Poet, novelist, editor, publisher and printer, Charles Plymell, is a prime mover of the Wichita Vortex and a stalwart embodiment of the small press ethos. Grist was published by the Abington Book Shop in Lawrence, KS. Editor John Fowler is quick to thank various guest- and co-editors, chief among them Plymell and George Kimball. Plymell edited no. 7 (1966) which features, along with Glen Todd, Bob Branaman, Roxie Powell, Claude Pelieu, and Mary Beach, the first publication of Steve [S. Clay] Wilson’s artwork. Plymell would print the first issue of Zap Comix in San Francisco in 1968 and Wilson was a regular contributor to Zap from the second issue forward. Plymell edited, printed, and published three issues of Now (1963–65) which is among the most interesting magazines of its time.

From an amazing collection of independent magazines/books/zines that are now being offered for sale.

Stan VanDerBeek, Breathdeath, 1963
Animation Frame, Ink on paper, 12 3/4 x 9 1/4 in

Giosetta Fioroni, Laguna, 1960
Oil and enamel on canvas, 39 3/8 x 31 1/2 in.

On exhibit now at The Drawing Center, as part of Fioroni’s first solo show in North America.

George Maciunas to Nam Jun Paik.

Score for Ichnologia by Anestis Logothetis.

A Mock-up draft of title page for Xerox Book.

Like Conceptual artists, Siegelaub explored subversive communication methods and mediums in his work and raised important questions about the making, display, ownership, distribution, and sale of art. This exhibition highlights items in The Seth Siegelaub Papers, now in The Museum of Modern Art Archives, that illustrate Siegelaub’s role in empowering artists within the hierarchy of the art world.

“This is the way your leverage lies”: The Seth Siegelaub Papers as Institutional Critique opens today at MOMA.

Mario Bertoncini: SPAZIO-TEMPO (1967/70)
environmental theater piece for a variable
number of dancer-mimes and instrumentalists
Detail of the first performance at the
Biennale Venezia 1970

Mel Bochner, Dispersed Perspective (One Point), 1967
Photo collage and graphite on board, 17” x 17”

Douglas Huebler’s piece in Seth Siegelaub’s Xerox Book.

Each artist was asked to make a piece for 25 pages of letter-sized paper for the book. The book was the exhibition.

In Hans Ulrich Oberist’s A Brief History of Curating, Siegelaub discusses the project:

What I was trying to do was standardize the conditions of exhibition with the idea that the resulting differences in each artist’s project or work, would be precisely what the artist’s work was about.
It was an attempt to consciously standardize, in terms of an exhibition, book, or project, the conditions of production underlying the exhibition process. It was the first exhibition in fact where I asked the artists to do something, and it was probably somewhat less collaborative than I am now making it sound. But I do have the impression that the close working relationship with the artist was an important factor of all the projects, even when I was not particularly close to an artist, as for example, Bob Morris.

From Catalogue for the Exhibition, 1969.

Primary Information has gone and done a wonderful service for those interested in conceptual art, self-publishing, idea distribution, and dematerialization. They have created an official online PDF archive of Seth Siegelaub’s 1960’s and early 1970’s publications.

John Townsend, Rain Fall, 1965
Painted Wood Relief, 40” x 40”

Cover art by Robert McGinnis.

Six p.m. Rendezvous of our hard-hitting little press team-Jean Jack Genet, Willy Bill Burroughs, and yours truly as anchor man, trying to lend a modicum of stability to the group. Also on hand, Esky editor young John Berendt-his job: straighten these weirdos, and K.F.S. (“Keep Flying Speed!”). We met in the queer little Downstairs Lounge, one of several bars in our hotel, the Chicago-Sheraton, and John Berendt was quick to charge us with our respective assignments: “You Jean Jack Genet, on the alert for all manner of criminality and perversion in high places! You, Big Bill Burroughs, let your keen and experienced eye discern any sign of sense derangement through the use of drugs by these delegates, the nominees, and officials of every station! Now then, you, T. Southern, on double alert for all manner of absurdity at this convention!”

More info on the story behind the cover photograph by Carl Fischer here.

There is a permanent entry on the teletypequeue for an entity called the phantom user.

Frank Hewitt, Matisse Trots, 1964(?)

Cufflinks? Check.
Blazer? Check.
Press pass? Check.
Gas mask? Check.

This photograph of a KQED reporter in the field is from a great set of Berkeley protest photos from the late 60’s.