A little while back my friend Marc Fischer asked me to contribute to a booklet he was doing as part of the Temporary Services publication series. The title was "12 contributors, 5 publications, 5 years," and it was published earlier this year. This is a smart publication that features an array of publications all published within the last 5 years accompanied by short reviews on each publication by an interesting international group of 12 contributors. Below are the reviews that I did for this publication.
Follow the link below for information about obtaining this publication and you can also check out the many other really cool publications that Temporary Services has published over the years. Temporary Services Publishing – Temporary Services
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der stein, #7, 2011, Canada
Julie Doucet, the Canadian comics
artist and creator of the incomparable Dirty
Plotte (14 issues, 1987-1991),
quit the comics world about fifteen years ago and has since been exploring a
range of other printed matter projects. One of these was the delightful
silk-screened periodical der stern
("the rock," 9 issues, 2010-2012). Small in size and printed on thin
paper, the periodical has a really delicate feel. The simplified and childish
German texts she uses all combine to imbue the periodical with a funky
sensibility that hovers between surrealism, dada, all spun together within
Doucet's ever-evolving aesthetic.
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Frontier #2 (artist: Hellen Jo), 2013, USA
Edited
by Ryan Sands, Frontier is a really
sharp comics magazine that devotes each issue to an individual artist, and
through Sand's wide choice of artists he tests the limits of this genre. The
design of each issue is created in dialogue with the artist and their work,
which creates very different reading experiences from issue to issue. Sometimes
the issues are recognizably comic related, and then others really stretch that
label and seem to be moving into the territory of artists' books — but it's
this sense of not knowing what to expect that gives this magazine its edgy
quality.
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Helen Douglas, In Mexico: in the garden of Edward Jones, 2014
In my continuing obsession with
accordion books I eagerly awaited a new arrival from the Scottish book artist
Helen Douglas. And it was worth it, as
this is a really beautiful and color-drenched accordion that measures 42 feet
long. Invited to do a residency in Mexico she ended up visiting Los Pozas, the
extraordinary 80-acre garden created by the English surrealist Edward James (1907–1984) in the 1940s that includes waterfalls and
pools, interspersed with surrealist sculptures. Douglas' accordion appears like
one continuous photograph but with all sorts of subtle digital additions that
mirror elements of the larger Mexican landscape. For an
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Terminal Fuse: 2012 calendar, 2011
For
a number of years Leif Goldberg produced these totally zany and incredibly
beautiful silk-screened calendars. A graduate of Rhode Island School of Design,
Goldberg manages, within the confines of this format, to solve each month's
visual problems with totally original solutions, all the while weaving them
within some larger wacky tale. The feel of the silk-screened pages in your hands,
the unfamiliar and elongated format, combined with the striking visuals all
combine to create a totally charged reading/viewing experience. |
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Toiletpaper, #4, 2011, USA
I just have a total soft spot for
Maurizio Cattelan and fellow collaborator Pierpaolo Ferrari's Toiletpaper. The size of the periodical
feels just right, the paper stock gives each page a certain body and the
printing is topnotch. Started in 2010 it's been published intermittently since
then. The mag is totally visual, all photographs bumping up against each other
right up to the edge of the page, no words at all. The theme for this issue,
#4, 2011, was "inspired by Mike The Headless Chicken, Mario Sorrenti, and
Richard Avedon." A true artists' periodical.
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