Is print still dead? Brooklyn Museum zines show says no

Turns out, print never died. From specialist fairs and DIY workshops to big-name brands and photographers producing star-studded zines, print media has experienced a revival over the past decade, with artists continuing to explore the histories of the medium and its legacies.

In the first-ever museum show of its kind, Brooklyn Museum is set to host a sweeping exhibition that celebrates all things print. Organised by Branden W. Joseph and Drew Sawyer, ‘Copy Machine Manifestos: Artists Who Make Zines’ will spotlight the world of zines. With over 800 pieces on display, it celebrates five decades of zine-making, tracing its history through contemporary art and exploring its enduring relevance in the wake of the digital age.

Despite decades of rhetoric around the demise of print, it turns out that physical zines are still very much alive and kicking. So what’s the secret to their longevity? “Zines aren’t subject to forms of censorship and surveillance that are found on corporate-run social media platforms,” add Joseph and Sawyer. “There is a different type of intimacy that comes from the physical format of the zine. The much-noted ephemerality of the zine can also make the reader care for, collect, and even treasure it in a much different way than with information accessed via a computer screen.”

“Far from nostalgic or outmoded, the photocopied and printed zine remains a vibrant means of artistic expression.” 

Zines have often been relegated to the fringes of art, but these unassuming publications have been vital weapons in artists’ arsenals since the early 1970s, when photocopy machines became widely accessible. “The exhibition seemed like a good opportunity to examine a vibrant art form for which there is a great deal of enthusiasm, but which has been relatively under-researched and underappreciated within the realm of art history,” Joseph and Sawyer continue. ‘Copy Machine Manifestos’ shows how zines have intersected with different mediums, including painting, drawing, collage, photography, performance, sculpture, video and film. “When we started the project in 2019, the working title was, ‘An Incomplete History of Zines by Artists,’ so we are not trying to be comprehensive – which of course would be an impossible and delusional task.”

Organised (roughly) chronologically, the show is accompanied by a volume co-published with Phaidon featuring texts by the curators, biographies of the show’s artists, and essays by art historians Gwen Allen, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Tavia Nyong’o, Alexis Salas and Mimi Thi Nguyen. “We conducted research in a number of libraries, museums, archives and cultural centres throughout North America, as well as in a couple of European collections,” Joseph and Sawyer explain. “In some instances, the ‘archive’ was an artist’s basement storage in which boxes of zines and related material had been stored unopened for decades, and many artists sent us materials from their own collections. In selecting which works to feature, we tried to focus on networks and communities that were interesting in each decade and then to look at very contemporary artists whose work connected back to the earlier histories we were telling.”

‘Copy Machine Manifestos’ interrogates how zines have challenged conventional hierarchies between media through 1,000 zines and nearly 100 artists including David Wojnarowic, Vaginal Davis, Kandis Williams, Ryan McGinley and Joey Terrill. “Nearly every section of the exhibition revolves around a subcultural community, from the queer and countercultural correspondence networks of the 1970s, through the emergence of the punk, queercore, Riot Grrrl, and Black and POC punk movements, and on to others.” Joseph and Sawyer conclude. “The anticipatory nature of zines is a throughline of the show. They have allowed individuals or groups to participate in the creation and dissemination of their own culture rather than just being passive consumers of a dominant culture or, worse, having their culture be appropriated and monetised by others.”