BLICKFANG is an amazing reference collection of 1000 book covers and dust jackets that were published in in Berlin, Germany between 1919-1933. It features work by Expressionist & Dadaist artists including Hans Bellmer, Hannah Hoch & George Grosz.

Classic Publications were prolific publishers of adult magazines from the late sixties & early seventies, featuring crazy, psychedelic covers often combining cartoony linework with photography. Some of the strange short stories included in these magazines, were written by the infamous film director, Ed Wood.

There is no great method to my magazine buying. I subscribe to a couple but for the most part I just pick them up as I find them and so most of my purchases feel at the very least like a happy accident and at most like a divine intervention.

I have always been so depressed about the state of men’s magazines, or maybe I’m depressed by the lack of role models for men and I feel magazines should help to fill that gap. Regardless, when I saw Dapper Dan on the shelf at my totally unremarkable local newsagent, I was both shocked and filled with optimism. Here, in its first issue, was a magazine that claimed to cover ‘Men’s Fashion & Philosophy’: An awesome combination, but not one that is easily pulled off.

I spent an afternoon in my sunroom with Dapper Dan and he taught me great things; of psychedelic kick drums, Cosmo Vitelli’s slide into middle-age, Jurgen Teller, knives, collecting classical music, of ‘men and their dogged dreams’.

I can safely say that in some way, Dapper Dan has changed my life and while I’m not one to readily believe in fate, I can’t understand how a magazine whose retail points are all overseas, somehow made it onto Toorak Road in Melbourne to sit like a diamond amongst the big titty titles. – BB

Condiment was recently asked to participate in an exhibition called ‘De Zines’ at La Casa Encendida, Madrid. Opening June 29, 2010, ‘De Zines’ tries to reflect what is happening in contemporary independent publications and how this editorial area relates to the artistic production and social, cultural and current political environment. Around 400 international publications have been gathered from most established magazines in the market to handmade zines and a selection of experimental magazines. Curated by Roberto Vidal and Óscar Martín ‘De Zines’ is a comprehensive exploration of print and its ongoing importance in the digital age.

Inéditos 2010
La Casa Encendida
29 June to 29 August 2010 / Room A
Ronda Valencia, 2
28012 Madrid – Spain

IDEA No. 340 : Forms of Practice

Published: 2010/05
Forms of practice / Toward a new form of practice

http://www.idea-mag.com

I’m increasingly obsessed with hotels. Recently we’ve been working on a one-room hotel concept with Tourism Victoria to support a guide to Melbourne that we produce called Lost & Found. It’s a pretty simple newsletter that showcases the more discreet parts of the city and draws on the experiences of various guest editors like Kim Jones, Busy P and the guys from PAM.

Our thinking is that interesting people having a good experience in Melbourne and talking about it is one of the best ways to get other people to visit. So what we’ve done is lease a room in the Little Collins Hotel in the city for three months and re-fit it to showcase some of Melbourne’s better creative people and objects ranging from Aesop products to furniture by Native and records by a bunch of Melbourne bands. It’s a bit more like an object gallery than a hotel room.

Subscribers to the Lost & Found publication can stay at the hotel for free, you just apply online. We’re hoping that the sorts of people who read The Internetwork and our current Lost & Found subscribers get the idea and come to stay.

I love this project for a few reasons, not just because it’s a hotel, but also because it has put us in direct touch with some fascinating people along the way. There are the people that have supplied products for the room, but we also checked out a few other hotels when searching for a site and they were all great. It feels like the start of something really precious.

- BB

The lovely people at Sixpack France have just published this oversized, 64 page zine of recent work I have created around some ideas I’ve been having about how the theory of entropy can be applied to culture and the arts, especially music and the visual arts. Entropy being the thermodynamic law that basically says that all things will progress from a state of order to a state of disorder and in doing so will progressively lose the potential for doing useful work. Looking at art and music through this lens it is easy to see how appropriation and genre mixing can be seen to follow this same trend. From the Arts and Craft movement to Post Modernism, blues to mash-up the entropic principle seems to hold true – to my limited understanding anyway. I don’t see this as a negative thing, its just a thing and for me it has been somewhat liberating to realize it.

The zine is available to buy online from Sixpack France.

I have a confession to make: I’m not a very good cook. I often forget ingredients or overlook instructions like “refrigerate over-night”. When I was younger I used to have nightmares about salad.

Despite such culinary handicaps, there has always been a lingering fascination with food as a broader framework for ideas. It brings us together, it separates us. It encourages conversation, sometimes it creates an ecstatic silence. Food is both universal and highly individual.

As our most demanding recipe attempt yet, Jess and I have recently published Condiment – Adventures in Food and Form,  a bi-annual publication that is an attempt to satisfy our culinary and creative appetites. We hope you enjoy it because, like most of our meals, it took a very long time to make.—CB

Patrick Dougherty creates monumental site-specific installations with sticks. He has built over two hundred massive sculptures all over the world.

Some small time ago I made a post about Christoff Keller and his document on art and distilling alcohol. It is a great read that was suggested to me by Stefan Marx.
Stefan has now informed me that he has created 100 unique bottles for Keller that are now filled with some healthy (a fine Mirabelle de Nancy Schnaps 42 % vol. that is) spirits.

SEE HERE

It brings to mind Gilbert and George’s ‘Gordon’s Makes Us Drunk’ work where they wanted to comment on alcohol in the artworld.
There thoughts were that all the artists they knew were out boozing each night and then ignoring that side of their life when making art. Their art has always been about their lives and their lives have always been art. So why separate anything. Art about boozing.

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Just arrived this morning is a wonderful new art/design publication – Qompendium.  Published by a good friend of ours, Kimberly Lloyd in the beautiful city of Weisbaden, Qompendium showcases the ultimate in printing possibilities, combining incredible paper stocks and inks with amazing image reproduction. An intriguing collection of photos from the worlds of art, science and culture are enhanced with captivating text and simple, sophisticated design. This issue features a comprehensive selection of our art nudes, lovingly reproduced with sympathetic layout. Definitely worth getting your hands on a copy!

The Risograph is perhaps the vocoder of the printing world. You could pretty much do anything on it and it would look good. That said, there are a few people in Australia and overseas that are making the most of the medium and exploring its outer limits. This Thursday’s Risographica show at Jeremy‘s Lamington Drive gallery has prompted me to post a few other Risograph related links and images.

Rollo Press – Zurich
www.rollo-press.com
Rollo Press was founded in 2008 by Urs Lehni. Printing exclusively on the Risograph GR 3770, Rollo Press has published books and zines with Stefan Marx, Rick Myers, Akinori Oishi and Linus Bill among others. The publication Tu M’as Volé Mon Vélo and accompanying prints by Linus Bill – which are now hanging in The Thousands Shop – were my first experience of Risograph printing. The following statement from William Morris’ ‘Art and its Producers’ that is quoted on Rollo Press’ website is perhaps the best summary of the form: “To own the means of production is the only way to gain back pleasure in work, and this, in return, is considered as a prerequisite for the production of (applied) art and beauty.”

A Small Press – Melbourne
www.asmallpress.com
A Small Press is run by Stuart Geddes of Melbourne design studio Chase & Galley. Primarily publishing posters and exhibition catalogues, as well as the occassional birthday invite, the Risographica show was printed using A Small Press.

The Rizzeria – Sydney
www.rizzeria.com
I first came across this after seeing the Black & Blue (R.I.P) gallery exhibition catalogues. Printing band posters, flyers, calendars and hosting print workshops The Rizzeria is collectively owned and operated by a group of self publishers and print makers in Sydney whose aim is to challenge and develop the aesthetic possibilities of stencil press printing. They are also in the process of registering as a co-operative enabling members to own, control and use the printer and any other facilities on hand.

-CB

Christoff Keller is a German art book publisher, professor and curator turned schnapps distiller. He recently started bottling his creations that include a Jonathan Meese labeled wheat schnapps. Publishing enthusiast Stefan Marx sent me this PDF recently. It discusses the values of dilettantism and the spectrum of creation and distribution of different mediums and ideas. Most importantly over a few bottles of cottage industry moonshine Keller speaks of intention and reasons for creation.
Download this PDF HERE.

I’m not a forensic internet user in the sense that I don’t spend much time searching things out, following links and hunting around for inspiration or interest. Some people can do it for days on end, but I get this creepy feeling that I’m becoming too interested in other people’s lives when I should be leading my own.

Occasionally I will come across a site or blog that really fascinates me. I’ll probably post on a few of them, but the first example I wanted to mention is JJJJound. Like pretty much every media product that I enjoy it’s totally reductive – an almost hypnotically simple image gallery of what I guess you would call ‘desirable objects’… but it’s not really the content that intrigues me.

Instead I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s going on here, and because there is no real ‘About’ information on the site I’ve become obsessed with imagining the ‘who’ and ‘why’ of it all. For example:

What type of person commits so heavily to showcasing their taste? There are thousands of images on the site and the consistency is incredible.

Does this person lead the life they are showcasing or is this some way for them to synthesis astronomical amounts of envy?

How many people visit a site like this and does the author know, or is it irrelevant to her or him? I get the strong sense this is a man’s world on show here

Would people be polaric in their view of this site? Some thinking it’s great and some wanting to throw their computer against the wall?

Is it true to say: “JJJJound is to aesthetes what Last Nights Party is to sluts?”

So many questions. No answers. Still so much fun. – BB

What do the experts have to say about this book?

Let’s take “a closer look.”

~

From a seller on eBay.co.uk:

Magnifications – Photography with the Scanning Electron Microscope. The book contains pictures of insects and flowers taken by an Electron Microscope. First published in 1979. 119 pages. The book is in a used condition, but all the pages are intact.

~

From David Scharf’s personal photography website:

“Absolutely wonderful.” – Ansel Adams

And what did Time Magazine have to say in response?

“With this book we now have an Ansel Adams of inner space.” – Time

~

From A Customer on amazon.com (nb: some text has been emboldened for highlighting purposes):

~

And last, but not least, from our National Library of Australia:

Book

Bib ID	2249938
Format	Book, Online – Google Books
Author	Scharf, David, 1942-
Description	New York : Schocken Books, 1977. viii, 119 p. : ill. ; 32 cm.
ISBN	0805236708 :  0805236708
Subjects	Photomicrography. |  Scanning electron microscopy.
Also Titled	Photography with the scanning electron microscope.

Jonathans recent Dmote post reminded us of this wonderful piece by Marcel Duchamp - PLEASE TOUCH. Duchamp sourced rubber breasts from a New York lingerie shop for the covers of 999 copies of the catalogue “Le Surréalisme en 1947″ which accompanied the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme—the first post-war Surrealist art exhibition to be staged in Europe.

There is a trend at the moment for lo-fi artwork which is fine, I guess all the money ran out, however it doesn’t grab me, the big statements do. Fischer grabbed my attention for his big statement work from 2007, You. The work was that he simply removed his gallery dealers’ floor. It reportedly cost a quarter of a million US dollars to do and is actually in an edition of 3 and one has sold so far. I’m not sure how much it is to buy however I can only imagine standing in it would be a sublime experience. I don’t know how he will better that work. Such a great title as well, You – the eternal other.

You can see more at www.gavinbrown.biz

1.

” You bloody idiot. You’ve really stuffed it now!”

Attributed to the Prime Minister of Australia, the Honourable Gough Whitlam, addressing the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

2.

The little boy was sitting on the curb crying and an old man who was passing by came over to him.

“What’s the matter, little boy?” he asked. “Why are you crying?”

The little boy said, “I’m crying because I can’t do what the big boys do.”

The old man sat down on the curb and cried too.

Some words from the library of evil.

The World of Interiors,  Marc Camille Chaimowicz

During the 1970s, Marc Camille Chaimowicz’s approach to performance, at a time when the norm was a more or less a political or corporeal engagement, was a lighter, more poetic concern with impermanence and evocation. His early performances were opportunities for spectators to negotiate their relation to art, and to reflect on their own position. More recent installations bring together “choreographed” interior spaces with wall papers, prints and furniture, blurring the lines between craft and fine arts, design and art object.

This publication takes the form and layout from an issue of The World of Interiors magazine, the same issue in which the artist appeared in his South London apartment. A montage of the artists prints, collages, installation images and texts inserted into and laid over the original publication.

 “In contrast to the fleeting pleasure of drifting through the department store which similarly offers up experiences chaptered for our attention, the magazine surely affords us greater latitude of critical investment…

 The very act of purchase enables us to be judgmental and as we drift from page to page, probably avoiding text and feigning disinterest … we are both held enthralled by some images and conversely drawn to the dubious pleasure of dismissing a plethora of bad taste and poor design decisions taken…

 In common with more pedestrian generic magazines, the domestic spaces featured in The World of Interiors are invariably free of occupants… This not merely affords the stylist greater scope to rearrange, to distance the day-to-day and thus to accentuate various possible fictions – it more importantly enables the readers the better to project themselves into a range of aspirational fantasies…

 The exception is that of the artists homes which invariably feature the artist.  It is as though theses are seen either as extensions of their work or might in some fashion elucidate insight…”

- Marc Camille Chaimowicz

The incredible craftspeoples over at He She It They I are running a great blog and shop these days.
Dave Ladd and Stephanie Anderson are excruciatingly inscrutable small-scale builders of the most well thought out pieces I have seen for a long time. Working across print, animation, drawing, painting and sculpture their publication and hand crafts are impeccably detailed and superbly formed. Their works, always informed by folk and craft of bygone times, reverberate such very human qualities and the result of the hand. But what is so very important and (how could this even be) refreshing is the thought and consideration for ideas.

Karl Lagerfeld: “…I went to visit my father- it was a winter’s day; too cold even for snow and I was not wearing a coat. My father said, “But you aren’t wearing a coat!” “No,” I replied. “But you have loads of them,” he insisted. I explained to him that I had given them away.” But why? Are you crazy?” No, no, not at all”, I answered. “Just across from the hotel there is a shop called Dorian Gray. They have a navy blue, cashmere overcoat, cut like a dressing gown. I want it. And if I can’t have it I would prefer to die of cold.” I said to my father that I would not wear any other coat; that I would stay in bed and not go out. If he wanted me to go out . I absolutely had to have it. So he crossed the street and bought it for me. ” (pg 18-19)

” …my friend Jaques fell ill, i started to lose interest in my appearance, because I knew what was going to happen. I lost all interest in myself and trivial matters. I felt old-fashioned in my proper made-to-measure Italian clothes. I started to buy my clothes from Matsuda, Comme des Garcons and Yohji Yamamoto. I went from small to medium, from medium to large, then to extra large. The cut of those clothes works for large sizes just as well as for small.” (pg 24)

Ingrid Sischy: ” You wanted to change your shape because you liked the one you saw in the mens’ collections. That’s unsual!”

Lagerfeld:  ”But it’s true. Apart from the big shirts, I couldn’t find anything exciting in my closet. Some clothes had even become too tight. It’s fun to wake up in the morning and to be frivolous enough to wonder what you are going to wear today. Why can’t men do that too?… Today I prefer ready-to-wear clothes… clothes that were not designed especially for me. I don’t know why but Slimane’s designs for Dior fit me perfectly. these clothes were designed for young men but they fit me just as if they had been designed for me. Size 46 jackets (because of my shoulder width), size 44 trousers (the smallest French size). I still hardly believe it. 

Ingrid Sischy: “It’s fascinating to think that you decided to go on this diet at the precise moment when a new style and shape had come in”.

Lagerfeld: “I don’t think I would have done it otherwise. That may seem frivolous and not at all politically correct. The problem with political correctness is that it rapidly becomes very boring. It turns into convention, which represents all that is bad in bourgeois aesthetics. If you go on a diet, you may think that, because you have put in all this effort, your love life is going to change. But the flower of youth never comes back even if you lose 88 pounds. As far as I was concerned, I didn’t want to change anything. Going on a diet because of clothes is a completely different thing. It’s a superficial reason; there’s no obligation; nothing in your life depends on it, apart from wardrobe. ” (pg 30-31)

 “Do you know what I did at the beginning of my diet? I used to place food in my mouth, but then spit it out again. That way I got to taste without the calories. I haven’t done that for a long time, but it’s a good way to beat frustration. The height of luxury for me is to have an extra slice of toast. It’s the most delicious thing in the world.” (pg 34)

Summer Diet

Breakfast
Unsweetened coffee or tea
1 slice whole wheat bread
thinly spread with low fat butter
2 very low fat plain yogurts or 4 ounces low fat fromage frais

Lunch or Dinner
2 protein sachets
8 ounces raw or cooked vegetables
a plain yogurt, piece of fruit, or fromage frais
Drink as much water as you like at the end of the meal