If you enjoy zines: reading them, making them, collecting them, then you will appreciate a series of events scheduled for this coming weekend.
Do Anything features work by individual artists and collectives who focus on do-it-yourself publishing and print projects. Employing alternative methods of production to create and distribute books, zines and video work, the exhibiting artists work with a variety of themes to actively engage a wide audience.
The program of events bounces between Space4Art down in the East Village and Double Break, a gallery in Bankers Hill. It begins with an opening reception at Space4 Art Friday, July 13 from 6-10 p.m. The reception includes a screening of Strange Attractors: Investigations in Non-Humanoid Extraterrestrial Sexualitie.
Up next, Saturday July 14 (7-10 p.m.) there is an official zine release featuring new zines by Josh Atlas, Jessica Greenfield, Ben Hernstrom, Jennifer Murray and Jessica Vaughn. This takes place at Double Break.
The weekend closes back at Space4Art with a panel discussion Sunday, July15 from 7-9 p.m., that includes comic-artists Ed Piskor and Ed Luce (creator of the comic books Wuvable Oaf and Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever).
Once the dust of ComiCon and Pride has settled Do Anything wraps up with a zine discussion in early August. This will be between Darin Klein and Louis M. Schmidt and will focus on the art of creating and collecting zines. Darin Klein is based in Los Angeles and responsible for 21st Century Queer Artists Identify Themselves, a set of three (so far) anthologies of queer text-based art. This discussion happens Aug. 4, 2-4 p.m. at Space 4 Art.
As every art form from photography to literature becomes digital, zines are just one analog medium resurfacing to resist that trend. These booklets can be fast and easy like a stapled Xerox (um, Kinko’s) or they can be exquisite one-of-a-kind objects. All of them tell personal stories (LGBT stories included) in tactile ways and can sit on a shelf for regular perusal instead of becoming lost in a hard drive of everything-else data.
Check out the events at Do Anything and find out for yourself.
