Cedric Tai's work on paper

Risograph print made with the help of Crater Invertido

"50 Bad Artworks" (Risograph Prints now available at Simone DeSousa Editions)

It took three times as much time as I anticipated, but I finished '50 Bad Artworks' with the bulk of the work being completed with a Risograph machine in Mexico City at Crater Invertido.

I don't mean ''bad'' as in low-brow or in trying to make something distasteful, but due to a lifetime of ''fake it until you make it'', my art practice was shrouded in shame and impossibly high expectations; so I needed permission to be curious anew.

The automatic re-framing, calling whatever happened ''Bad'' worked like MAGIC and I was having fun again.

All of the imagery I used were from cellphone shots I took of my recent 'Bad Artwork' sculptures, most of them being heavy plaster wall pieces, and a few photographs I took of found sculptures in my neighborhood.

The hammer head is an exception; that was a scrap piece of 2x4 (wood) that I cut into shape with a table saw and painted bronze.

Risograph print made with the help of Crater Invertido

Sculptural artworks that were unpolished, embarrassingly fragile, meaningless doodles took on a new life in the spontaneous Risograph process as they were run and re-run, two colors at a time, into unexpected, improvised, abstract collages.

This is a detail of one of the prints where each proof actually has 4 images per page; two on the front and two on the back due to being run through the Risograph machine 2 - 8 times during the process of registering the colors.

Risograph print made with the help of Crater Invertido

These are a selection of 4 prints which in total feature 8 separate individual sculptures or installations. In the process of creating 13 total print editions (featuring 26 individual images of sculptures etc.)

Risograph print made with the help of Crater Invertido

In this particular print, I took the words of a therapist and created a self-portrait with the text ''I need you to understand how I feel, and you can't feel it, and I can't give up needing you to know how I feel.'' which although is a succinct way to describe a core wound it also makes me cringe thinking about the directness of the vulnerability.

That's what I mean by 'Bad'Art.

Art always seems to find a way to make me feel better even when I put impossible expectations on it.

$14 conceptual artwork for sale now at Hauser and Wirth (2019)

I look out for contemporary artworks that are feasible to re-make and it's a nice way to own blue chip works without breaking the bank. I just need a bigger wall...

I framed sixteen spreads from the $14 catalog for "Missing Pages" by Guillermo Kuitca at Hauser and Wirth, LA. (That show is currently up right now, so check out the original, then grab the paper copy and make your own today!)

Public Pool The piece is currently untitled. It's also part of a series where I'm re-training myself to be less judgemental about my creative output. I've tasked myself with making 50 'bad' artworks before the end of the year to try to take the pressure off myself, find fun.

"The Speed of Learning" / "All the People I've Ever Loved"

A special edition of ''The Speed of Learning'' (handmade book) 2012. For more information see my contribution to Chido Johnson's Love Library.

Excerpt from a review of a similar work installed in a public library:

''The work is a comment on the book as artifact. The book has a counter inside that allows users to identify how often the volume has been flipped open, and their own place in that lineage; it carries a similar historical trace to the 'this book must be returned by' slip that appears in the front of many library books; it makes comment on the digitization of libraries and books more generally; it invites readers to reflect on their processes of flicking and reading, and how they identify a book as worth picking up.'' - Text by Glyn Davis