Queer Zines exhibition at the LA Art Book Fair. All photographs by the author for Hyperallergic.
LOS ANGELES — The LA Art Book Fair is for those who cannot afford to buy art. That includes everyone from recent MFAs to working artists, writers and curators, and collectors who like objects that take up space on the coffee table — not the wall. Miranda July and actors from Girls cruised by this weekend and they, too, became one with the art. The sprawling first floor is filled with exhibitors from around the world, and the corner of the second floor is devoted to the Queer Zines Exhibition curated by Philip Aarons and AA Bronson, an artist known for his dealings with queer spirits and magick. It offers a comprehensive array of over 200 queer-themed zines spanning from the 1970s to the present day, showing the breadth of how this mode of creative self-expression has changed and evolved over the years.
Here the queer zine is defined as a “self-published, serial publication with a ‘queer spirit,’ where the hand of the artist/maker is clearly visible in the final product.” This disqualifies one-time only activist-oriented publications, posters or advertisements for political action groups, or LGBTQ political publications that are not made by artists. As such, one would not expect to see anything from the Leather Museum & Archives, the Trans Oral History Project or more bookish queer publications. Limiting publications to print-only artist-made zines also excludes contemporary online magazines that exist primarily on Tumblr. This is a print-only zone for the zine lover.
Read the full review on Hyperallergic: http://hyperallergic.com/106609/peeking-into-the-la-art-book-fairs-queer-zine-show/
