a few zines

dodge city journal

Andrew Wagner handed me a modest package when I stopped by the American Craft offices on Tuesday. In the envelope, three issues of Dodge City Journal. I've had #3 in my collection since 1997, but this was my first glimpse of the others. What a thrill to see the orange and gray cover wrapping articles on Louisville, Baton Rouge, and Florida's Gulf Coast.

From the Publishers, Volume 1, Issue 1:

North American cities are many things: beautiful, dirty, homogeneous, diverse, rich, poor, awe-inspiring, and awful. In our cities we can find evidence of everything that this country has come to mean. A walk through an American city will not allow one to forget this nation’s past, nor will it allow one to ignore its future. Within the confines of the American city lie the answers to many of modern society’s problems. However, these answers are not cut and dry; they are as complex as the city itself. Each step taken to understanding our cities is a step towards unearthing the answers that lay hidden amongst the concrete, trees, and trash.

face b: architecture from the other side

 

Update: Aurélien sent over a copy of the notorious issue 0. Only in French, only in PDF, and available here.

Download Mag

face b is a cultural and theoretical architectural magazine based in Paris and New York, published twice a year.

face b presents in each issue interviews and essays of renowned and emerging critics, curators, architects, and artists.

face b is a generational project.

face b considers architecture as mass media.

face b is a propaganda tool.

face b: architecture from the other side is a publication after my heart. (Okay, I added that last one after I got a copy from Aurélien Gillier, one of three face b editors. I'm excited to include the first issue in the show.)

a few zines

A couple of days before I took an extended Thanksgiving holiday, a fellow zinester dropped off the full run of Infiltration at my apartment. All twenty-five issues of the staple and fold zine by Ninjalicious, the intrepid urban explorer who passed away in 2005. Each one about places where you are not supposed to go. To say I was giddy would be an understatement. The feeling was matched a day later when a comic book by Jimenez Lai hit my mailbox. There is something magic about these little publications. In the time since I last was trading in zines, I had nearly forgot the immediacy and intimacy of peering into a moment in history—someone's labor of love.

But I've been collecting again. I'm bringing together publications for the exhibition A Few Zines: Dispatches from the Edge of Architectural Production, which opens with a panel discussion on January 8 at Columbia's Studio X. Now before you can say Clip/Stamp/Fold, I'll let you know that this exhibit covers 1990s architecture zines and a few contemporary publications with similar attitude.

Keep checking back here more info on participants.

Here's the press release (PDF below):

A Few Zines: Dispatches from the Edge of Architectural Production
January 8–February 28, 2009
Studio-X

In the 1990s, zines such as Lackluster, Infiltration, loud paper, Dodge City Journal and Monorail subverted traditional trade and academic architecture magazine trends by crossing the built environment with art, music, politics and pop culture—and by deliberately retaining and cultivating an underground presence. Much has been made of that decade’s zine phenomenon—inspiring academic studies, international conferences and DIY workshops—yet little attention has been paid to architecture zine culture specifically, or its resonance within architectural publishing today.

A Few Zines: Dispatches from the Edge of Architectural Production does both. Rather than attempting to present an exhaustive retrospective of architecture zine culture, it highlights complete runs of several noted zines that began in the nineties. The exhibition also features contemporary publications that continue to draw inspiration from the self-publishing tradition, such as Pin-Up, Sumoscraper, and Thumb.
 
To launch this exhibit, curator Mimi Zeiger has published a new issue of loud paper and organized a party and panel discussion, including:

Luke Bulman, Thumb
Felix Burrichter, Pin-Up
Stephen Duncombe, NYU professor and author of Dream and Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture
Mark Shepard, Situated Technologies
Andrew Wagner, Dodge City Journal and currently, American Craft
Mimi Zeiger, loud paper

Moderated by Kazys Varnelis, AUDC

When: Thursday, January 8, 2009, 6:30 pm UPDATED TIME
Free and open to the public
RSVP: [email protected]

Studio-X, 180 Varick Street, Suite 1610, New York, NY 10014

Exhibition hours: Tuesday-Saturday, noon-6 pm

Contact: Gavin Browning, Programming Coordinator, Studio-X, (212) 989 2398, [email protected]

[Studio-X is a downtown studio for experimental research and design run by the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation of Columbia University.]