どうでもええ… LV X YK Surfboards

a white surfboard with red dots all over it and the name louis vuitton running down the center in tighter red dots, leans against a white wall. being sold at sbi auction in japan in july 2025
The best thing I can say about this is it’s 224 cm tall, via SBI Auction

I could have gone another couple of years without realizing Louis Vuitton made several hundred Yayoi Kusama surfboards as part of their sprawling animatronic collabsploitation in 2023.

There’s a longboard and a shortboard variant, and at least two motifs: dots and tentacles. The PR copy regurgitated on all the hypesites says they’re a tribute to Kusama’s pumpkin sculpture on the dock at Naoshima. If that’s the true, then why aren’t they all destroyed in a typhoon?

12 July 2025 lot 69 [not nice] | LV x YK Surf (red & white), ed. 100, JPY1.5-2.5m [sbiauction]
Previously, all too related: Kusama X Vuitton: ‘I was finally able to bring home the crown’; The Infinity Room is now an LV Pop-up

Gavin Brown Woodblock Prints @ La Pulce

screenshot of viva la pulce's instagram story of an installation photo of the gallery, with a white wall filled by a three row grid of book-sized black on white woodblock prints, and a white guy with dark hair, facing the wall at a ledge/desk. they're by gavin brown

In the year 2000, on the small bookshelf in the grass-roofed house we rented on the beach in Tulum, was a years-old Gallery Guide, the monthly, pocket-sized directory of all the shows in all the galleries around town (NYC). Flipping through it, I was surprised to see Gavin Brown, a dealer friend, had had a show at David Zwirner. He was a bit cagey when I asked him about it later. I’m very glad that over the years, he has eased up, and has gotten back to showing work.

a screenshot of passerbystop's post of a photo of a square-ish black on white woodblock print of soutine's bellboy, made of thin hatching marks, pinned under a sheet of glass, at la pulce in roma in june 2025
@passerbystop regram of @thconrad’s story of @passerbystop’s Soutine print at @vivalapulce_

Last night Gavin opened Proof of Life, a show of woodblock prints at La Pulce, his second project/gallery space in Rome, which opened this spring. I could not make it, but I am glad to see the results spreading on instagram. Brown has turned to a laborious mediated process to make fleeting images of daily life. That perhaps included a trip at some point to the Pompidou, or to an exhibition somewhere one of my favorite Soutines was on loan.

Gavin Brown Proof Of Life is at La Pulce, Via Dei Tre Archi 5, Roma, till idk [ig]

Deliberation Before Action Protects You From Regret

a top down view of an 18 inch diameter white porcelain bowl with thin, geometric, elongated, almost abstract kufic-style arabic calligraphy around the rim, with extensions down into the bowl, written in black slip. from 10th century iran, at the met
Bowl with Arabic calligraphy, 10th century, Nishapur, Iran, 18 in diameter, collection Met Museum

The new-style Kufic calligraphy on this 10th century bowl is glorious. It translates to “Deliberation before action protects you from regret; good fortune and good health.” I’m assuming that’s not an Oxford semicolon.

Here is a reading and translation that follows along the inscription.
[via @sarcher.bsky.social]

Isaac Fuller Portrait Do-Over

a 17th century portrait painting of a longhaired white guy with delicate features, looking up and to his right, with his hand on his chest, where it partially covers the upside down face of another person, painted somewhat larger, but with a similar longhaird white guy vibe. in a black and gilt frame, by isaac fuller, from christie's c. 2021
Isaac Fuller, portraits, 17th c sometime, I guess, oil on canvas, 18 3/8 x 14 1/2 in., sold at Christie’s in 2021

I don’t know anything about 17th century English painter Isaac Fuller, except that he has a dozen paintings attributed to him at the National Portrait Gallery. And, according to the brief text accompanying this painting at Christie’s in 2021, he was a “flamboyant painter,” and a “notorious drunkard” with a “bohemian lifestyle” whose fresco in All Souls at Oxford was “too full of nakeds” to last, and whose last series of works consisted of “decorative schemes” for a string of taverns he frequented.

a 17th century portrait painting of a longhaired white guy over the portrait of another longhaired white guy, but turned 180 degrees so that the underpainting is upright. the body of either figure is faintly sketched out, and perhaps was lost in the restoration process that uncovered the earlier portrait. or maybe the painter isaac fuller did all the work on the face, and in the case of the overpainting, the hand, and never got to finishing either one.  via christies

None of that is quite as interesting as this picture, two pictures, really, one on top of and around the other. The portrait underneath, which is now upside down, was uncovered in a recent restoration, says Christie’s. The way it’s been uncovered to keep as much of each portrait intact does make it feel like a deliberate composition, not just an overpainting. Like that extraordinary Ludolf Backhuysen seascape painted around that Isaack Luttichuys portrait that Simon Dickinson brought to TEFAF this year.

What was up in the late 17th century that painters were piling paintings on top of each other, though?

8 Dec 2021, Lot 183 | Isaac Fuller, Portrait of a gentleman, with another portrait underneath, nd, est. GBP 25-35,000, sold for GBP 30,000 [christies]

Jonas Would Never

mark zuckerberg confirming the nerd-to-misogynist fascist pipeline posing in a pair of surveillance oakleys and an oakley t-shirt, with his arms folded, in front of a 2017 jonas wood print titled shelf still life, which depicts two shelves of painted ceramic pots by wood's wife shio kusaka including one with dinosaurs on it that wood has made large scale paintings of, which you'd think zuck would be able to afford, but I guess he needs to surveil you more first. image: the verge, i think
one of the worst people in the world modeling surveillance Oakleys in front of Jonas Woods’ benefit print, Shelf Still Life, 2018, a lithograph/silkscreen published by Cirrus & WKS Editions in an ed. 80+20AP

Unless you pay this man $399 so he can surveil you and everything and everyone you see, he’ll never be able to afford Jonas Wood paintings, and will have to keep buying large edition benefit prints.

All Jack Pierson’s World’s A Stage

an eight foot tall curtain of silver tinsel is attached to two walls in the corner of a white cube gallery, making a backdrop for the 4 by 4 ft stage of black painted and scuffed plywood. a string of tiny lights traces the top edge and back edge of the tinsel curtains. the 1991 sculpture is called silver jackie, by ostentatiously sloppy boy jack pierson
Jack Goldstein, Silver Jackie, 1991, paint wood, tinsel, lightstring, 96 x 48 x 48 in., via artforum

Speaking of go-go dancing platforms and light strings, I cannot get out of my head the confluence of Jack Pierson showing Silver Jackie at Pat Hearn less than a month after Felix Gonzalez-Torres showed “Untitled” (Go-Go Dancing Platform) at Andrea Rosen.

Pierson’s show was called Diamond Life, and it was the 30-yo artist’s nostalgic lament for the squalid glory of his lost youth. In the main gallery of Hearn’s third-floor Wooster St walkup, Pierson staged a recreation of his apartment from his early 20s Miami beach bum era. And in the back was this tiny, abject, artificially aged stage—Pierson’s always called it a stage, I think—which called out his punk and performance art days in Boston.

The Aspen Art Museum re-staged Pierson’s first five shows in 2016. David Rimanelli wrote most generously about Silver Jackie in 2021, when it was on the cover of Artforum. Rather than influence or interaction, or two nearly simultaneous critiques of Michael Fried’s Minimalist theatricality (derogatory), the more I look at these two ostensibly similar works, the more I think they were two artists who happened to be dancing at the same time, but to their own tunes.

Window, McMansion, Randolph

an artwork of two vertical rectangles, a monochrome white canvas above and a faint grey assemblage of painted wood below, divided into three sections with black painted vertical wood trim, the whole thing reads as a tall window with mullions, but is a 1949 work by ellsworth kelly
Ellsworth Kelly, Window, Museum of Modern Art, Paris, 1949, oil on wood and canvas, two joined panels, 50 1/2 x 19 1/2 in., a gift of the artist to the Centre Pompidou, image via ellsworthkelly.org

In our timeline, in October 1949, Ellsworth Kelly, a young former soldier studying painting on the GI Bill, saw the windows of the Museum of Modern Art in Paris in a new way, as a composition, one that could become a painting/object just as it was, and in fact, the whole world was like that, full of subjects he could spend his whole life discovering and transforming into paintings.

a detail of a real estate listing for a cursed new house in north carolina where the vinyl siding and etsy accent barnwood are all outlined with black trim like a line drawing, and mcmansion hell has added an annotation of a dozen or more question marks to a porch roof that doesn't match, but this image is posted here because on the left side of the house is what appears to be a double height window made from two single sindows, which is misaligned to all the rest of the black trim, but which also bears a resemblance, however cursed, to the museum of modern art paris window that ellsworth kelly saw in 1949

In another timeline, a young Ellsworth Kelly saw these two off-the-shelf prairie mullion windows kludged together to look like one tall, misaligned, window on a house in the middle of a gravel field in North Carolina that was just posted on McMansion Hell, and drove straight to the army to re-enlist as a requisitions compliance auditor, eventually retiring from a job at a cubicle in Ring C of the Pentagon. His little yard is full of old stoves, which he salvages from apartment turnovers, repairs, and sells on Facebook.

Window, Museum of Modern Art, Paris, 1949 [ellsworthkelly.org]
glam metal modern but also your contractor is going to jail dawg [mcmansionhell]

All The Other Felix Gonzalez-Torres Dancing Platforms

So “Untitled” (Go-Go Dancing Platform), 1991, is unique, but it is not the only one. Now that it has sold “a serious hold” and a $US16m asking price, let’s take a look at the six [!] related works Felix Gonzalez-Torres made. And then decided were not works after all. What are they, where are they, and what is to be done with them?

Continue reading “All The Other Felix Gonzalez-Torres Dancing Platforms”

Beuys Collector Collection Shelf

a very simple wood book shelf designed by joseph beuys consists of two vertical ladder like supports and six wooden planks going through them. a stark lighting situation casts shadows of the structure, which is otherwise photographed head on, which kind of privileges composition over detail of the construction. but then, this photo was taken by an auction house to sell it, so
Joseph Beuys, Royal Pitch Pine, 1953/2008, pine, 266 x 220 x 34 cm

After working with Joseph Beuys on his multiples for many years, Jörg Schellmann made small editions of four pieces of Beuys-designed furniture in 2008, 22 years after the artist’s death.

Schellmann Art’s description says all these pieces—three tables and a bookshelf, no vitrines, no felt—were originally made in 1953 for an unidentified collector in Dusseldorf. I’m not sure why they’re being so cagey. In 1953 Beuys’s two major collectors were brothers: Hans and Franz Josef van der Grinten. Besides collecting his work, the van der Grintens gave Beuys his first show, in their house, let him move in with them, and represented him in their gallery. Was it somehow not them?

The original table Beuys made was later incorporated into an artwork, and then into Block Beuys, the seven-room gesamtkunstinstallationwerk at the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt. A controversial renovation and conservation project, including a March 2008 symposium on what to do with the original jute wallcoverings and carpets, was the immediate context, if not the specific impetus, for the collection. [spoiler alert: they’re still gone.]

Anyhow, I like this shelf more than I expected. And I like how the lighting in this example, which sold for much less than retail at Phillips in April 2020, right in the mouth of the pandemic, shows the ladder-like structure.

34 cm deep including the flat verticals, so 220 x 30cm pine boards, but built up from 2x15cm via phillips

If you can’t wait for another to turn up, the form could be replicated in Ikea IVAR components, but not its details. Though the shelves look to be straight up lumber. And built up? The verticals are pinned to the wall, and are rounded, but and the shelves are neither. The desks all have extensive joinery, so though the carpentry details that will keep the whole thing from wobbling itself to death in actual use are not apparent, there must be something. Right?

Joseph Beuys, Royal Pitch Pine, 1953/2008 [schellmannart]

All In A Day’s Work

a screenshot of hauser & wirth's instagram of a video of a white go-go dancer in a very small silver speedo and sneakers, facing away from the camera, dancing to himself on a pale blue square platform ringed with soft white light bulbs, installed in a vast concrete convention center, with a scrim in the background, the messe, for art basel. a work by felix gonzalez-torres shown by a gallery that does not officially represent the artist
Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ “Untitled” (Go-Go Dancing Platform), 1991, in what I think is a dress rehearsal at Art Basel Unlimited, where it is being shown by Hauser & Wirth, not Zwirner & Rosen. via ig/hauserwirth

Hauser & Wirth showing Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ “Untitled” (Go-Go Dancing Platform) at Art Basel Unlimited this week. Seeing a video on H&W’s insta of the dancer hopping off the platform and heading out of the halle, accompanied, like a Disneyland character, by a handler, reminds me of artist Pierre Bal-Blanc’s 1992 video work, Employment Contract.

Bal-Blanc was a go-go dancer for the 1992 installation of Felix’s work at the Kunstverein Hamburg, for a show called “Ethics and Aesthetics in times of AIDS.” Employment Contract is a wordless slice of Bal-Blanc’s life that happens to have a brief go-go dancing stint in the middle of it.

One of the tenets of “Untitled” (Go-Go Dancing Platform), reaffirmed just a couple of weeks ago when the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation published an in-process version of core tenets for the work, is that the dancer’s schedule is their own, and it is undisclosed. The dancer chooses whether to share their schedule with the exhibitor, and the exhibitor is to take care not to disclose it, and to provide adequate accomodations for the dancer to go about their business. From the viewing, and even the exhibiting standpoint, this work of Felix’s entails a high degree of uncertainty, and a very low probability at any one moment of there being a dancer dancing.

screenshot of a 1992 video of a fit young white guy in black briefs and sneakers, seen from the back as he walks through a glossy floored gallery at the kunstverein in hamburg germany, the go-go dancer for felix gonzalez-torres' work, which was on view there for the third time ever. from a video art work by the dancer, pierre bal-blanc, via ubu
screenshot from Pierre Bal-Blanc’s Employment Contract (1992) via ubu

Bal-Blanc turns this sense of expectation entirely inside out. The video camera tracking him as he jogs through the streets of Hamburg gives no hint at all of what is to come; he’s just a guy, jogging, in jorts. The surreal absurdity of him walking into a museum, unlocking a supply closet, stripping down [to silver and black briefs, a kludgey two-tone outfit that would not pass muster with the Core Tenets crowd], and grooving in an empty gallery for several minutes, defies narrative logic. And yet he goes right on with it, and back out of the museum. All in a day’s work.

This question of context and expectation is one of the perennial sources of power for Felix’s work, especially this one. Encountering a go-go dancer in a museum might feel as disorienting as a pile of candy you can eat from. More than 30 years on, Hauser & Wirth’s instagram comments are somehow still full of people still confused or contemptuous of this work as art. And while art world folks have certainly consumed and processed Felix’s work fully, seeing this piece, from this gallery, at an art fair, the least wild thing about it is the dancer.

[next day update]: indeed, it looks like the Core Tenets got updated just in time, because the work that had been on “permanent loan” to the Museum St. Gallen is for sale by the Swiss collectors who’ve owned it all along. Donald Judd would not be surprised. It does make me want to take a new look at the five go-dancing platforms and lighted pedestals listed in the “non-works” section of the CR.

Maurice Darantiere, Ulysses Cover Proof

the final proof lithograph of the cover of james joyce's ulysses is a surprisingly brushy horizontal rectangle of blue, with the title and author's name on the right half. the proof is in the collection of the library at suny buffalo
Maurice Darantiere, Cover for Ulysses [final proof], 1922, lithograph, Poetry Collection of the University Libraries, University at Buffalo, the State University of New York, via The Morgan Library

I knew the story about Joyce wanting the cover for Ulysses to be the blue of the Greek flag. But I did not know that he ended up giving the little Greek flag hanging in Shakespeare & Co. to his artist friend, Myron Chester Nutting, to match the color.

I learned this from The Morgan Library’s online exhibition celebrating Ulysses‘ centenary, which includes the extraordinary lithograph above, the final proof for Joyce’s Ulysses cover, prepared by the Dijon printer Maurice Darantiere.

At first the bleed around the edge and the brushmarks made me wonder if there was an ur-monochrome painting, a Nutting original, but I think not. The stone or the plate was painted with a solid field, which Darantiere printed using ink prepared to Nutting’s specification. The title seems to be set in negative, masked so the unprinted paper shows through.

Maybe I must now make the entire cover, as printed, not just the front. I feel like it should match the dimensions of the book, and the page inside, but those bleeding edges do call to me. Either way, I obviously must make it like this now.

a diptych of the blue cover of the first edition of james joyce's ulysses on the left, and the frontispiece, with marsden hartley's inscription on the right. a study for a print by greg.org
Study for Untitled (This copy of Ulysses belongs to me, Marsden Hartley), 2025, prints of some kind, 4to, 242 x 190 mm [still trying out titles, obv]

And I have to get the color right. Is it best to match the modern color of Marsden Hartley’s copy? Is it even possible to match the original, given that they’re all 100 years old, too? Do I try to match the proof? Is it a Ulysses conservation standardbearer? Nutting apparently warned Joyce that the blue would fade, and it did?

a 1934 illustration from a greek encyclopedia of a bunch of variations of the greek flag, which is a paler, cornflower blue than the contemporary version. via wikipedia
Administrative Flags of Greece (1934) via wikipedia

I’ve seen discussion of Joyce’s Greek flag blue not actually matching the Greek flag’s blue, that perhaps the Shakespeare & Co. flag had faded, as well as the books. But Ulysses matches the color of the Greek flags reproduced in this 1934 encyclopedia plate. Honestly, I can see the appeal.

Getting the Right Blue on the Cover [themorgan.org via @mclees-fiona via @joshuajfriedman]
Previously, related: Untitled (Joyce Hartley), 2025
At least Luigi Lucioni got his copy of Ulysses back

Tania Bruguera Terror Chic

two tshirts, a mirror, and an olive green canvas all printed with tania bruguera's 2005 slogan, never forget your first revolution. from terror chic, by editions schellmann
Tania Bruguera, Terror Chic, 2005, ink on t-shirts, shoulder bag, mirror, canvas, ed. 50, published for the 51st Venice Biennale by Editions Schellmann

Coming in 2005, smack in the middle of the Global War On Terror™, the 51st Venice Biennale may have been #toosoon for Tania Bruguera to drop two editions named Terror Chic. Twenty years and a few revolutions in, let’s see how it’s going.

One edition is what we might now call the Terror Chic Capsule Collection: a group of fifty objects—mirrors, messenger bags, t-shirts, stretched canvases—each printed with what Edition Schellmann calls Bruguera’s “thought-provoking slogan, ‘NEVER FORGET YOUR FIRST REVOLUTION.'”

a metal stencil with the phrase never forget your first revolution punched out in all caps in the center, an edition by tania bruguera from 2005 titled terror chic, published by editions schellmann
Tania Bruguera, Terror Chic, 2005, metal stencil, 26 x 55.5 cm, ed. 200, published for the 51st Venice Biennale by Editions Schellmann

The other is more interesting: a Terror Chic metal stencil in an edition of 200, “to be used to print slogan on T-shirt, bag, wall, car, or any other object.” Now we’re talking. Bruguera’s stencil hasn’t even sold out yet, but it’s efficiency and durability have surely already spawned several revolutions, as well as a whole trend of fundraising edition stencils.

Meanwhile, if you’re in the market, never forget to shop around. The revolution can be had with a vip discount.

Wade Guyton Beyeler Facsimile Objects

an installation view of eight wade guyton paintings in a row on two walls of a beyeler foundation gallery in basel, with a bright lightbox grid ceiling and a pale wood floor, one of renzo piano's museum gems that got him into the museum manufacturing business
Untitled WG5703 and WG5707, Guytons from 2024 installed at the Fondation Beyeler in 2025

The Fondation Beyeler has just come out with your first Art Basel impulse purchase: two full-scale Wade Guyton prints of paintings showing at the Beyeler right now. Around here we’d call them facsimile objects, but they are very much what Wade does and how he does it.

two mostly identical black and white artworks photographed in black and white against a white wall: a painting of a giant, misprinted capital x on a stretched canvas sitting on two little blocks is on the left, and the fundraising poster version of it, same size but with creases from being handfolded, and on paper, is on the right. the last of six fundraising edition posters by wade guyton for printed matter, 2019
X Poster (Untitled, 2007, Epson UltraChrome inkjet on linen, 84 x 69 inches, WG1211), 2019, UV-resistant ink on paper on the right and, presumably, actual Untitled, 2007, Epson UltraChrome inkjet on linen, 84 x 69 inches, WG1211 on the left. image via PrintedMatter

For six years, from 2014-19, Guyton made full-scale print facsimiles of his paintings as fundraising editions for Printed Matter. They were all posters of earlier black X-on-white paintings, and folding them by hand felt like part of the concept. From the proofs installed at the Beyeler, that does not seem to be the case anymore. These look as flat as the day they rolled off the Epson.

three white women in swiss festive clothing stand in front of two wade guyton prints that reproduce two paintings at full scale. the abstract one on the left in red and black uses a photo of the artist's studio floor; the one on the right is a scan of an x painting. both have been digitally manipulated. they are in thin steel frames in the lobby space of a museum, the fondation beyeler, in basel in 2025
[L] Untitled (Untitled, 2024, Epson UltraChrome HDX inkjet on linen, 84 x 69 inches, WG5703), 2025, and [R] Untitled (Untitled, 2024, Epson UltraChrome HDX inkjet on linen, 84 x 69 inches, WG5707), 2025: I see floating, I see margins, I see reflectivity-induced subjectivity, I see no creases in these Buyeler editions whose “estimated delivery date is mid-November 2025” [bold in the original]

TFW I thought I’d seen these before, not just at the Beyeler, and I was like, “Duh, that’s his MO.” But no, I don’t mean in the “all Guytons look alike” mode. I mean in the sense that I felt like I’d seen these paintings before, at Guyton’s 2023 show at Matthew Marks. The X painting, WG5707, depicts a different scan of a different, earlier X painting than the one at Marks. And in fact, the 2024 Beyeler painting in the 2025 Beyeler print has striations that look like a photo of a monitor of a scan of a transparency of a painting, rather than just a scan of a transparency of a painting.

a thin grey line and white border around this image of a wade guyton painting of a photo of the artist's studio floor indicates that it is a print of that painting. the photo for the painting has been manipulated to highlight the dark blacks and reds in the worn and often-repainted floor. the painting is on view at the beyeler, who is selling this print edition in 2025
the jpg rendering of the 2025 print of the 2024 Beyeler painting, WG5703

But the other one, WG5703, the photo of Guyton’s studio floor, is, in fact, the same photo, though not the same painting.

a wade guyton painting from 2023 of layers of worn paint on the floor of his studio. the abstract striated pattern looks like a richter squeegee painting or a clyfford still in composition. the saturated red, green, and black patches read as paint colors, but it turns out the artist alters the colors before printing his canvases. this variation was shown at matthew marks in 2023
Guyton’s Untitled (WG5546), 2023, inkjet on linen, 84 x 69 in., was at Matthew Marks in 2023

Guyton likes to paint, photograph, and repaint the floor of his studio, and these Clyfford Still-like layered abstractions are the glorious result. But what these two paintings show is not found wear & tear. The tape, the shoe[?] in the lower left corner, the separations [not just layering, it turns out] of color. This is the same photo, in different states, printed on canvas, twice. Three times, actually; the Beyeler already has another variation from 2021.

For a long time, Guyton was known to use the same files [.doc, .tiff], and give attention to the accidents and variations of the printing process. He staged multiple shows with identical layouts of images made from the same monochrome image, bigblack.tiff, and even sent five nearly identical paintings to his five dealers spread out around the Messe at Basel.

But from observing these little differences in the same content, Guyton has expanded his source image folder to include screenshots of the Times, and photos of his studio, his work, and his life. His 2021 show at Marks in LA included images of Guyton recording his temperature. In 2023 there were paintings made of photos of protests, and a Manet ham.

As the vagaries of printing become absorbed into the language of his work, Guyton has expanded what he says by making work of what he sees. His work, his shows, images, and the world around him, have all become animating subjects of his mature process. Mature, but not static; processes are revealed in between the finding and the printing. As these two floor paintings show, the images flowing around him may also be manipulated, altered, and created.

At first I thought the recursiveness was new, too, but I think it was always there; the works, their shifting formats, their nested titles, their numbering system, all make us aware of the artist’s awareness. The beauty of that churn, that cycle, of making and showing and remaking, is a compelling subject for at least a hundred people going to Basel for the 20th or 30th time for buying and selling. One hundred plus ten artist proofs.

Previously, related:
Waderunner
Wade Guyton [Manet] Simulacrum Facsimile Object
It’s the little differences

A Pile of White House Bricks

a pile of 18th and early 19th century bricks in a variety of finishes sits in a five-layer stack on the floor of a rural virginia auction house. a manila envelope on top of them has white house brick documents 166 bricks written on it. because these bricks are from the white house.

What’s that, you say?

VERY RARE HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT COLLECTION OF WHITE HOUSE BRICKS?

I AM LISTENING.

Enslaved people made the bricks for the White House from clay on or near the White House grounds at least twice. After the White House was burned in 1812, most of the original 1792 bricks were too damaged to use in the 1814-17 reconstruction. The 1817 bricks were removed during the 1948-52 gut reconstruction of the White House by President Harry s. Truman. 95,000 went for projects at Mount Vernon. 10,000 went to a project at Fort Myer. A New York congressman bought White House bricks left over from the Fort Myer pile, along with 1600 lbs of White House stone, and stored it at some guy’s farm for a while. When came to pick up most of it, he left this lot of 166 bricks. “This may very well be one of the last large groups of White House bricks in public hands,” says the Shenandoah Valley auctioneer Jeffrey S. Evans.

I’m trying to imagine the excitement if these original White House bricks were returned to the White House, or if they were exhibited publicly near the White House today. Or tomorrow.

The bricks will be auctioned June 28, 2025.

Lot 2124 | VERY RARE HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT COLLECTION OF WHITE HOUSE BRICKS, est $10-20,000 [jeffreysevans]
Previously, related: Untitled (George Washington’s Coffin), 2016

[few minutes later update: It’s my brick in a box]