8 foot collage/posters one just splodgy shapes, one with fluoro demolish seious culture
bombs all over it

walls covered with A3 photocopies of;
psychedelic-coloured Mr Blobbies
pics of photocopiers that say "Just Say No' on them
keep britain tidy binmen dropping various things in the bin

All my books, probably a display case of them, with reading copies in front

A display case ( the one in my kitchen) full of lots different things from my collections

bicycle wheel theft enamel plaque, and postcard

Cavellini Toilet seat (Toilet seat entirely covered in stickers made by Cavellini my hommage to the
self-promoting/historifying mailartist)

I'm going to get some cardboard storage boxes made, kinda just larger than A4 sized 4 inches deep, for people
to store their collections of my books etc in these will be printed, and we will probably have them all (200?)
piled up in/around the shop...

and maybe some other things as well, depending on what I remember I've made, or find in boxes when
I'm rooting through stuff..