If our wealth is criminal then let’s live with the criminal joy of pirates by Jacob Wren

From multidisciplinary artist and author Jacob Wren comes a small book of big ideas. Originally produced as a ‘Boondoggle Book’ limited edition specifically for the first Authors for Indies Day in Toronto, this small and delightful book is a must-have for fans of the author of Polyamorous Love Song.

If our wealth is criminal then let’s live with the criminal joy of pirates collects two short stories and an essay by Jacob Wren.

In the first story, ‘The Infiltrator,’ certain ongoing, rarely mentioned, difficulties for the activist Left are explored with unlikely candour.

In ‘Four Letters from an Ongoing Series,’ the postal service becomes an unwitting accomplice to the gatekeepers of potential culture.

Finally, in the essay ‘Like a Priest Who Has Lost Faith,’ questions of art and emptiness shift focus in relation to the agency that at all times surrounds us.

Reviews:

“Wren’s ongoing work…often explores how to live a meaningful and productive life, loneliness and solitude, the purpose of art, and a series of intimate human interactions, articulated both through a cynical, yet furiously optimistic, and even innocent, open gaze. Wren routinely prods at a series of very large and human questions on just how it is we should and could be moving through the world in a positive and productive way, highlighting just how complicated such uncomplicated it actually is.” —rob mclennan’s blog

“…a tight and involving package of words.” —Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud

Interviews/Profiles:

Q&A with Jacob Wren —Sad Mag

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Jacob Wren creates literature, performances and exhibitions. His books include Unrehearsed Beauty (1998), Families Are Formed Through Copulation (2007), and Revenge Fantasies of the Politically Dispossessed (2010). As co-artistic director of Montreal-based interdisciplinary group PME-ART, he co-created the performances En français comme en anglais, it’s easy to criticize (1998), and the HOSPITALITÉ / HOSPITALITY series including Individualism Was a Mistake (2008), The DJ Who Gave Too Much Information (2011), and Every Song I’ve Ever Written (2013). International collaborations include a stage adaptation of the 1954 Wolfgang Koeppen novel Der Tod in Rom (Sophiensaele, Berlin, 2007); An Anthology of Optimism (co-created with Pieter De Buysser / Campo, Ghent, 2008); Big Brother Where Art Thou? (a project entirely on Facebook, co-created with Lene Berg / OFFTA / PME-ART, 2011); and, No Double Life For The Wicked (co-created with Tori Kudo / The Museum of Art, Kochi, Japan, 2012.) Wren travels internationally with alarming frequency and frequently writes about contemporary art.