the 770 show • suné woods

for the 770 show, suné woods browsed the stacks of adobe bookshop inviting the books to choose her. for several hours, she combed through the sections carefully and finally, a fascinating object from the 1920s found her: "history of prostitution" by dr. william w sanger. the weathered blue book contains only one image, a light impression made from a label on the inside front cover. "history of prostitution" is dr. sanger's record of his world travels studying vast populations in an attempt to bring the reader a comprehensive, global understanding of the history, places, societies, and statistics associated with prostitution.

suné was fascinated with the authoritative language used in the book and questioned the accuracy of sanger's study. his research appeared skewed, especially since he characterized a large portion of the populations he visited as "uncivilized"--a word that stood out and inspired suné's cyanotype print of the phrase: "bold-faced lies". the book's context seemed to take on a whole new meaning when read in 2011. suné was curious and at the same time, fascinated, as to why contemporary editions of the book have been printed considering sanger's lop-sided demographic.

in her practice, suné uses the body as a site to think about histories: passed on, forgotten, or imagined. www.sunewoods.com

image 1: suné woods, untitled (bold-faced lies), 2011 and "history of prostitution" in installation at the 770 show
image 2: cover of "history of prostitution"
image 3: light impression of on inside cover of "history of prostitution"
image 4: chapter 30, barbarous nations in the "history of prostitution"

guest blogger • arden sherman • the 770 show

from san francisco's sunny mission district, this week's posts are from curator arden sherman's current project, the 770 show, where seven artists were invited to spend time in an iconic bookshop's stacks, discovering the wealth of ideas that present themselves when organization does not follow tradition. from the huge quantity of subject matter on hand, the artists mined the bookstore for images and responded to the found pictures through photography. taking up the complicated idea of order and organization through the simple act of selection and interpretation, the site acted as an integral part of staging the exhibition. throughout the week, arden will be posting the artists' work and projects from the 770 show in this online installment.