Allen Ruppersberg’s 2024 solo show 25 Ways to Start Over centers on the practice of artistic reinvention; among the strategies he lists for beginning anew is “#3 Change Your Name.” Ruppersberg has written under a pen name (Al Reed) from time to time, and has long collected pulp paperbacks by pseudonymous authors.

Images of those book covers appear in artworks mounted on pegboards in the exhibition, and several dozen examples are reproduced in an accompanying artists’ book, published by Christine Burgin. Entries on each vintage title reveal the authors’ hidden identities, and expand on Ruppersberg’s broader affinity for the printed matter of decades past. -Publisher