The First 100 Days of Obama
Box dimensions: 10.75 x 7.75 x 8.75”
Binding: Silk over boards
Contents: 100 ink drawings; the backside of each drawing includea a brief penciled account of place and circumstance; each one is numbered, dated, and signed. The box includes 11 shelves, 10 for 10 drawings each, and one shelf for a signed gallery edition (#16/25) with unique text and drawing.
Softbound Volume: 200 pages; 6 x 9”, in an edition limited to 25 copies; each printed volume includes 99 drawings with facing journal entries; the two pages “100” include one original ink drawing and one holograph imagined message from the Office of the President.
The First 100 Days of Obama was initiated as a drawing and journal project on January 20, 2009, the occasion of the inauguration of Barack Obama as the new President of the United States. For each day, Stephen Vincent—artist, poet and writer—created a “haptic” drawing and journal entry. Made with pen and ink, the abstract marks emerged from a close listening to public and/or private sounds of the particular day.
On the opposite side of each drawing, Vincent wrote in pencil to provide a preliminary journal entry, including the drawing’s number, location date and the artist’s signature. Both informational and lyrical, these accounts form the foundation for the variously revised, often expanded journal entries in the enclosed Gallery catalog.
On the 100th day the work became the nexus of a book and gallery exhibit at Steven Wolf Fine Arts in San Francisco. A grid of the 100 pieces of art was framed in a 10’ x 10’ wall piece. On the morning of the opening, the enclosed book—limited to 25 softbound copies—arrived overnight from a print-on-demand service. With the exception of the two blank pages for “Day 100”, the book was a full reproduction of the original artwork and the finished texts.
The gallery opened at 10 o’clock on April 29, closing at 8 o’clock in the evening, with the artist in residence the entire day. Over the course of the 10 hours, Vincent created both a journal entry and an artwork for the two empty pages on what would be each volume’s ‘Day 100,’ the mark-making responding to gallery conversation and related ambient noise. Text entries consisted of fictitious messages of welcome from the new President, including a regret that he could not join the day’s gathering.
This boxed volume contains the project’s 100 original drawings and journal entries -and includes a copy of the printed, signed gallery edition (# 16/25) with unique text and drawing. This boxed edition is limited to one copy, signed and numbered by the Artist.
Conception: Stephen Vincent
Typographic Design: Ingalls & Associates
Binder: Michele Chun