FANZINE

Reflections on Art from the Mailbox: Nicole Kuprienko’s Hobgoblin 2

02.18.11

A satellite dish is just a bundle of metal, nuts, bolts, and wire fastened together.  For anyone familiar with the neighborhoods in…

The Prison Suit: Incarceration during China’s Cultural Revolution

02.16.11

As a 20-year-old, Xiaoda Xiao drunkenly ripped a poster of Mao off the wall and used it to mop up his spilled drink. Without a trial he was sent to a prison where he spent the next five years working in a gravel quarry. The Prison Suit describes this time through interconnected essays, each one focused on a different topic or fellow prisoner. Egor Lazebnik reviews the book, both as part of the genre of prison literature and as a part of history.

1/27th of a Love Letter: Reflections on art from the mailbox

02.11.11

Jennifer Gustavson’s 1/27th of a Love Letter
 

Howdy. I’m here to write a few words about a mail-art project called…

Everyday Magic: On Julianna Barwick and The Magic Place

02.11.11

At a club in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Brian Howe chats over burritos with Julianna Barwick, a singer with a voice of angelic proportions, who can do it all it seems harmonically with one throat, one diaphragm and a loopstation (no band, at least no plans for one yet she says). Having already titillated critics with a pair of albums, her latest, The Magic Place, out February 22 on Sufjan Stevens’ Asthmatic Kitty label, is also reviewed here to high marks.

Love and Tranquilizers in Madagascar

02.07.11

Michael Thomsen’s rough transition into life as a Peace Corps volunteer in Madagascar was punctuated by pine cone braziers, snorted barbituates, mistaken-identity cunnilingus, the terror of isolation and, of course, zebus. Accompanying photos of Madagascar courtesy of Swiatoslaw Wojtkowiak, Simone Giovanelli and Massimiliano (Nacchia).

Everything Sings: Intimate Cartography

02.04.11

Rob Tennant reviews Denis Woods’ Everything Sings, a book of eccentric maps exploring an array of aspects of Boylan Heights, a neighborhood in Raleigh, North Carolina, including the distribution of its jack-o-lantern, the areas in which different radio stations are available, the route and duration of the newspaper boy, shades of autumn leaves and many others.

Just So Stories: Stories We Tell About Africa (And Those We Don’t)

01.24.11

G. Pascal Zachary, author of Married to Africa, examines the narratives that construct our understanding of Africa including, of course, the concept of Africa as a unitary entity. Rather than contributing to our understanding of the diverse cultures, communities and political forces at work there, Zachary argues that these narratives render contemporary realities more opaque. Along the way, he examines an array of the figures who have shaped the discussion, including Rudyard Kipling, Robert Mugabe, Isak Dinesen, Yossou N’Dour, Langston Hughes, Kwame Nkrumah, Maya Angelou and LeVar Burton as Kunta Kinte.

Other: The Jejune Institute

01.07.11

Psychic cult, Jungian therapy or brilliant art project? If you’re at all near San Francisco, do not miss visiting the remarkable Jejune Institute….

These Three Bowls

12.28.10

In case you missed the Little Caeser’s Pizza Bowl, fear not! Tom Flynn brings tidings for another three of the 35 bowl games going on this week. Flynn breaks it down for people like me who don’t really follow this sort of thing, revealing intriguing storylines behind the obscurity behind the lesser known, less-well funded, and medium-power houses of college football. Art by the inimitable Danny Jock.

The Marvelous Museum – Orphans, Curiosities & Treasures: A Mark Dion Project

12.21.10

Artist Mark Dion’s work takes the form of some combination of curatorship and archaeology. I first heard about his exhibit at the Tate Museum, in which objects that he and a team of volunteers found along the banks of the Thames were displayed with equalizing reverence, including evidence of early Roman settlements, a fossilized sea urchin and unusually shaped disposable soy sauce bottles. The exhibit emphasized their shared current context in the river, rather than stratifying them based on perceived importance. The Oakland Museum has recently reopened in the midst of a major renovation and Dion’s project that inaugurates its return examines that museum’s unique, almost haphazard origins and collection, as well as the role that public institutions take in shaping knowledge and history. Artist Emcee C.M. reviews the accompanying collection of essays published by Chronicle Books in partnership with McSweeney’s The Believer. Fanzine contributors Peter Jacoby and Andrew Leland were both involved in the project.