Revenge publishing? A new genre? Or has it been around since writers first put pen to paper? Isn’t all writing to some degree a means to avenge an oversight or a rejection, intending to set the record straight? A number of pieces in this collection which were commissioned, accepted, and paid for, never appeared for one reason or another, whether devious or common: books don’t always cross the finish line. Years go by. Patience evaporates. Corrected Proofs aims to seek remedy.
In addition to previously unpublished pieces, a number of essays and interviews were written specially for this collection: on Lutz Bacher and Charles Ray, with Arnold J. Kemp. There are heroes and villains, from the assassins John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald, to Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Cady Noland and Steven Parrino. Here the reader encounters usual suspects in unexpected context—Marcel Duchamp, Ed Ruscha and Andy Warhol—and artists recently rediscovered—Bob Smith and Stephen Varble—alongside Lee Lozano, the January 6 insurrection, and The Fall.