Rebel Hands Press

Rebel Hands Press is a small, Los Angeles-based publisher of art books, performative texts, ªnd shagged-øut poetic wonders - often in exhaustively low production runs, ªnd/ºr limited editions...with the occasional artist's book.

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shot + edited by emji saint spero, this happens back to the very first event in The Post-Elevator Tour series. Deep Covid trapped most of the eventees in their personal bubbles and pushed this performative reading ahead in the timeline and onto Zoom to join in Open House remotely. Populating this w/ more & more live reading, performance work, and similar video action as it’s unearthed. ------------- jeremy kennedy performs A Gamble in this Dress | Abba Zaba Open House II

jeremy kennedy performs excerpts from her book A Gamble in this Dress for Abba Zaba Open House II, as part of The Post-Elevator Tour NxSW with emji saint spero. Curated by Erin Drew. El Cortez Hotel & Casino - Las Vegas, Nevada | December 18, 2021 | Videography and Editing by emji saint spero. 

A Gamble in This Dress is available via Rebel Hands Press: rebelhandspress.com • ig+yt: @rebelhandspress​ • e: rebelhandspress @ g mail . com -------------

jeremy kennedy - Los Angeles-based artist|writer|sound-maker:

• table-blue.com • ig: @table_blue • yt: @tableblue  Support for The Post-Elevator Tour NxSW is provided by Poets&Writers Grant and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant 

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a glimpse into verbal disappointment/arithmetics was hard

An oversexed, food-centric play in four acts by Emji Saint Spero + Jeremy Kennedy, originally written & performed for PRAXINOSCOPE no.1 (02.20.2022 | Bar 1642 | Los Angeles CA). 

Experimental audio theatre version now available as limited-edition, 30-minute cassette via FMSMPRC (fmsmprc.bandcamp.com), also hosted HERE! Tape includes 10” x 15”, potentially erotic poster insert w/ silk slip, thong reveal, and behind-the-back knife-sharpener experience.  

Also, find the Full Transcrypt + other terrific work in Praxinoscope PerformX | Documents No. 1: “Months of the Year” - Available Here!

*A P/Sicho Street Theatre Company production.

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folie à deux (à la table bleue)

Emji Saint Spero & Jeremy Kennedy present… folie à deux (à la table bleue)

Another thing that doesn’t make any sense.

folie à deux (à la table bleue) is a soft-boiled pocket-depo / no-wave noir, (re: another thing that doesn't make any sense), funded in part by the Otis Worldwide Corporation and released in tandem with the Post-Elevator Tour. Recipient of the LANNEFF Maverick Neo Noir Award. 

Based on a true story.

~24 staple-bound, black & white pages

~Measure: 8.5" x 5.5"

~Edition: 53

Available for pre-order here, or here!

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A Gamble In This Dress

A Gamble In This Dress Jeremy Kennedy

A collection of recent works and non-excerpts from the forthcoming romance novel The Dark Villa.

To whom it may concern:

It concerns me. It concerns men in Los Angeles, ages 38-44.

You have to fuck everything in sight, don’t you? Your virility is waning — who are you now? As you scramble for the remnants of your sexual vanity, I ask politely, for the last time, please leave me alone.

I do get it, this thing that Jeremy asked me to write a short thing for. I totally get it. I’m an intellectual. I’m also a girl with a throb, armed with a puckered tongue kiss, dome-less, a deep throat. I’m lost. Where do I begin and the blowjobs end? Why did he ask me to write this thing? Notwithstanding, I get it.

When I told my mom that I was asked to write a thing, she asked, before anything else, if he wants to fuck me. I humbly skirted the affirmative. I am aware of what I have to offer. And I am aware that I’m not really writing about the thing that Jeremy wrote that you’re going to read. I don’t think he wanted that anyway. Or maybe he did.

I sort of hate this thing he wrote, because it made me feel stupid. And that pissed me off, because how am I supposed to write about a thing that doesn’t make any sense? Or am I missing something?

Men in Los Angeles, ages 38-44, really love to be intelligent, and they love me because my dating app profile includes an animated meme of a big tiddy girl in a g-string squatting by a glory hole, through which Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit pokes. They love this image. They love that they can stick their dick deep in it, through to the other side of their phone, into my eyes, and leave behind the words: “you look like fun.” My generosity holds the portal open. I let them climb through the image, crawl into my bed and lay there, while I milk. Gimme gimme all your blah blah blah.

Jeremy is kind, but this book is rude. He put his dick in it. Don’t ask me to close-read these omissive vignettes, enacted through SMS colloquialisms like “yr.”  Where is the O U? You owe me. Give me something to hold, Jeremy. I want to be in on it. I give you my hips and you give me rhetorical vagaries. I get it and it slips away. I get it and it slips away. Is this an induced emotional bulimia, counter to His alleged emotional anorexia? 

Listen, if I am writing this thing, surely I am in on it. I get it. Gosh, I really hope my talent has translated here. No matter, I’m trapped in the riptide that is my schematic relationship to men in LA, ages 38-44. And I’d love it so much for you all to leave me alone.

-Roz Naimi (2021)

All that plus an interminably synchronous soundtrack suggested by Emji Saint Spero.

~ 34 tape-bound pages

~ Measure: 8" x 5"

~ Edition: 40

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"Free Flyer!" (Volume One)

"Free Flyer!- Volume One" is a collection of recent works and revised classics from the flyer-based public art project of the same name, by Los Angeles-based artist, Jeremy Kennedy.

Now found here, captured and bound. Featuring 16 easy to use perforated, tear n’ share pages.

Now available Here or here.

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Exegesis Eisegesis Encaustic

Katie Herzog & Andrew Choate

Exegesis Eisegesis Encaustic is a collaborative series of encaustic diptychs depicting signs in and around Los Angeles. The painter Katie Herzog teamed up with the poet Andrew Choate to paint representations of the original signs, and refracted versions of the signs with all-new text written by Choate.

This book collects all twenty-two of the diptychs as well as installation views of the original exhibition alongside several essays that approach the collaboration from different angles: Kenneth Lapatin (J. Paul Getty Museum) discusses the work in the context of the history of encaustic; Carol Cheh (Another Righteous Transfer!) speaks towards Los Angeles signage and public symbolism in relation to pop culture; Blanca Pujals (BxNU Institute) provides a bi-lingual consideration of the works spatial intersection with the structural world; Mace Ojala (Information Science Triwizard) examines functional illiteracy as cultural critique.

Exegesis Eisegesis Encaustic texturally mirrors and refracts Herzog and Choate’s arrangements, collapsing the distinction between art show and artist catalogue; the book becomes an extended component of the series.

These paintings were first exhibited at Klowden Mann in Los Angeles from June to July of 2016.

~ 90 pages

~ Measure: 8" x 10" (Landscape)

~ Edition: 100

Available for order HERE or here!

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Cry List

Contributors: Chelsea Rector, Jamie Iacoli, Jeremy Kennedy, Sammi Skolmoski, William Joseph Gass

Photography: Ang Wilson

Crying is nothing other than itself. Metaphor is a construct that brings crying out of itself… These essays are accounts of crying, and the essay lists are not metaphors. It is a way for the authors to say that these things have taken them, emotionally, directly. No metaphors. What these essays account is the form of agitation we call crying. From joy to sorrow, the items listed explore the questions, what does it take/what makes us cry?. The lists are a conceptual framework, organizing the otherwise indomitable act of crying.

The essays each list five items that make the authors cry… Unlimited in range, about the tangible or abstract, the essays also ask you, the reader, to think about when you cry. Cry List is a collection of insights on opening the hermetically sealed core of crying through connection with another form of expression that appears outside the body.

Scored throughout in watery photographic notation, Cry List assembles a world of feeling, tangential to objective reality.

~ 50 pages (perfect bound)

~ Measure - 7” x 5”

~ Edition - 50

Available Here... or Here

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Exegesis Eisegesis Encaustic

Forthcoming: June 2019

By: Katie Herzog and Andrew Choate

Exegesis Eisegesis Encaustic is a collaborative series of encaustic diptychs depicting and refracting signage text in and around Los Angeles by Katie Herzog with Andrew Choate, first exhibited at Klowden Mann in Los Angeles from June to July of 2016.

In collecting all twenty-two diptychs alongside essays by Kenneth Lapatin, Carol Cheh, Mace Ojala, Blanca Pujals and the artists themselves, with introduction by curator Deb Klowden Mann, this book texturally mirrors and refracts Herzog and Choate’s arrangements, and collapses the distinction between art show, artist catalogue and becomes an extended component of the series.

Structurally and poetically, itself as an art book.

~ 100 color pages

~ Measure: 8" x 10" (Landscape)

~ Edition: Limited

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A Horse With A Name

By: Justin Clifford Rhody

Artist and poet Justin Clifford Rhody continues his aesthetic investigation of the American West with this installment of found-language, compiled from the littered racing programs collected during the artist’s time spent amidst the bright, dusty bleachers of California’s extant race horse tracks. 

Both plaintive and humorous, A Horse With A Name is more than just procession; it is an archive of language that is pinned down both historically and geographically. It tilts us towards the edge of our seats, curiously indexing the neuroses, desires, and even political yearnings of a certain west coast populous.

Questions are raised: Why all of the name calling? What are the stakes? At once epic and odd, Scattered Dreams, American Progress, Roman Guitar—these are our champions. With sun-drenched wrists, we send them off. 
— Rebecca Ramirez Rebel Hands Press (2017)

~ 68 page paperback book (perfect bound)

~ materials - matte coated cover stock, text stock

~ measure - 7″ x 4.375″

~ edition - 50

Available HERE… or here!

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NOTE TO SEA

By: Aaron Beasley + Jeremy Kennedy

It starts with “wash gate” and a possible blood splatter. A gate is a barrier, or at least at the edge. This one is clean, or does the cleaning. I get it! The liminal threshold purges the sufferer by way of acknowledging the edge: spilled mount, excerpt lifestyle, sample pilgrimage.

Collaborative work requires all parties to bleed a pomegranate seed into the “return” button on their respective keyboards, such that the button refrains from feeling de-pressed when pushed. This gives the sensation of an evenness in all regards as lines drop next to lines, even when the next line is far away, strophe to blotch.

Close reading? Consider the enemy. How about some distant reading? Give the imagery some space. No ‘rigor’ just ‘dash’: the curl that makes it ‘vigor’ is the time it gives back to your ‘death.’ The canoness called; she wants her cute, hazardous enlightenment back. - Andrew Choate (2017)

~ 2o page full-color book (saddle-bound)

~ materials - matte cover stock, matte color stock

~ measure - 8.5″ x 5.5″

~ edition - 32

Available HERE… or here!

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Street Terms, Vol. 2

By: Elaina Morgan + Jeremy Kennedy

In photographic form, Street Terms, Vol. 2 is the second in a series of art books cataloging the collaborative language-twisting works by artists Elaina Morgan (Brooklyn, NY) + Jeremy Kennedy (Los Angeles, CA).

Each installment is catalyzed by a coincidental encounter with a tangible, incomplete set of characters. Utilizing only what’s included in their alphanumeric find, the artists create a collection of succinct absurdist meditations on contemporary culture and city life.

Volume 2 features colorful foam materials found stoopside in Brooklyn and shot in studio on a bright background. This cheerful setting provides a marked contrast to the phrases, which reflect the duo’s ever-growing civilian discontent.

~ 26 page full-color book (saddle-bound)

~ materials - matte cover stock, matte photo stock

~ measure - 6" x 8"

~ edition - 44

Available HERE… or here!

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ARThritIS Flocking Kit

By: j. shelley harrison Manual By: j. shelley harrison + Lucile Baker Scott

Flocking. A term coined by the artist, but owned by all, is an open source means of viewing ones environment in an augmented way.

Based in psychogeography, it is a creative forum for performance, collaboration, roaming, everyone. ARThritIS (apply any/all/no definition of the word “band” here) is a centerpiece of the project. With this kit, in fabulous “beige rainbow”, you are officially a member… if you aren’t already.

~ stenciled totable kit featuring: 22 page manual (screen-printed cover, parchment, vellum, paper), button, keychain, masking tape, spray paint, dice, aquarium rock, string, marker, window marker, stencil.

~ Measure - approx. 14h x 14w x 3d

~ Edition - 50

Available HERE... or here!

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“Lil’ Help?” : A Charming yet Challenged version of the American Masculine Kitchen

By: Mark Rice + Jeremy Kennedy

A flippable guide through next level foods and the consideration of.

Straddling the fence between menus of possibility and absurdity, two artists tackle cuisine idealistically with what they are given and what they’ve absorbed. Presented in a stylish, e-z to use table top format.

Comes packaged in screen-printed literature mailer box, with exclusive sticker. *Neither Goatmother Industrial nor Rebel Hands Press take responsibility for like anything.

~ 19 page, full color, ring bound table display, with screen-printed cover on chipboard.

~ Measure - 13h x 6w x 5d

~ Edition - 39

Available HERE... or here!

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Street Terms: Vol. 1

By: Elaina Morgan + Jeremy Kennedy

Photography: Rebecca Ramirez

In photographic form, Street Terms, Vol. 1 is the first in a series of art books cataloging the collaborative language-twisting works by artists Elaina Morgan (Brooklyn, NY) + Jeremy Kennedy (Los Angeles, CA).

Each installment is catalyzed by a coincidental encounter with a tangible, incomplete set of characters. Utilizing only what's included in their alphanumeric find, the artists create a collection of succinct absurdist meditations on contemporary culture and city life.

Vol. 1 features arrangements of mirror-polished brass letters discovered in the wilds of Echo Park, Los Angeles and shot on verdant turf by photographer Rebecca Ramirez.

~ 26 page full-color book (saddle-bound)

~ materials - matte cover stock, matte photo stock

~ measure - 6" x 8"

~ edition - 44

Available HERE... or here!

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Spanish Silver Fox

                Artist: Guan Rong                           Interview: Brian Getnick

Photography: Patricia Castaneda, Morgan Yu               Layout: Jeremy Kennedy

Set in fashion magazine format, Spanish Silver Fox offers an extensive view into Los Angeles based artist Guan Rong's vision of her ideal husband.

In this production, an in-depth interview conducted by artist Brian Getnick acts as a guide through glossy pages of glamorously stylized work by photographers Patricia Castaneda and Morgan Yu.

Reality and fantasy merge herein to create what can easily be read as a physical dating site profile of the artist, an appropriate conceptual platform for her views on love, life, and desire.

~10 page full color magazine (saddle bound)

materials~ gloss photo-stock, coated cover-stock

measure~ 9x12

limited edition~ 50

Available HERE… or here!

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Sea Hunt (Season 2 Episode 10)

Original Story: Arthur Weiss                     Closed Caption Translation: YouTube                                                          Art Direction: Jeremy Kennedy

About~Sea Hunt (Season 2 Episode 10)... Selected screengrabs with automatically generated poetic narrative revision of one episode from the 1950′s-60′s underwater action/adventure series.

~10 page staple bound zine.

materials~ xerox on white paper, cardstock cover.

measure~ 8x5.5

Available HERE... or here!

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Wolf Drone

Art Direction: Jeff Moerchen          Photographs: Adam Erick Wallace

'Wolf Drone' aka (Chasing Providence) is a behinds the scenes look during a short fashion film.

24 page newspaper

materials: newsprint, black ink

measure: ~17x22