S.M.S. No.2
William Copley and Dimitri Petrov

11h x 7w

$3,000 Available (1)

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S.M.S. (Shit Must Stop) was subscription-based exhibition in a box conceived, edited, and produced by William Copley and Dimitri Petrov in 1968. The project derived its formal conceit from antecedents like Marcel Duchamp’s La Boîte-en-valise, George Maciunas’s FluxKit, and Phyllis Johnson’s Aspen, but was unique in its juxtaposition of the well-known with the unknown, and in its short-lived intensity: six editions, each featuring about a dozen artist multiples, were distributed throughout 1968 before Copley and Petrov called it quits. 

S.M.S. No. 2 (April 1968) includes work by Marcel Duchamp, Nicolas Calas, Bruce Conner, Marcia Herscovitz, Alain Jacquet, Ray Johnson, Lee Lozano, Meret Oppenheim, Bernard Pfreim, George Reavevy, and Clovis Trouille.  

The portfolio jacket of S.M.S. No. 2 features the work of Copley’s long-time friend, Marcel Duchamp. The cover features a facsimile edition of the spinning disk Esquivons les ecchymoses des esquimax aux mots exquis, while the reverse is inscribed with the phrase “a guest + a host = a ghost,” an aphorism first imprinted by Duchamp above his name on a series of foil-wrapped candies distributed to guests at the opening of Copley’s 1953 solo exhibition in Paris.