London
2015
Including, among others:
Cráter Invertido, Miguel Ángel Camacho Velázquez, Poema: Segundo sábado de cada mes [Poem: Second Saturday of Each Month], 2010-13. Self-published, Antonio Medina, Bienestar animal. Breves apuntes contra la aparente soledad de la condición humana [Animal Welfare: Brief notes against the apparent loneliness of the human condition], Editorial Cráneo Invertido, 2014, Ramiro Chaves (ed.), Pabellón Ramires [Ramires Pavillion], Neter Proyectos, 2012. Project supported by PAC-Patronato de Arte Contemporáneo, Javier Toscano, Contra el arte contemporáneo [Against contemporary art], Tumbona Ediciones (Colección Versus), 2014, Ariella Azoulay, Historia potencial y otros ensayos [Potential History and other essays], Taller de Ediciones Económicas (Colección TEEORÍA), 2014.
To Unmap the Terrain:
A Presentation of Artists’ Publishing in Mexico
Mexico’s art publishing scene stands up to the many stereotypes that are often associated to the country: it is diverse, chaotic, and profuse, which makes it a complicated stance to circumnavigate through. To fight these assumptions could be unproductive as, in a way, the publishing scene is a reflex of many positive assets of the Mexican artworld –creativity, a collaborative nature, dynamicity– as well as of its long-standing and systematic flaws –mostly an unstable institutionality that causes a precarious extended situation.
Firstly, the very enterprise to tackle the production of artists books in Mexico is a complicated one as its outcome spans different formats (from the traditional idea of an artist book to fanzines, self-published catalogues, the so-called experimental writing, attempts to create an art criticism platform, etc., as well as hybrids resulting from the combination of these formats) and little efforts have been conducted to map out or study its entirety. Also, the public diffusion achieved by these resulting cultural products is very limited in most cases, as they are usually the result of self-organised initiatives with small and overworked staff who do not have the means to distribute or to publicise their work.
The second issue at stake is the constant difficulty to develop long-term projects or series of any kind. As such, any initiative is often limited to the goal of publishing one or two books given the lack of financial resources. Most artists and independent publishing houses rely on funds allocated from either public or private institutions, and they are granted on a project basis, not for the development of long-term programmes. In addition to this, directors of museums, foundations, and other institutions in Mexico change constantly, and, in turn, so do the mission, interests, and support of the organisations they lead (as well as their closest members of staff).
In broad terms, the situation sketched above is the context under which the publishing ventures, related to art and artists books, take place. However, the economic limitations have not necessarily meant that the production has decreased but, interestingly enough, it has increased. Condemned to live in the margins of the art institutions, publishing has become a space of opportunity as such marginality poses a number of advantages. Artistic freedom, flexible print runs, a targeted distribution, and the possibility to collaborate with anyone are the most remarkable ones. However, it would be irreflective to fall into the trap of idealising the publishing activity. These self-organised initiatives are often deployed as a strategy to achieve visibility, on the one side, and, on the other, their producers often lack the basic skills and knowledge required for a proper publication in traditional terms, myself included.
Through the display of an arbitrary, ongoing, and non-representative archive at Banner Repeater, open discussions, and a number of archive activations, I will try to unravel these issues and work toward the creation of a framework that might be useful for addressing the complex and fascinating publishing scene from Mexico. Ideally, it will be a meeting place to inquire on this study case and to question collectively if any similarities may be drawn between contexts as different as Mexico City and London. Also, it could be the right place to speculate if this sort of under-recognized production will scale up or if it should remain in the margins in order to continue being diverse, chaotic, and confusing.
Recordings of the talks with curator Fabiola Iza available at Banner Repeater’s website
Verónica Gerber Bicecci, visual artist / writer and member of Tumbona Ediciones in conversation with curator Fabiola Iza.
Thurs 2nd July 2015 7-8.30pm
Tumbona Ediciones is a publishing collective comprised of a group of artists based in Mexico City that since 2005 have tried to resist Mexico’s progressive cultural impoverishment through creative means. Tumbona shelters genres unattended by major publishing houses – essays, aphorisms, short stories, flipbooks and other small-format and anomalous visual publications. It bets on books with aesthetic vitality and intellectual risk, impure books that can go from one artistic manifestation to another.
Verónica Gerber Bicecci, is a visual artist who writes and is a member of Tumbona Ediciones, and will be discussing both the advantages and challenges Tumbona has faced due to its particular constitution with Fabiola Iza, curator of To unmap the terrain: Artists’ publishing in Mexico at Banner Repeater.
Juan de la Cosa – Mexico based publishing house created by Tania Pérez Cordova and Francesco Pedraglio, in conversation with curator Fabiola Iza.
Saturday 18th July 2015 4.30-6pm.
A collaboration between Tania Pérez Cordova and Francesco Pedraglio, Juan de la Cosa is a Mexico City based, artist-led publishing house interested in commissioning, republishing, translating and distributing works of fiction and poetry by writers and artists alike.
With bilingual editions and a specific focus on translation, Juan de la Cosa explores the invisible line separating literary works and the experimental writings put forward by visual artists, publishing authors that propose new and ambiguous spaces for fiction and that test the limits of narrative and poetic writings.
Tania Pérez Cordova Is an artist based in Mexico City, Francesco Pedraglio is an artist and writer based in London and Mexico City.