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| Living & Loving: #1: The Biography of Donald Cappy |
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| Living & Loving: #1: The Biography of Donald Cappy by Aleksandra Mir, 2002, a new Cubitt Commission: a 32 page, A3 size, full-color publication. The project is the public dissemination of one ordinary man’s extraordinary life. Printed in an edition of 5,000 copies, it was distributed for FREE from Cubitt, London, in collaboration with the DCA, Dundee, for the show ‘Ill Communication’ (January 2003). Donald’s life story was further disseminated through collaborating art spaces throughout the world that received a surprise gift of 100 to give away for FREE. The project is now out of print but you can download the whole document as a pdf HERE. 'San Francisco, December 16th, 2001,
Polly,
... I’ve been working here for a few weeks now, researching this other project for the CCAC Institute and I’ve just met this young man, Donald Cappy.
Donald is the Manager of Public Safety here on the CCAC campus where I am staying; we got talking about his life after my first night in town when I thought I was being harassed and my place broken into (by an unassuming security guard it turned out). Donald grew up in various foster homes; was a punk in his teens; went into the marines; saw 47 nations; had 50 girlfriends; was married; had a child; found the love of his life. She dumped him the day he got a divorce from his wife (Why? ‘Because she is a woman!’); came back to go to college; dropped out; went into security and bouncing; works the nightclubs where he meets all the stars and manages security at the school where he is buddy with all the staff and the students. Donald is 28 years old.
He showed me all his meticulously well kept photo albums and broke everything down for me in detail: The reasons why people take in foster kids and what is expected of you in return; the destroy-and-create economy of punk; the torturous aspects of love and friendship; the logic between swinging when you are married, cheating when you are not; the rituals of the marines and the intimacy between men; the fine line between violence and safety.
Donald's life hinges on everyone else's but this story is his only; the public dissemination of one ordinary man's extraordinary life. I am coming back here at the end of January and will take the opportunity to spend more time with him; record our conversations and scan his photos. I have promised Donald I will make a book about his life one day, so thus extend this opportunity to you.
Aleksandra’
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| Living & Loving: #2: The Biography of Zoe Stillpass |
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| Living & Loving #2—The Biography of Zoe Stillpass is the public dissemination of one ordinary woman’s extraordinary life, as told by her parents. Originally printed in an edition of 10,000 copies, it was distributed for FREE from Frieze Art Fair, Regent’s Park, London, 15–18 October 2004. The project is now out of print but you can download the whole document as a pdf HERE. 'New York, May, 2004,
Polly,
I think I have found the subject for the next Biography. Her name is Zoe Stillpass and she is an art collector’s daughter. On the outset, being an only child, a popular and attractive honor student, the subject of numerous art commissions, traveling around the world, hers is a life of privilege dramatically different than Donald Cappy’s. Yet strangely, I get the feeling Zoe is also essentially formed by forces beyond her reach.
I wanted to suggest that you come with me to Cincinnati and meet her parents, Karen and Andy. I’ve known them for quite some time already and I know they would love to talk and have us visit. Zoe left her family home for college a year ago and is now doing an internship at the film festival in Cannes, so she won’t be there. I think it would be interesting to completely exclude her voice and let Karen and Andy speak for her, creating a phantom of parental dreams and desires, mixed with the factual creation of their daughter and the circumstances of her life.
Aleksandra’
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| Living & Loving: #3: The Biography of Mitchell Wright |
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Living & Loving #3—The Biography of Mitchell Wright is the public dissemination of one ordinary man’s extraordinary life. Originally printed in an edition of 5,000 copies, it was distributed for FREE from White Columns, 320 West 13th Street, New York, June 2006. The project is now out of print but you can download the whole document as a pdf HERE. 'Knoxville, November 2005,
Polly,
I have just finished four days interviewing the subject for the next biography. His name is Mitchell Wright and he’s a 29 years old fine art graduate student at the University of Tennessee here in Knoxville.
I met Mitchell last summer when he walked into my studio in New York, looking for a summer job. He was the shyest of my assistants, I couldn’t figure him out at the beginning and I thought this boy to be the most likely to pull out a machine gun and shoot us all. After a while though, we discovered a shared interest in outer space and in the end he brought me a tray of home backed cupcakes.
Right now, Mitchell is finishing his last year in school and he is lingering somewhere in between it all: his country childhood and big city plans, his education ending and his professional life starting, hopes and anxieties about the art world, the past and the future all compressed into one. I think it will make for a great story.
Aleksandra’
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