In Numbers: Serial Publications A New Exhibition
The Institute Of Contemporary Arts in London presents In Numbers: Serial Publications by Artists Since 1955 a brand new survey exhibition of the often-overlooked genre of serial publications produced by artists around the world from 1955 to the present day. From the rise of the small press in the 1960s, followed by the correspondence art movement, where artists exchanged art by post, to the DIY zine culture in the 1980s and early 1990s, professional artists have always seized on the format of magazines and postcards as a site for a new kind of art production.
In Numbers is the first survey to define a neglected artform that is neither artists’ book nor ephemera, but is entirely its own unique object. The publications are by young artists operating at the peripheries of mainstream art cultures and established artists looking for an alternative to the marketplace. The publications are artworks, often idiosyncratic and produced in collaboration, and they do not feature news items, criticism, or reproductions of artworks.
The diversity of the publications is reflected in the backgrounds of the producing artists and in the wide range of techniques, nationalities and media; the survey does not attempt to be exhaustive, but simply to define the genre’s contours and identify certain thematic threads.
In Numbers was previously shown at X-Initiative in New York, an experimental and temporary non-profit arts initiative that ran from March 2009 to February 2010. The exhibition is accompanied by the publication In Numbers: Serial Publications by Artists Since 1955, edited by Philip Aarons and Andrew Roth (New York: PPP Editions, 2010). The book documents the history of over 60 publications and includes essays and interviews by experts, among them Victor Brand, Clive Phillpot, Nancy Princethal and William S Wilson.
The ICA was founded by a group of radical artists in the 1940s and exists to challenge the foundations of contemporary art.
The ICA are uniquely positioned on The Mall in central London in a Regency period building designed by John Nash. Since moving to its present location in 1968, the ICA has become the home of the British avant-garde and continues to foreground interdisciplinary art practice.
25 January 2012 – 25 March 2012 Free