Joe Brainard Boeken

Joe Brainard's I Remember is a literary and artistic cult classic, praised and admired by writers from Paul Auster to John Ashery and Edmund White. As autobiography, Brainard's method was brilliantly simple: to set down specific memories as they rose to the surface of his consciousness, each prefaced by the refrain "I remember": "I remember when I thought that if you did anything bad, policemen would put you in jail." Brainard's enduring gem of a book has been issued in various forms over the past thirty years. In 1970, Angel Hair books published the first edition of I Remember, which quickly sold out; he wrote two subsequent volumes for Angel Hair, More I Remember (1972) and More I Remember More (1973), both of which proved as popular as the original. In 1973, the Museum of Modern Art in New York published Brainard's I Remember Christmas, a new text for which he also contributed a cover design and four drawings. Excerpts from the Angel Hair editions appeared in Interview, Gay Sunshine, The World and the New York Herald. Then in 1975, Full Court Press issued a revised version collecting all three of the Angel Hair volumes and added new material, using the original title I Remember. This complete edition is prefaced by poet and translator Ron Padgett.

Known during his life primarily as an artist associated with the New York School of poets, Joe Brainard (1942–1994) was also a wonderful writer whose one-of-a-kind autobiographical work I Remember (“a completely original book”—Edmund White) has had a wide and growing influence. It is joined in this major new retrospective with many other works that for the first time allow the full range of Brainard’s writing to be savored in all its deadpan wit, nonstop goofy inventiveness, self-revealing frankness, and generosity of spirit. Collected Writings gathers journals, jottings, letters, stories, one-liners, comic books, mini-essays, and playlets, much of which exist in print only in expensive rarities, if at all, to create “one of the most dazzlingly minute autobiographies ever written” (Harper’s Magazine). “Brainard disarms us with the seemingly tossed-off, spontaneous nature of his writing and his stubborn refusal to accede to the pieties of self-importance,” writes Paul Auster in his introduction to this collection. Assembled by the author’s longtime friend and biographer Ron Padgett and including fourteen never-before published works, here is a fresh and affordable way to rediscover a unique American artist.

Featuring a curated collection of letters from 1959 to 1993, this book provides an intimate glimpse into Joe Brainard's personal and artistic journey. The correspondence reveals his thoughts, relationships, and creative processes, showcasing the evolution of his work and the influences that shaped his life as an artist. Readers will gain a deeper understanding of Brainard's unique perspective and the context behind his contributions to the art world.

Alex Katz celebrates an old friendship, illustrating Brainard's 1970s journals with charcoal flower drawings In this tender posthumous collaboration initiated by Alex Katz (born 1927), the artist embellishes journal entries by his old friend Joe Brainard (1941-94) with a new series of exquisite charcoal drawings of flowers (a popular motif in Brainard's own art). Katz and Brainard often collaborated with poets--particularly those of the New York School, such as Ted Berrigan, Anne Waldman and Ron Padgett--on artists' books, poetry publications, book covers, writings and paintings. Brainard's journal entries in this volume, written between 1971 and 1972, express this milieu, with accounts of conversations and expeditions with Waldman and Padgett as well as frequent mention of his appreciation for Katz's work: "How Alex has remained so pure all these years is beyond me," he notes in one entry, enumerating his favorite Katz works. Katz's charcoal drawings are simple and clear in execution, matching the serene clarity that famously characterizes Brainard's prose.

Joe Brainards Memoiren "I Remember" sind ein unentdecktes Meisterwerk in Deutschland. Mit dem Satz "Ich erinnere mich..." reflektiert er sein Leben und schafft unsortierte, assoziative Erinnerungen, die Jugendliches und Vielschichtiges vereinen. Das Buch gilt als eines der originellsten Werke unserer Zeit.