Avalanche

I just finished reading In Numbers: Serial Publications by Artists Since 1955. What an education!! I was unaware of 80% of the titles, particularly anything after 1970. Surely there were some old favorites like Semina and C Comics, but I was really excited to learn about magazines like File, Vile, Periodical, and De-Coll/age.

While I was reading In Numbers, a friend of mine let me borrow four issues of Avalanche. Avalanche, published by Willoughby Sharp and edited by Elizabeth Bear, did not make the cut for In Numbers. It had the content but lacked the form. More straight journalism than artists' book. Yet the content is fascinating: conceptualism, minimalism, earthwork, body works and performance art. The book largely consists of photographs of performances and artworks and interviews with artists such as Vito Acconci, Terry Fox, Bruce Nauman, Richard Long, Robert Smithson, Carl Andre, and others. There are also several pages of ads and I found myself viewing the ads for galleries and art institutions as serving the same purpose as the photographs. Both serve as documentation and lock a work or an artist in time and space.

I saved Issue Six for last: an entire issue on Vito Acconci. In Numbers opened with 0 to 9. I recently bought a copy of the Ugly Duckling Presse reprint of the Complete 0 to 9 and I view these issues of Avalanche as an introduction into Acconci's work.

JB