The 7th Annual Zine and Self-Published Photo Book Fair

Artifact #1: Tiger Balm (Installation View), 2016-2017, by Kearra Amaya Gopee

Rock Paper Scissors and a Three-Armed Shovel

Curated by Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. and Devin N. Morris

Opening reception: June 16, 2017 | 6-8 pm
Fair dates: June 17-18 | 12 – 6 pm

Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York  presents the 7th annual Zine and Self-Published Photo Book Fair. Curated by Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. and Devin N. Morris, this year’s fair titled Rock Paper Scissors and a Three-Armed Shovel elaborates on the ways in which photography and self-publishing have been used as tools in the reconceptualization of wealth, value, access, and communication. Rock Paper Scissors and a Three-Armed Shovel centralizes on how image and text are disseminated in social, personal, and communal contexts.

Installations will include works by Kearra Amaya Gopee, Kalen Na’il Roach, E. Jane, Sue Jeong Ka, a selection of texts by Black women authors curated by The Free Black Women’s Library, found and commissioned graphic t-shirts that emphasize visual and cultural literacy, and multiple photo bins consisting of submitted photographs. On the closing day of the fair, Marcelo Yáñez of Picture Newspaper will lead a zine-making workshop that will primarily make use of the anonymously submitted photographs.

PARTICIPANTS

3 DOT ZINE, Andile Buka, Andre Nguyen, Anthony Cudahy, Antonio Bever, BMore Youth Art, Black Boy Feelings, Blkgrlswurld Zine, Codify Art, Cósmica, CRWN, Diamond Dixon, Endless Editions, Flat Fix, Freddie Rankin, Hideko Ono, Hycide Magazine -Akintola Hanif, Juan Madrid, Kalen Na’il Roach, Keiff Jones w/ Shaquille Smith, Laundry Service x Tyler Mitchell, Laurent Chevalier, Luz Magdaleno, Maga Books, Martha’s Quarterly, Mathew Brown, Micah E. Wood, Motohiro Takeda, Nicole Rosenthal, Nydia Blas, Open Projects Press, Papersafe, Passenger Pigeon Press, Philadelphia Printworks, PJ Gubatina Policarpio, Rafia’s World, Sanne Vils Axelson, Sam Margevicius, Sayo Nagase, Slow Youth, Soft City, Stephanie Segura, Stephen Hilger, T-N-T: Antonio Bever & Taylor Engel, and Tammy Nguyen

Photo Albums & Found Images Workshop

with Marcelo Yáñez of Picture Newspaper and Devin N. Morris of 3 Dot Zine

Sunday, June 17, 2017 
Workshop 1: 2:00 pm
Workshop 2: 4:00 pm

In these two workshops we will utilize anonymously submitted photographs to make small zines with a resulting anonymous vernacular. The images will be repurposed, manipulated, and placed under new context. The point is to think of the image in terms of its movement and the way sequencing and chance shift meaning beyond its original towards a new. Looking and working with found images is an exercise into our own desires and imagination when interpreting a photograph. Transcending time and space, the anonymous photograph provides a portal into past and future lives and narratives — a glimpse into spaces and gestures personal, intimate, and performative in a way where the photographic is inseparable from the social. The zines will remain in the Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York library.

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PRESS

The fair’s curators, Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. and Devin N. Morris, have given it a cryptic if intriguing title: “Rock PaperScissors and a Three-Armed Shovel.” Brown Jr. explains, “The fair’s title alone references rudimentary tools used for making —the paper and scissor being more comprehensive, traditional tools in this sense, and the rock being a symbol for a breakthrough, ingenuity, or disruption.” The second half of the title honors James “Son Ford” Thomas and his one-armed stepfather, who helped the artist dig graves to financially support his family and art. “Ultimately, we were interested in works that operate as an extension of living,” Brown Jr. says. Hyperallergic. 

Entitled Rock Paper Scissors and a Three-Armed Shovel, the Baxter St at CCNY Zine Fair will hold its seventh edition at the Camera Club of New York on Baxter Street. The opening takes place tomorrow, Friday 16 June until 18 June. Designed and curated by Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. and Devin N. Morris, this fair is devoted entirely to self-published photographic books.

This year, the fair seeks to expose the social, individual and community context of works combining photographs and images. With this in mind, the Free Black Women’s Library will present a selection of texts by black-American writers, while Kalen Na’il Roach and Kearrea Amaya Gopee will respectively show an installation playing on the stand concept and a window vinyls.

Among the publishing houses exhibited, the fair retains BlkGrlsWurld Zine, Open Projects Press, Papersafe, RafiaSantana, Endless Editions or Laurent Chevalier. L’oeil de la Photographie.

A few weeks ago I think I remarked that unlike art fairs, the world can not have enough zine and artist-book fests. I might be changing my mind, as there’s now one seemingly every weekend. Nevertheless, this one is a must-see, because like the Brown Paper fest I attended in Baltimore, it focuses on artists of color—who are inexplicably, erroneously absent from the stereotypical popular image of zine nerd culture. Art F City.

Devin N. Morris and Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. have curated Baxter Street’s 7th Annual Zine Book Fair to explore the ways in which self-publishing and photography have allowed artists to change the ways we think about wealth, access, and communication. Artnet News.
 

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Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York is a 501(c)3 artist run arts organization. This program is supported in part by the Puffin Foundation Ltd. and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.