YYZ is pleased to announce the publication of BILL BURNS’s latest book Two Boiler Suits and a Playlist: A Primate Guide. The book is published as part of the YYZUNLIMITED initiative. The elegant guide describes the chattels given to prisoners and the music that is played to them at the prison camps in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Designed by Shannon Griffiths, the 52-page guide includes 18 line illustrations and two colour plates.
Bill Burns thanks the Leon Levy Foundation in New York for its generous support of this project.
This book is part of a trilogy. The other two books in the series are Bird Radio, published in 2007 by KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, KWAG in Kitchener and Walther Koenig in Cologne and 0.800.0FAUNA0FLORA published in 2008 by the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, England. Bird Radio describes how to recreate the songs of birds of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Jordan and parts of Turkey, Chechnya, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan while 0.800.0FAUNA0FLORA: The Guide to the Flora and Fauna Information Service describes how to help preserve and protect plants and in the same part of the world.
All three books will be available in a limited boxed edition in Fall 2010.
The Playlist:
1. Shoot to Thrill by AC/DC
2. Gold by Matchbox Twenty
3. Stayin’ Alive by The Bee Gees
4. Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen
5. Dirrty by Christina Aguilera
6. Sesame Street Theme Song by Joe Raposo
7. March of the Pigs by Nine Inch Nails
8. American Pie by Don McLean
9. Die Mf Die by Dope
10. Bodies by Drowning Pools
11. Raspberry Beret by Prince
12. White America by Eminem
13. All Eyes on Me by Tupac
14. Fuck Your God by Deicide
15. Enter Sandman by Metallica
16. America by Neil Diamond
17. We Are the Champions by Queen
18. Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine
19. Click Click Boom by Saliva
20. I Love You by Barney the Purple Dinosaur
Artist Bios
Bill Burns
Bill Burns, work about animals and civil society has been shown and published widely including solo projects at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, England (2008); KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin (2007); the Wellcome Trust in London, England (2002); and 303 Gallery, New York (1994) and group shows at the Kunsthallen Nikolaj in Copenhagen, Denmark (2009); Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Lausanne, Switzerland (2006); Museum of Modern Art in New York (2005-06); the Seoul Museum of Art in Korea (2002); and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (1995). He has published numerous books including When Pain Strikes, a scholarly anthology, (Burns, Busby and Sawchuk, editors and contributors, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1999); Bird Radio, (Walther Koenig, KW|AG, and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 2007) and 0.800.0FAUNA0FLORA, (Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, England.) His books and editions are included in collections at Tate Britain in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Getty Center in Los Angeles. His critical writing has been published in Re/search, Art Monthly, Fat, Publicsfear and Parachute. Bill has read or performed his work about animals at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, England (2008); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2008); the Bienal del fin del Mundo in Ushuaia, Argentina (2007); the Americas Society, New York (2004) and the Forum Arte y Vida 8th Havana Bienal in Havana, Cuba (2003).
He is a Research Associate of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Cambridge, England (2002-present) and he received the Danish International Visiting Artist Award (DIVA) from the Danish Arts Agency in Copenhagen in 2009.