Catalogue
An exhibition by Publication Studio Rotterdam
Curated by Isabelle Sully and
Yin Yin Wong
With Sabrina Chou, Toon Fibbe, Sam Gould, Dan Graham, Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn, David Horvitz, Janice Kerbel and Natascha Sadr Haghighian
May 11 – July 22, 2018
MAMA, Rotterdam
Publication Studio started in Portland, Oregon, in 2009 as a small-scale publisher that saw ‘the book’ and its realisation as a social act. By including conversations, socialising and labour into the idea of what it means to publish, the studio created a structure where everyone could have access to a means of production if they wanted it. Now, nine years later, Publication Studio operates as an international network of eleven studios. The books are stored in a shared digital catalogue, distributed across geographies via the Internet and made by hand for local publics in each of the studio locations. By working to connect the city to its inspiring network of like-minded thinkers and publishers across the world, Rotterdam’s very own iteration of Publication Studio—run by Yin Yin Wong and Isabelle Sully—has become a staple in our local artistic community.
For this exhibition, Publication Studio Rotterdam has looked back on the history of the network and the projects that have shaped it. By treating the catalogue of past publications as a manifestation of the community of Publication Studio, Catalogue is an exhibition created in reverse. Rather than producing a catalogue to accompany an exhibition, as is commonly practiced, Publication Studio Rotterdam took the catalogue of the entire network’s publications as the starting point, drawing on artists with whom they share an ethics of practice and from whose work an image of Publication Studio can begin to emerge. From mail-art, to fictional baseball games, to an artwork that never actually managed to arrive, the exhibition will present a number of artistic practices that are busy within the discursive space around the production and dissemination of cultural work. Publication Studio Rotterdam believes that to begin cataloguing these practices is to ensure their circulation.
The exhibition also included a three-part public program:
Prologue, with Francis McKee and Publication Studio Glasgow, May 12, MAMA, Rotterdam
Interlude, with Dolores Dorantes and Poetry International, May 30, MAMA, Rotterdam
Epilogue, with Elaine Wing-Ah Ho/Publication Studio Pearl River Delta and MAMA, July 20, V2: Lab for Unstable Media, Rotterdam
Photos by Charlotte Brand
