A. Bandit - A Secret Has Two Faces Opt

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A .B A N D 1 T

M a rin a A b ram o vi6 John B aldessari David Blaine Tony D eL ap D e re k D elG au d io Ricky Jay G lenn Kaino D en ise M arko nish M a x IVIaven Teller

A.BANDIT A SECRET HAS TWO FACES

THE COLLABORATIVE WORK OF GLENN KAINO AND DEREK DELGAUDIO DELMONICO BOOKS-PRESTEL

MUNICH, LONDON, NEW YORK

CONTENTS

ESSAYS

10

I BELIEVE IN YOU. YOUR MAGIC IS REAL.

18

DENISE MARKONISH 14

ORIGINS OF A.BANDIT INTERVIEW BY DENISE MARKONISH

MYSTERY LOVES COMPANY MAX MAVEN

BELIEFS

SITES

LABOR

34

A.BANDIT CONTRACT PACT#2A 20101006

48

SET SALE

36

THE SPACE BETWEEN

54

TORN AND RESTORM

38

A WALK THROUGH CHINA

58

OLD METHODS FOR NEW WARS

66

READY TO BE MADE

84

BILLBOARD

76

THE MISTAKE ROOM

86

GRAND ARTS

80

LIVE

90

UNTITLED (RICKY JAY)

MY HOUSE WILL BE CALLED A HOUSE

118 THE NOTHING HAPPENING

94

OF ART 120 RISE OF THE NEW IMAGINISTS 104 TRIALS OF SLYDINI 116 FBD

WITNESS

124 TYRANNY OF VISION

140 ER(DNA)SE, CIRRUS EDITIONS

130 1 84 SECONDS

142 THE GRAND FINALE

136 SAFE

CONTENTS

UTILITY

THE OUT-OF-FOCUS GROUP

146 A.BANDIT DECK OF CARDS

172 NOW YOU SEE IT

150 WANDS BYGONE

174 A-RT ACTIVATOR

162 CARTOGRAPHIES

176 THE LINKING RINGS

170 PATIENCE

178 LOCKS

184 RICKY JAY AND JOHN BALDESSARI

223 TONY DELAP

199 TELLER

233 MARINA ABRAMOVI6

214 DAVID BLAINE

SHOWS

238 SECRETS KEEPING SECRETS

252 ONE OF TWO FACES

248 EXPERIMENTS FROM THE

258 IN & OF ITSELF

SPACE BETWEEN

ESSAYS

10

I BELIEVE IN YOU. YOUR MAGIC IS REAL.

The concept of belief is decidedly different from that of faith. What makes it a richer terrain for art, literature, film, and poetry is that belief inherently contains will and desire. Belief begins with knowledge, start­

DENISE MARKONISH

ing with a kernel of truth and leaving it up to the believer whether or not they wish to forge onward. In epistemological thinking, belief and truth overlap. Faith, on the other hand, is blind and amorphous, with connota­

Suppose you awoke one morning with the uneasy feeling

tions of observance and obligation. Faith gets tangled in religion, while

that the world had, w hile you slept, somehow slipped

belief remains delightfully promiscuous, thus granting it the freedom to

a-tilt and rose to find that your dresser drawers were mys­

be a kind of faith for the faithless. It is in this distinction, between faith

teriously open a fraction of an inch ... that pictures on the

and belief, where magic fits in, particularly secular magie, a genre that

wall, shades on the lamps, and books in the case were

lays no claims to the supernatural.

askew__ What would be your reaction to such a phenom­

In the history of both religion and magic, the fraternal twins of faith

enon? . . . Would you telephone the police? Would you

and belief continually intertwine. The bible itself is full of stories of magic.

pray? Or would you numbly await an explanation, refusing

For example, in Exodus God asks Moses and Aaron to produce a marvel,