LATE START FOR MARDI GRAS ~ Soft cover Compendium

This 192 page compendium mirrors the LSFMG booklet series that features a collaboration between Max Blagg 21 artists. The 6"x9" softcover, with full color reproductions of each of the 21 collaborative artworks and the corresponding poems was published May 2024 and launched at James Cohan 48 Walker St NYC on May 29.

LATE START FOR MARDI GRAS began in 2019 with a 200-page printout of one of M. Blagg’s 2011 manuscripts, randomly stitched onto raw canvas by J. Huminska, and tacked to his studio walls for further editing and redaction while he convalesced from a tick-borne illness.

These ‘text-canvases’, ranged in size from 12”x 60” to 48”x 72”, each comprising anywhere from 4 to 16 pages of text. With a couple dozen of these ‘ready-mades’ on hand, Blagg began inviting artists to collaborate. They chose their piece by title or text, working directly on the canvas or in some cases creating an entirely new piece. The project took it's name from the first piece that was completed by Walter Robinson, entitle LATE START FOR MARDI GRAS.

LSFMG culminated in a collection of 21 poems and 21 artworks, and a 7 volume series of individually red thread stitched signed booklets presented in a hand assembled box in an edition of 50 copies, and now this compendium. The project spotlights a collaboration between Blagg & these artists:

Golnar Adili, Ellen Berkenblit, Ernesto Caivano, Michael Combs, Peter Dayton, Sally Egbert, Eric Fischl, James Gilroy, Nan Goldin, Michael Halsband, Curtis Kulig, Justen Ladda, Ruth Marten, Jamie Nares, Walter Robinson, Nick Rule, Will Ryman, Ken Tisa, Walter Schrank, Ryan Wallace and Lucy Winton.

Published and printed in the USA in an edition of 250 copies.