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Essex Hemphill, Hobart Street, Los Angeles, 1992

Essex Hemphill, Hobart Street, Los Angeles, 1992 is an editioned photograph by Lyle Ashton Harris printed on the occasion of Primary Information’s publication of THING magazine. Taken in 1992 and selected from the artist’s archive, the work depicts the late writer, performer, and activist Essex Hemphill, who was featured alongside Harris in the pages of THING.

Produced in an edition of 25, the pigment print is accompanied by a full-color facsimile reproduction of a postcard originally sent by Hemphill to Harris in 1992, as well as a touching remembrance of Hemphill written by the artist in March 2025 titled “Reflections on a Queer Soul Brother.”

Lyle Ashton Harris (born 1965 in Bronx, New York) has cultivated a diverse artistic practice, ranging from photography and collage to video installation and performance art, examining the impact of race, gender, and desire on the contemporary social and cultural dynamic globally through intersections of the personal and the political. His artwork is included in numerous public and private collections internationally as well as being featured in several published monographs and widely exhibited, including by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Portrait Gallery, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Tate Modern, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others.

8 x 10 inches (paper size)
6 x 9 inches (image size)
Digital pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag
Edition of 25 + 5 APs
Signed and numbered on verso
2025

Untitled

Untitled is a limited edition photogravure print by Wade Guyton that serves as the first installment in a new series documenting the artist’s works as they are being examined, unrolled, installed, or conserved. This work marks Guyton’s first time utilizing the photogravure printing process.

Primary Information has available 25 prints from the total edition of 50. The remaining prints in the edition will eventually be included in a set of the full series of works, once completed at a later date. Untitled is printed on a heavy Somerset Satin paper by Tina Kinsbourne, Renaissance Press.

Wade Guyton (b. 1972) was born in Hammond, Indiana, and lives and works in New York. His work has been the subject of numerous one-person exhibitions including Espace Louis Vuitton, Tokyo (2024), Museum Ludwig in Cologne (2019), the Serpentine Gallery in London (2017), Museo Madre – museo d’arte contemporanea Donnaregina in Naples (2017), Museum Brandhorst in Munich (2017), Musée d’art moderne et contemporain (MAMCO) in Geneva (2016), Le Consortium in Dijon (2016), Kunsthalle Zürich (2013), and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (2012).

20 x 16 inches (paper size)
10 5/16 x 14 1/4 inches (image size)
Photogravure on Somerset Satin 300gsm
Edition of 50 + 10 APs
Signed and dated on verso
2025

Untitled

Untitled is a limited edition photogravure print by Wade Guyton that serves as the first installment in a new series documenting the artist’s works as they are being examined, unrolled, installed, or conserved. This work marks Guyton’s first time utilizing the photogravure printing process.

Primary Information has available 25 prints from the total edition of 50. The remaining prints in the edition will eventually be included in a set of the full series of works, once completed at a later date. Untitled is printed on a heavy Somerset Satin paper by Tina Kinsbourne, Renaissance Press.

Wade Guyton (b. 1972) was born in Hammond, Indiana, and lives and works in New York. His work has been the subject of numerous one-person exhibitions including Espace Louis Vuitton, Tokyo (2024), Museum Ludwig in Cologne (2019), the Serpentine Gallery in London (2017), Museo Madre – museo d’arte contemporanea Donnaregina in Naples (2017), Museum Brandhorst in Munich (2017), Musée d’art moderne et contemporain (MAMCO) in Geneva (2016), Le Consortium in Dijon (2016), Kunsthalle Zürich (2013), and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (2012).

20 x 16 inches (paper size)
10 5/16 x 14 1/4 inches (image size)
Photogravure on Somerset Satin 300gsm
Edition of 50 + 10 APs
Signed and dated on verso
2025

She Knows What She Wants

She Knows What She Wants is a limited-edition silkscreen print by Glenn Ligon that reproduces a THING subscription card that the artist filled out in 1992, during the original run of the magazine. Taken from another underground periodical at the time, the card was mailed to THING headquarters in Chicago requesting the next three issues of the magazine and its now-iconic t-shirt. Decades later, it was discovered in the THING archives housed at the Chicago History Museum.

She Knows What She Wants is produced as a two-color silkscreen—matching the original black-and-white image and the artist’s blue-black pen—by Powerhouse Arts in an edition of 100.

Glenn Ligon is an artist living and working in New York. Throughout his career, Ligon has pursued an incisive exploration of American history, literature, and society across bodies of work that build critically on the legacies of modern painting and conceptual art. He is best known for his landmark text-based paintings, made since the late 1980s, which draw on the influential writings and speech of 20th-century cultural figures including James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Jean Genet, and Richard Pryor.

5 x 7.5 inches
Two color silkscreen print
Edition of 100 + 10 APs
Signed and numbered on verso
2025

Untitled

Untitled is a limited edition photogravure print by Wade Guyton that serves as the first installment in a new series documenting the artist’s works as they are being examined, unrolled, installed, or conserved. This work marks Guyton’s first time utilizing the photogravure printing process.

Primary Information has available 25 prints from the total edition of 50. The remaining prints in the edition will eventually be included in a set of the full series of works, once completed at a later date. Untitled is printed on a heavy Somerset Satin paper by Tina Kinsbourne, Renaissance Press.

Wade Guyton (b. 1972) was born in Hammond, Indiana, and lives and works in New York. His work has been the subject of numerous one-person exhibitions including Espace Louis Vuitton, Tokyo (2024), Museum Ludwig in Cologne (2019), the Serpentine Gallery in London (2017), Museo Madre – museo d’arte contemporanea Donnaregina in Naples (2017), Museum Brandhorst in Munich (2017), Musée d’art moderne et contemporain (MAMCO) in Geneva (2016), Le Consortium in Dijon (2016), Kunsthalle Zürich (2013), and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (2012).

20 x 16 inches (paper size)
10 5/16 x 14 1/4 inches (image size)
Photogravure on Somerset Satin 300gsm
Edition of 50 + 10 APs
Signed and dated on verso
2025

THING

Started in 1989 by designer and writer Robert Ford, THING magazine was the voice of the Queer Black music and art scene in the early 1990s. Ford and his editors were part of the burgeoning House music scene, which originated in Chicago’s Queer underground, and some of the top DJs and musicians from that time were featured in the magazine, including Frankie Knuckles, Gemini, Larry Heard, Rupaul, and Deee-Lite. THING published ten issues from 1989-1993, before it was cut short by Ford’s death from AIDS-related illness. All ten issues of THING are collected and published here for the first time.

As House music thrived, THING captured the multidisciplinary nature of the scene, opening its pages to a wide range of subjects: poetry and gossip, fiction and art, interviews and polemics. The HIV/AIDS crisis loomed large in its contents, particularly in the personal reflections and vital treatment resources that it published. An essay by poet Essex Hemphill was published alongside the gossip columnist Michael Musto and Rupaul dished wisdom alongside a diary from the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. Joan Jett Blakk’s revolutionary presidential campaign is contained in these pages, as are some of the most underground, influential literary voices of the time, such as Dennis Cooper, Vaginal Davis, Gary Indiana, Marlon Riggs, David Wojnarowicz, and even David Sedaris.

THING was very much in dialogue with the club kids in New York and other Queer publishing ventures, but in many ways, it fostered an entirely unique perspective—one with more serious ambitions. In a moment when the gay community was besieged by the HIV/AIDS crisis and a wantonly cruel government, the influence and significance of this cheaply-produced newsprint magazine vastly exceeded its humble means, presenting a beautiful portrait of the ball and club culture that existed in Chicago with deep intellectual reflections. THING was a publication by and for its community and understood the fleetingness of its moment. To reencounter this work today, is to reinstate the Black voices who were so central to the history of HIV/AIDS activism and Queer and club culture, but which were often sidelined by white Queer discourse. In many ways, THING offered a blueprint for the fundamental role a magazine plays in bringing together a community, its tagline summing up the bold stakes of this important venture: “She Knows Who She Is.”

The magazine included contributions from Trent D. Adkins, Joey Arias, Aaron Avant Garde, Ed Bailey, Freddie Bain, Basscut, Belasco, Joan Jett Blakk, Simone Bouyer, Lady Bunny, Bunny & Pussy, Derrick Carter, Fire Chick, Chicklet, Stephanie Coleman, Bill Coleman, Lee Collins, Gregory Conerly, Mark Contratto, Dennis Cooper, Dorian Corey, Ed Crosby, The Darva, Vaginal Davis, Deee-Lite, Tor Dettwiler, Riley Evans, Evil, The Fabulous Pop Tarts, Mark Farina, Larry Flick, Robert Ford, Scott Free, David Gandy, Gemini, Gabriel Gomez, Roy Gonsalves, Chuck Gonzales, Tony Greene, André Halmon, Lyle Ashton Harris, Larry Heard, Essex Hemphill, Kathryn Hixson, Sterling Houston, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Gary Indiana, Candy J, Jamoo, Jazzmun, Gant Johnson, Owen Keehnen, Lady Miss Kier, Spencer Kincy, Iris Kit, Erin Krystle, Steve LaFreniere, Larvetta Larvon, Marc Loveless, Lypsinka, Malone, Marjorie Marginal, Terry A. Martin, Rodney McCoy Jr., Alan Miller, Bobby Miller, Michael Musto, Ultra Naté, Willi Ninja, Scott “Spunk” O’Hara, DeAundra Peek, Earl Pleasure, Marlon Riggs, Robert Rodi, Todd Roulette, RuPaul, Chantay Savage, David Sedaris, Rosser Shymanski, Larry Tee, Voice Farm, Lawrence D. Warren, Martha Wash, LeRoy Whitfield, Stephen Winter, David Wojnarowicz, and Hector Xtravaganza.

460 pages
8 x 10.2  inches
Paperback
February 2025
ISBN: 9798988573647

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Managing Editors: James Hoff and Sam Korman
Designer: Rick Myers
Copy Editor: Allison Dubinsky