Printed Matter, Inc. is pleased to announce the opening of If Nothing Changes, It Changes Nothing, an exhibition showcasing the work of Lisa Anne Auerbach. Lisa Anne Auerbach runs a modest publishing and propaganda empire out of a former stuccolow in South Los Angeles. When she’s not on her bike, she’s knitting inflammatory, slogan-adorned sweaters and banners, making photographs of overlooked landmarks, and putting small publications and tracts out into the big world. The opening reception will take place on Friday, September 12, 2008 from 5:00 – 7:00 PM. Printed Matter is located at 195 Tenth Avenue at 22nd Street in New York City.

Spanning 15 years of production, If Nothing Changes, It Changes Nothing features a broad spectrum of Lisa Anne Auerbach’s publications, knitted works, and ephemera as well as a new knitted edition created by the artist specifically for the exhibition.

Auerbach began making zines in 1994, with Daniel Marlos, while working at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. Her first zine, The Casual Observer, featured a “log book” of their department and of the authors’ (and others’) daily life there. As the artist recalls,

Not willing to leave well enough alone, we started adding sections and columns. The shop guys, who took care of the exhibits and property soon had their own column, called “Shop Talk.”

This aspect of archiving daily life as well as speculating on and examining the responsibilities of the individual within a larger community is a theme that has run throughout Auerbach’s work and her publications. Her next zine, titled American Homebody, focused on the artist’s domesticity (she no longer had or needed a jobsite); it was followed by other publications such as High Desert Test Sites, American Stuccolow, Everyday Hiking, Road Trip Notes, and Saddlesore. If Nothing Changes, It Changes Nothing features a full survey of these zines and publications.

Auerbach’s latest project, “Tract House”, is a series of 63 tracts (personal, religious, political) written by dozens of people, some friends, some acquaintances, some strangers to the artist. Each tract was printed in an edition of 1,000 for the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore, and Printed Matter will have these as free takeaways, while supplies last. Also included in the show are Saddlesore patches, Homebody stickers and pins, and other ephemera.

Much of the artist’s contemporary practice has focused on knitting: Auerbach has knit posters, sweaters, banners, and a yurt as works and as components of her installations. At Printed Matter, the artist displays a new series of knitted posters based on historical presidential campaigns.

NEW EDITION: Auerbach has produced a limited edition for Printed Matter titled If Nothing Changes, It Changes Nothing, a knitted panel that can be worn as a scarf or displayed on the wall. It is available in a numbered edition of 20, half of which are in red and black and half of which are in blue and black. Orders for the edition can be made at www.printedmatter.org.

In conjunction with If Nothing Changes, It Changes Nothing, Printed Matter will produce a new artist’s book in the form of a knitting handbook. Titled Charted Patterns for Sweaters That Talk Back, the publication will be released during the NY Art Book Fair on October 24th.

Lisa Anne Auerbach’s sweaters, small publications, and photographs have been shown in museums, galleries, cooperative bicycle repair shops, kunsthalles, and on vacant desert lots. Recent solo exhibitions include “Along the Dixie Highway” at Gavlak’s Art Positions container at Art Basel Miami Beach in December, 2007 and “AUERBACHTOBERFEST” at David Patton Los Angeles in October, 2007. Her work was included in the recent group exhibitions “Read Me: Text in Art,” at the Armory Center in Pasadena, CA; “Words Fail Me” at Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit; and “The Way That We Rhyme” at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA. Her “Unicycle Shop,” renting unicycles for ten cents per hour, was located for the weekend at High Desert Test Sites, Joshua Tree, CA, in 2007, and her storefront installation “The Tract House” distributed manifestos and pamphlets in Baltimore during the summer of 2008 as part of the exhibition “Cottage Industry,” at Baltimore Contemporary Museum. Upcoming exhibitions include an election sweater project for the Aspen Museum of Art in Aspen CO (Sept 2008), “Nine Lives” at the Hammer Museum (2009), and a solo project for the University of Michigan Art Museum (2009). She is the recipient of a 2007 California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists, and is represented by Gavlak, West Palm Beach, Florida.