Ex Libris

In addition to the show I'm curating at Light Grey Art Labs I am helping Kerry Morgan with a comics-ish section of Ex Libris, a book arts show she's mounting at MCAD during Autoptic. I just got a box of treasures from Mayumi and Raphael at Icinori, one or two of which will be a part of that show.

That's right, God and the Devil were paired up at random.

Mostly PFC is about process, not results. But there has historically been one exception. In 2011 Icinori put together a beautiful accordion book collaboration (scroll way down) between the artists of that year, based around depictions of the 12 Tasks of Heracles:

We didn't have the benefit of Icinori's boundless energy, subtle skill and guiding hand this year, but we really wanted to make something of the kind happen again.

So with the help of June, Zak and I came up with the following project: we made a list of characters, made each of the artists choose one, then paired them up randomly (with an emphasis on pairing English and French speakers together), and then asked them to create a page in which their characters interact in some way, with the additional constraint that something, somewhere must get broken. Zak's chose 'an alcoholic', I chose 'escaped convict'.

The result is this three-color, screenprinted accordion book, hand-assembled by the participants, printed by the inestimable Dan Ibarra at Aesthetic Apparatus (also, as it turns out, of boundless energy and subtle skill). And this all happened in less than a week. Our undying gratitude to everyone involved for their patience, indulgence and enthusiasm.

The few remaining copies are available here, $45 each. Proceeds will go to make whole the tireless volunteers of ChiFouMi, without whom none of this could have happened, and to support future incarnations of PFC. Dan generously offered up the test prints as well, which we cut down into stacks of 5" x 6 1/2" "postcards", a few of which will get thrown in with every order. For me these cards complete the collaboration, because in addition to being in many cases surprising and jewel-like, they incorporate the work of Aesthetic Apparatus with imagery from the book. Which brings everything full circle.

And in case you are curious who got paired with who, the collaborators were as follows, in order: Marc Bell and Domitille Collardey, Lilli Carre and Emilie Plateau, Tom Kaczynski and Jean-Christophe Menu, Sandrine Martin and Kevin Huizenga, Lisa Hanawalt and Pierre Ferrero, Eugene Riousse and Jim Rugg, John Porcellino and Benoit Preteseille, Eleanor Davis and Max de Radigues, Genevieve Castree and David Libens, and Zak Sally and myself.

Fumetto part 3

Here's a last dispatch from Fumetto. The hub of the festival was in a giant old swimming pool with this big glowing waterslide looming over the festivities.

This giant mural was painted by folks from Ampel Magazin.

One night the diving platform was used as a sort of stage. The shadows were cool.

Across the room, on the windows of the same space Anke Feuchtenberger and Stefano Ricci painted this giant black and white (the white is actually buttermilk: easy to wash off afterward) mural sponsored by Medecins Sans Frontieres. It looked best at night, but I wasn't smart enough to get my pictures then (except in the background in the last one below). Anke and Stefano are hugely influential as teachers, small press publishers and artists. And also really sweet people. Apparently Blank Slate Books in the UK is finally planning to publish Anke's work in English. Which is long overdue. Hopefully their editions make it to the States.

Above is part of the very enthusiastic audience at the drawing battle held Thursday night. I made it to the final round but was beaten by Olivier Schrauwen's assistant, Siemen. Here, from the first round, is my one-minute rendition from prompts interpreted to me as "straight ahead" and "Earwax".

Below are a few photos from Olivier Schrauwen's exhibition. Hilarious, beautiful, weird and inventive.

Finally, a picture from the small press exhibit. There was a ton of gorgeous stuff here, but I was most delighted to see that Icinori had a table. These guys rule. Might try to show some of their stuff at Lula sometime.

That's all. I was sorry not to get any photos of Ward Zwart's exhibition. It was awesome as well. Thanks to everyone that made the show happen. It was great.