For the art lover with a modest budget the multiple is a fantastic way to own a piece of art without busting the bank. For the artist whose work doesn’t sell at high prices or often enough, the multiple is a good way to augment sales. Following Marcel Duchamp’s ready-mades, artist’s multiples became a subversive art-form and has become a sort of more democratic object of art used by various artists of greater or lesser fame including Joseph Beuys, Dieter Roth in the 70’s. Tracy Enim and Sarah Lucas even created a multiple store in the 90’s. Today one can find many reproductions of paintings and drawings as giclees or prints, also industrially produced sculptures. Many, but not all multiples are produced in limited editions, signed and numbered.
Multiples by Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Beuys, Dieter Roth, Sarah Lucas, Tracy Enim.
Here, are three multiples that I have produced, two are high quality digital prints and one of them is a limited edition 7″ vinyl 45 RPM record.
Letter press cover of 7″ after painting by the author.
Back cover of 7″ collage by the author
- Just Like Dresden 45/Headliner, New York Niggers, NYN Records, 474 Greenwich ST, NYC 10012, vinyl 7″ 45 RPM in white dust-sleeve. Re-Issue, 7″ vinyl 45 RPM with letterpress two color cover and plastic sleeve. 500 pressed, 250 with letter press cover hand numbered 1, 2, 3…/250, 2008. The original 1000 were produced by Leo Faison and Dieter Runge in 1979 and have sold on the secondary market for up to $ 1 000. The cover of the Just Like Dresden 45 side of the re-issue is based on an oil painting The Bombing, oil on linen, 84″ x 66″, Dieter Runge 2007/8 while the cover of the Headliner side is a collage of the various band members. Just Like Dresden 45 is the first song I wrote and the record is considered by many as one of the finest of its period and has developed somewhat of a cult following as is obvious by the price it fetches. This hand numbered limited re-issue with its unique cover printed with an outdated printing method is a true multiple with an almost guaranteed potential to increase in value. The record, lyrics and photos have been part of a museum exhibition: SCHLACHTHOF 5, DRESDEN’S DESTRUCTION IN LITERARY DOCUMENTS, alongside eminent artists as Kurt Vonnegut and Martin Walser. The continuous interest in the record is of course partially fueled by the name of the band as well as the name and theme of the song, which none of the rock’n roll protagonists dreamed of at the time. To make sense of this vital and creative chapter in my life, of Rock’n Roll and New York City, to set the record straight, I am working on a memoir about it.
7″ label
For more on this story read From Canal Street to Club Hollywood and how the record appeared next to literary giants like Kurt Vonnegut and Martin Walser in the SCHLACHTHOF 5 exhibition.
The Bombing, oil on linen, 84″ x 66″, ink txt in back, NYN 7″vinyl re-issue over wall and painting, MFA thesis exhibition, dieter runge, 2008 “drop songs – not bombs.”
For more on my MFA thesis exhibition.
Gold Waves, oil on linen, 50″ x 64″, 2014/5
2. Gold Waves, oil on linen, 50″ x 64″ (original), dieter runge, 2014/15,
Giclee, 2015, on canvas, is available in various sizes, from the original 50″ x 64″ down, stretched on wood stretcher bars or rolled up for easy shipping. The Gold Waves is a striking painting of a set of waves lit up by the setting sun, based on a photograph by Stephen Whitesell. The original is loosely painted with thick brushstrokes as well as thinner layers using a limited palette of black, white, yellow, red and gold. I have spend many years on the water sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing reading and studying the surface for angles, gusts of wind, direction of waves, current or just feeling the light reflected back at me. I started to paint water surfaces in the early 2000’s and feel that I do own this subject. The original painting flew out of the studio and this multiple is powerful in small or large sizes. On request, I will paint directly on top of the giclee, thus creating another “original,” of sorts.
For a detailed post and genesis of the painting as well as the giclees read “When I Paint My Masterpiece.”
“Gold Waves”, oil on linen, detail
“One Hundred Views of Taiji” fine art print, 18″ x 24″
- “100 Views of Taiji”, fine art print 18″ x 24″ of the original 100 paintings 8″x 10″ oil on canvas. When I first started taiji quan in 1982 I thought, wow, this is what I have been looking for my whole life. Now, after 34 years and having studied with three distinguished masters and I still practice and teach taiji. In the summer of 2003 I followed the taiji form and used small 1 1/2″ x 2 1/2″ black and white photographs from my master’s grandfather, Tung Ying Jie’s Red Book as inspiration. I painted one 8″ x 10″ canvas per day. All 100 original paintings were exhibited in Honolulu’s Chinatown twice and at the University of Hawaii’s Hamilton Library. The paintings are now in private collections in Hawaii, Hong Kong, New York, Berlin, Montreal and other places. The fine art print is sprayed with a protective and anti-fungal coat, hand numbered and signed by the artist.
“One Hundred Views of Taiji” hand signature
These fine multiples are available directly from me. Each order will be treated with utmost care and attention. Contact me via e-mail: dieter.runge.808@gmail.com, FB or Linkedin, or instagram. You will help me keep making art, music and allow me to enchant you with taiji, yoga, ayurveda and many more stories.
Coda: For Your Pleasure, the second album by the ground breaking band Roxy Music came out in 1973 and sounds as good and radical today as then. While the Velvet Underground did hang out and collaborated with Andy Warhol, their songs and sound was fully developed when they met Andy, and it is Roxy Music who I truly consider the first fully ‘warholian’ rock’n roll band. Both Brian Ferry and Brian Eno were art students, Brian Ferry being a student of Richard Hamilton, the British pop art guru. Roxy Music consciously applied art history and concepts to pop music creating some of the most exciting music of the time along with Lou Reed, David Bowie, Marc Bolan...
“The Sphinx and Mona Lisa, Lolita and Guernica – did the Strand,” Roxy Music
While we are talking visual arts, the early Roxy Music covers where just as groundbreaking as the music influencing many bands later on. Nile Rogers from Chic admitted in an interview how influential the band was on them and how they completely ripped off the cover art.
For your Pleasure, Roxy Music, foldout cover, inside, 1973
For Your Pleasure, Roxy Music, vinyl 12″, fold out cover, Karl Stoecker, 1973
Dieter Runge 