It is great! The article comparing architects SANAA with the city of Sana'a, for instance -- a daringly absurd juxtaposition I can't really imagine another magazine doing. Werner Herzog describing his famous walk to the bedside of Lotte Eisner. Naoto Fukasawa's office space, an interview with Mr Documenta Burgel, Jeff Koons on his politics, Mark Wigley on architectural time travel...
I'd like 032c more if it wasn't so outrageously expensive. You're paying £10 for elitism. It's one of those magazines you wanna be seen reading if you work in design.
Being a relatively small-scale design "fanzine", I think you'd be hard pressed to find it outside of specialist bookshops for under £9.
I dont really understand the appeal of fanzines and the like anymore. They served a purpose before the internet, but now I have a world of media at my fingertips and it costs me nothing.
The cover of ArtForum is brilliant! I just read relational aesthetics and postproduction, by the way, and now see how your artworld work fits nicely. The two books in my opinion are the most interesting writing on art available. If you haven't read much of postproduction it's really fantastic. I'd love to see more Berlin in the summer photo's. I just got back from Paris and Milan and am nostalgic for Europe..... David(at)instantcontemporary(dot)org
To quibble over the price of these mags is antipathetic. Yes there are everso many overpriced and dull magazines claiming to offer some insight into current affairs and cultural debate (Monocle!?) but both 032c and (especially) Documenta are unmatched in what they do. Both the Modernity and Life issues draw on a body of commentators, writers, artists, mavericks and brahmins that offer a mini education over the topics at hand. Its a magazine that made me want to be editor. 12 euros seems WELL CHEAP to me.
How many magazines spend five years producing three issues?
Unmatched? Are you serious? 032c has no design, its anti-design, there's no design at all, it's just experimental photography on a backdrop of minimalism. Sure, it's a backlash and antidote to the over-designed cliched magazine designs we see everywhere, but why am I gonna pay £9 for someone's lack of work presented as "a principle"? Like i said, you're buying elitism because 032c is one of those trendy fringe magazines.
Fanzines and magazines are generally pretty worthless nowdays because of the internet, especially magazines like 032c, who's articles read like something made by the postmodern generator (http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo). There's a world of fantastic photography out there for free what with Flickr and the like, why am I gonna pay almost £10 for something like 032c? Oh right, because I wanna look cool.
Ive never read Documenta so I can't comment, but yeah, £9 for 032c? Not impressed. And I'm not pissed off with it! I just dont think it's worth the £9 it costs here! :o)
I will definitely give your journal a read, it sounds interesting.
Simplicity is not 'lack of work'. I can't comment on 032c specifically, as I don't recall ever having leafed through it, but to write off a whole design ethos that goes back to the beginning of the 20th century as simple laziness just ain't cool, yeah?
Documenta is pretty nice though, design wise. They use Akkurat, which still has a couple of weeks left of being the Typeface Of The Moment.
I never said minimalism was equal to laziness. I said that simplisitic design by it's very nature requires less work, so I dont agree with the price of this magazine, considering this very magazine is pretty anti-design.
If someone draws a circle in mud on a piece of paper, and someone spends 4 years painting a renaissance piece, that renaissance piece is worth more in terms of time, materials and skill needed. Objectively on an expressive leve, they're both equal as piece of art.
I also dont agree with the price because fanzines, be it for films, videogames, music, etc are worthless nowdays because I can get all of this free online.
I also dont like the elitism of these sorts of magazines, especially not when its what drives the price up.
Ah, but that's exactly the point on which I disagree. Simplistic[/minimal/modernist etc] design does not 'by its very nature' require less work.
Just as you can create a system to easily produce extremely complex images [Riley, visualcomplexity.com], or work randomly/improvisationally to the same effect [Pollock, etc. etc], you can spend an age trying to make a handful of elements fit together harmoniously [the Bauhaus-Swiss axis etc.]. In good design the time and effort's there, even if it's not immediately visible in the finished product. Again, I can't comment on 032c specifically, but there are magazines such as those designed by Jop Van Bennekom where the effort is palpable even though the design aesthetic is simple and restrained.
The price of magazines is generally too high. It's a pity. Sometimes it's about milking your readers, other times — Baseline, for instance, which goes for around £15 an issue — it's because it's a short-run magazine that uses print somewhat adventurously; the magazine becomes a kind of object. Still can't afford it though.
I can't disagree with you about the fact that it might take a very long time for an artist to compose a seemingly simplistic piece to suit his personal whims. The bottom line is, this isnt a piece of art, it's a magazine that gets published to a deadline and then printed on mass.
If 'Woman's Own' tried to sell me their magazine for £10 as a "piece of art" I'd tell them to go take a hike. Same deal with this fanzine.
actually, the documenta mags were not 'five years in the making' ... more like the editors were still looking to commission articles as late as march this year - many of the pieces were previously published elsewhere, with a smattering of 3rd world exotica thrown in to ostensibly provide 'other worlds' balance. i've surmised this because i was asked to provide a fresh piece based on something i'd previously written. but i turned them down - didn't feel like being part of some seemingly misconstrued neo-colonial project, foregoing payment for the 'privelege' of being published by documenta12's magazine project... yes, i'm an uppity 3rd world person, so shoot me
Fair enough. I was talking with Esther Leslie who runs the political aesthetics course at Birkbeck in London who'd had a similar experience to you and having looked at the show (which is I think fair to say, appalling) I have to agree.
I do think the ideas as starting points are decent ones, unfortunately Roger Buergal doesn't seem to be a) particularly sensitive or b) to have read enough (or any) Said. As a result the show succumbs to a particularly obnoxious vein of orientalism.
Nevertheless I do not think the magazines are particularly bad - their scope is narrower than the exhibition and the editor (Georg Schollhammer) seems to have compiled a reasonable collection of essays that are not such a disservice to the starting points. My comment was made in respect to art magazines in general and I still think that in that (often rubbish) field the Documenta mags have stuck out. Lastly, what on earth is wrong with being an 'uppity 3rd world person'??
nope, nothing wrong about being such a person, just me being weary of forever negotiating as such in a place like berlin, where i thought they'd know better (ie, orientalism isn't really kewl, and people of colour don't need patronising etc). Re: documenta 12 - after spending the first w'kend there, the curatorial conceit struck me flat, as fairly sophomoric, and in some of the stagings, it seemed insulting to the works (eg, that awful pavilion's dead spaces and light). As for the much-touted edukators/guides, more training is required - or at least enthusiasm to switch back on video work gone on the blink (rather than an indifferent shrug...). i've to go back and write a 'critique' of the mag project, and show, and it bores me silly already despite some good nuggets scattered here and there
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-25 05:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-25 07:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-25 06:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-25 07:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-25 07:46 pm (UTC)And, additionally, any place I shouldn't miss?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-25 08:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-25 08:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-25 08:15 pm (UTC)I dont really understand the appeal of fanzines and the like anymore. They served a purpose before the internet, but now I have a world of media at my fingertips and it costs me nothing.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-25 08:56 pm (UTC)Mags o' June
Date: 2007-06-26 02:08 am (UTC)David(at)instantcontemporary(dot)org
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-26 08:12 am (UTC)How many magazines spend five years producing three issues?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-26 04:35 pm (UTC)Fanzines and magazines are generally pretty worthless nowdays because of the internet, especially magazines like 032c, who's articles read like something made by the postmodern generator (http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo). There's a world of fantastic photography out there for free what with Flickr and the like, why am I gonna pay almost £10 for something like 032c? Oh right, because I wanna look cool.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-26 04:50 pm (UTC)I've seen one issue of 032c and I can't remember being as pissed off as you seem to be about it, but you've probably got a point.
What I'm not so sure about is that the internet is a good thing for elite media, my argument is at litle_eglantine.livejournal.com
Would like to know your thoughts...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-26 05:08 pm (UTC)I will definitely give your journal a read, it sounds interesting.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-26 05:02 pm (UTC)Documenta is pretty nice though, design wise. They use Akkurat, which still has a couple of weeks left of being the Typeface Of The Moment.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-26 05:15 pm (UTC)I never said minimalism was equal to laziness. I said that simplisitic design by it's very nature requires less work, so I dont agree with the price of this magazine, considering this very magazine is pretty anti-design.
If someone draws a circle in mud on a piece of paper, and someone spends 4 years painting a renaissance piece, that renaissance piece is worth more in terms of time, materials and skill needed. Objectively on an expressive leve, they're both equal as piece of art.
I also dont agree with the price because fanzines, be it for films, videogames, music, etc are worthless nowdays because I can get all of this free online.
I also dont like the elitism of these sorts of magazines, especially not when its what drives the price up.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-26 05:37 pm (UTC)Just as you can create a system to easily produce extremely complex images [Riley, visualcomplexity.com], or work randomly/improvisationally to the same effect [Pollock, etc. etc], you can spend an age trying to make a handful of elements fit together harmoniously [the Bauhaus-Swiss axis etc.]. In good design the time and effort's there, even if it's not immediately visible in the finished product. Again, I can't comment on 032c specifically, but there are magazines such as those designed by Jop Van Bennekom where the effort is palpable even though the design aesthetic is simple and restrained.
The price of magazines is generally too high. It's a pity. Sometimes it's about milking your readers, other times — Baseline, for instance, which goes for around £15 an issue — it's because it's a short-run magazine that uses print somewhat adventurously; the magazine becomes a kind of object. Still can't afford it though.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-26 08:04 pm (UTC)If 'Woman's Own' tried to sell me their magazine for £10 as a "piece of art" I'd tell them to go take a hike. Same deal with this fanzine.
documenta mags??
Date: 2007-07-01 03:44 pm (UTC)Re: documenta mags??
Date: 2007-07-01 04:00 pm (UTC)I do think the ideas as starting points are decent ones, unfortunately Roger Buergal doesn't seem to be a) particularly sensitive or b) to have read enough (or any) Said. As a result the show succumbs to a particularly obnoxious vein of orientalism.
Nevertheless I do not think the magazines are particularly bad - their scope is narrower than the exhibition and the editor (Georg Schollhammer) seems to have compiled a reasonable collection of essays that are not such a disservice to the starting points. My comment was made in respect to art magazines in general and I still think that in that (often rubbish) field the Documenta mags have stuck out. Lastly, what on earth is wrong with being an 'uppity 3rd world person'??
Re: documenta mags??
Date: 2007-07-01 05:40 pm (UTC)