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Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Still Evergreen
Posted by Steve
This past Sunday morning I heard an NPR interview with Barney Rosset, the former publisher and founder of Grove Press and Evergreen Review magazine (cover above by Paul Davis), who aggressively challenged the puritanical mores of 1960s America.
As Chip McGrath in the New York Times wrote:
"In its heyday during the 1960s, Grove Press was famous for publishing books nobody else would touch. The Grove list included writers like Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, William S. Burroughs, Che Guevara, and Malcolm X (his autobiography), and the books, with their distinctive black and white covers, were reliably ahead of their time and often fascinated by sex.
The same was, and is, true of Grove’s maverick publisher, Barney
Rosset, who loved highbrow literature but also brought out a very
profitable line of Victorian spanking porn."
When I was 16 years old, I did everything imaginable to get my drawings printed in Evergreen Review, which already published Robert Grossman, Brad Holland, Tomi Ungerer, Edward Sorel,
and others. By the time I was 19, I was briefly its art director (the
cover of one of my issues--the one with the lion--is below). I met with
Rosset a few times during my tenure, and once was when he told me he
lost all the mechanicals for a book I designed for him about the film Last Tango in Paris. Fortunately I made photostats of all the layouts and we printed from that (needless to say, the typography was a mess).
Tomorrow Mr. Rosset will receive a lifetime achievement award from the National Book Foundation to honor his groundbreaking legal battles to defy the censors and publish uncensored versions of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover and Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, among other important literary events. He is also the subject of a documentary titled Obscene.
Mr. Rosset is still editing Evergreen Review, this time online.
Books | Daily Heller Vaults | Illustration | Magazines
11/18/2008 2:07:57 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Friday, November 14, 2008
Putting the Picture in Politics
Posted by Steve
Tomorrow--Saturday, November 15--the Parsons Illustration Department is hosting Picturing Politics (organized by Nora Krug) at the New School Tishman Auditorium from 1 to 5:30 pm. Admission is free. (Image above by Guy Billout.) The event is described thus: Illustrative responses to world events, large scale and small, have an
effect both visceral and intimate. PICTURING POLITICS explores the
current state of political and social visual commentary. The
Illustration Program of Parsons The New School for Design and the
Department of Politics of The New School for Social Research jointly
present an afternoon of reflections on the intersection of art and
politics.
Also on view in conjunction with the symposium is a reception for an exhibition of illustrated covers for Der Spiegel magazine that opens on November 14th, 6pm, at Parsons, 2 W 13th street, 8th floor. The exhibit will be on view until November 30th. If you are in Santa Monica this weekend, check out Robbie Conal's exhibit of political commentaries at Track 16 Gallery. Or if you simply want to curl up with some reading (and viewing) matter on political and apolitical illustration, check out the following: Varoom magazine, edited by Adrian Shaughnessy; 3x3 magazine (image below by Polly Becker), edited by Charles Hively; All the Art That's Fit to Print (And Some That Wasn't): Inside The New York Times Op-Ed Page, by Jerelle Kraus; or Illustration: A Visual History, by me and Seymour Chwast.
Events | Exhibitions | Illustration | Magazines
11/14/2008 10:08:39 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Tuesday, November 11, 2008
A River Runs Through It
Posted by Steve
The Esopus River is in upstate New York. But Esopus magazine is available here and here
on newsstands. The Fall 2008 issue of the magazine features a wealth of
exciting art and literary content and special printing effects, not to
mention its regular music CD (this one, devoted to "Advice").
Ever since Esopus began in Fall 2003, the bi-annual magazine edited and designed
by Tod Lippy has attracted experimental magazine lovers. Each issue is
more than a good read (or look), it is a kinetic experience, full of unusual content and exemplary special effects. For my money, it just may be
the most innovative print magazine of the 21st century. For back issues,
go here.
Magazines
11/11/2008 5:24:01 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Wednesday, October 01, 2008
16 pages of Joy
Posted by steve
Un Sedicesimo, which, in Italian, refers to a 16-page signature, is an experimental magazine (or booklet, depending on your perspective) published by Corraini Edizioni in which illustrators and designers are invited to do whatever strikes their fancy for 16 pages. Louise Fili and I just completed one devoted to luscious script typefaces. But other artists, including Italo Lupi, Steven Guarnaccia, Daniel Eatock, Paul Cox, and more, have each assembled their own modern-day festschrifts that reveal their respective passions, obsessions, and folly for images, letters, and assorted things. Un Sedicesimo is not the only one of its kind. The Pentagram Papers and The Push Pin Graphic are among the most famous. But one of the first was Feliks Topolski's Chronicles, a journal of his drawings from the 1930s through the 1940s. Un Sedicesimo, produced by Stefano Corraini, is a fresh approach to experimental graphics. A subscription for 6 issues: • 24 € for Italy • 24 + 12 € shipping expenses for EU countries • 24 + 18 € shipping expenses for outside EU countries For more information about subscriptions and terms of payment, please visit www.unsedicesimo.com or write to unsedicesimo@gmail.com.        
Design | Magazines
10/1/2008 3:24:29 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Thursday, September 18, 2008
Baby Boomer Wit
Posted by Steve
There was a time when the best day of every month was the day The National Lampoon hit the newsstands. Those are long gone. But for some of us, the memories linger (like the savagely prescient cover below). For Rick Meyerowitz, the satiric illustrator who brought us Mona Gorilla (above), the Lampoon legend is an everyday immersion. He is currently researching his book, DRUNK STONED BRILLIANT DEAD: The Writers and Artists Who Made the National Lampoon So Insanely Great (Harry N. Abrams). It's a mouthful, but it promises to be trove of incredibly funny material (as well as recollections by Lampoon survivors). Steve: How will the book be different from a conventional anthology? Rick: It's about the writers and artists who contributed brilliant pieces every month for years--who they were, what their work was like, where they went afterwards. Each artist and writer I select will get several pages to show his best work, which I am selecting: It's my pick. Steve: Is everyone being cooperative? Rick: The writers and artists have agreed to contribute anecdotes and ephemera and to write short essays about each other. There will be some never-before-published work and much brilliant but forgotten work. Steve: Ah, brilliant! I can't wait. Rick: Well, you'll just have to.
Illustration | Magazines
9/18/2008 6:11:07 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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