Classification of a Spit Stain

Ellie Ga

ART  |  $25 $20

February 2009
OUT OF PRINT

meticulously documented and photographed to surprising effect

Denise Dooley

Classification of a Spit Stain is the result of Ellie Ga’s two-year project photographing and analyzing stains on city pavements throughout the world. Accompanying the photographs is a classification system which organizes the stains according to various qualities such as substance and longevity. A combination of urban flaneurie and garbology, Classification of a Spit Stain is a mysterious field guide to the landscape underneath the soles of our shoes. The original version of this artist book, made in an edition of twenty-five copies, is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the New York Public Library, Yale University, Brown University, and UCLA’s Dickson Library, among others. This trade edition was produced in response to sustained interest. This book was funded in part by grants from the NEA and from the Jerome Foundation (via CLMP).

About the Author

Ellie Ga is a New York-born, Stockholm-based, artist whose immersive, wide-ranging investigations include the classification of stains on city sidewalks to the charting of the quotidian in the frozen reaches of the Arctic Ocean. In performances, video-essays and installations, Ga’s braided narratives intertwine extensive research with first-hand experiences that often follow uncertain leads and take unexpected turns. She has exhibited and performed internationally at the New Museum, The Kitchen and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and in Paris at Fondation Cartier pour L’Art Contemporain, among many others. Her video work is in the public collections of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Albright-Knox Museum in Buffalo; FRAC Franche-Comté, Besançon; Fondation Galeries Lafayette, Paris; Hannebauer Collection, Berlin and the Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, New York. Ga was as a recent recipient of a three-year fellowship from the Swedish Research Council.

Praise

In Classification of a Spit Stain, the marks, stains and textural details of urban sidewalks are meticulously documented and photographed to surprising effect by Ellie Ga. Ga acts as a scientist/anthropologist/garbologist addressing human relics left on sidewalks.

Denise Dooley

Publication Details

ISBN: 978-1-933254-45-6
Hardcover
Cloth-bound. 64 pp, 6.75 x 8.5 in
Publication Date: February 15 2009
Distribution: SPD