Article: Attending to the ordinary. (artist Joe Brainard)

For two years, in the mid-1970s, Joe Brainard produced miniatures -- bits of paper a few inches square, each bearing a picture of the Mobil Pegasus, a slice of pineapple with a maraschino cherry, or some other motif as recognizable as the nose on one's face, if not more so. There are sunsets, matchboxes, postage stamps. Remember the Zigzag Zouave, that dashingly schematized chap who serves as the logo for a brand of cigarette paper? Brainard reproduced him with pen and blue ink. For other Post-it-sized images, he used pencil or paint or both. With a set of buttons or a row of burnt match sticks, he would produce a mini-assemblage.

In their amazing variety, ...

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