A biannual publication by W/— Projects in collaboration with Leong Leong Architecture, White Zinfandel is devoted to the visual manifestation of food and culture produced within the lives of creative individuals. The second issue of White Zinf, as its editors have come to call it, brings together a mostly-new cast of characters who have devoted their creative energies to indulge a sometimes perverse obsession with art and food. The first issue of White Zinf was inspired by the ethos of Gordon Matta Clark’s FOOD restaurant — raw, resourceful and a celebration of New York’s downtown artist community in the 1970s.

For the second issue, the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. Rather than the singular and novel, it is inspired by the generic and banal. As a perfect marriage of pragmatism and cultural excess, the TV dinner represents a culinary baseline that spans nearly fifty years. Its origins can be traced to middle America in the early ‘60s and various processed food companies.

But the exact moment of the TV dinner’s invention is vague, not unlike the processed foods sealed within. As an archetype and common denominator of Western Pop culture, the TV dinner spans our collective nostalgia with conflicting sensations of comfort and disgust.

Paper Monument publishes its first pamphlet, I like your work: art and etiquette, with contributions from 38 artists, critics, curators, and dealers on the sometimes serious and sometimes ridiculous topic of manners in the art world.

The art world is now both socially professional and professionally social. Curators visit artists’ studios; collectors, dealers, and journalists assemble for a reception and reconvene later for dinner; everyone goes to parties. We exchange introductions and small talk; art is bought and sold; careers (and friendships) brighten or fade. In each situation, certain behaviors are expected while others are silently discouraged. Sometimes, what’s appropriate in the real world would be catastrophic in the art world, and vice versa.

Making these distinctions on the spot can be nerve-wracking and disastrous. So we asked ourselves: What is the place of etiquette in art? How do social mores establish our communities, mediate our critical discussions, and frame our experience of art? If we were to transcribe these unspoken laws, what would they look like? What happens when the rules are broken? Since we didn’t have all the answers, we politely asked our friends for some help.

Paper Monument publishes its first pamphlet, I like your work: art and etiquette, with contributions from 38 artists, critics, curators, and dealers on the sometimes serious and sometimes ridiculous topic of manners in the art world.

The art world is now both socially professional and professionally social. Curators visit artists’ studios; collectors, dealers, and journalists assemble for a reception and reconvene later for dinner; everyone goes to parties. We exchange introductions and small talk; art is bought and sold; careers (and friendships) brighten or fade. In each situation, certain behaviors are expected while others are silently discouraged. Sometimes, what’s appropriate in the real world would be catastrophic in the art world, and vice versa.

Making these distinctions on the spot can be nerve-wracking and disastrous. So we asked ourselves: What is the place of etiquette in art? How do social mores establish our communities, mediate our critical discussions, and frame our experience of art? If we were to transcribe these unspoken laws, what would they look like? What happens when the rules are broken? Since we didn’t have all the answers, we politely asked our friends for some help.