A New Zine Exhibit at Brooklyn Museum

Summary

Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: All Of It with Alison Stewart (WNYC)
Episode: A New Zine Exhibit at Brooklyn Museum
Date: November 17, 2023
Guest: Brandon Joseph — Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at Columbia University, Co-Curator of "Copy Machine Manifestos: Artists Who Make Zines"

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Overview

This episode explores the opening of the Brooklyn Museum’s new exhibition, Copy Machine Manifestos: Artists Who Make Zines, highlighting the cultural significance, history, and contemporary relevance of zines. Host Alison Stewart interviews Brandon Joseph, one of the exhibit’s co-curators, discussing the unique role of zines in art and activism, their community-building origins, and ongoing influence. Listener calls provide personal anecdotes and connections to zine culture.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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What Is a Zine? (03:12–05:33)

• Origins & Definitions
  • Zines are DIY, independent publications often made with simple means (photocopy, staples, folding), rooted in self-expression and community.
  • Historically linked to fan culture: began in the 1930s, especially among science fiction, comics, and later rock fandoms.
• Community Building
  • Zines are interactive and participatory: open to reader feedback, correspondence, and contributions, unlike traditional magazines with editorial gatekeeping.
  • Core to fostering inclusive, collaborative communities.

Quote:

"So they're really open to creating and fostering senses of community in that sense."
—Brandon Joseph (05:19)

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Mail Art & Early Zines (05:33–08:11)

• Mail Art Networks
  • Early artist zines originated from “correspondence art” communities in the 1970s, operating via postal exchanges rather than galleries.
  • Artists mailed work to each other, sometimes modifying and resending pieces, creating a collaborative chain.
  • Example: The New York Correspondence School Weekly Breeder started as a mailer, expanded by different artists, illustrating the evolving, collective process.
• Alternative Platforms
  • These mail art and early zines were viewed as alternatives to institutional “high art” spaces, democratizing art sharing and viewing.

Quote:

"It was also a sense of feedback. You would mail your piece to someone and they would mail you another piece, or maybe they would even take the piece you mailed to them and modify it and send it on to somebody else."
—Brandon Joseph (06:13)

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Why “Manifestos”? (08:26–10:26)

• Exhibit Title Origin
  • "Copy Machine Manifestos" was borrowed from a 1990s article referencing the explosion of queer zines, specifically foregrounding both activism and art.
• Manifesto Forms
  • Zines often contain explicit or implicit manifestos—declarations of purpose, challenging the mainstream ("oppressive to just plain boring").
  • The act of zine creation itself can serve as a manifesto, bridging activism and artistic intent.

Quote:

"And just as often, the zine itself acts as a manifesto in its form and in its content. Whether it says this is a manifesto or not, it serves as a calling card, as advertisement, as a billboard of a particular person or a particular group's point of view."
—Brandon Joseph (09:26)

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Listener Calls: Personal Connections and Scene History

[Fact Sheet 5 & Ray Johnson] (10:34–11:53)

• Caller Jerry recalls Fact Sheet 5 and Ray Johnson (“godfather of mail art”).
• Joseph: Exhibition includes Ray Johnson’s drawings and references his archival influence; early zines in the exhibit often corresponded with Johnson.

Quote:

"Most of the artists in the first section...were in male correspondence dialogue with Ray Johnson. So he was a very central figure."
—Brandon Joseph (11:42)

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[Copy Shops & Gathering Places] (11:53–14:36)

• Caller Cliff: Asks if Todd’s Copy Shop—a vital locale for 1980s zine makers—is featured.
• Joseph explains while the shop isn’t specifically highlighted, such production and distribution nodes were essential to zine culture. The exhibit focuses on spaces like the Spew Festival (early queer zine conference) and moments where virtual communities meet in person, underscoring the importance of both physical and networked gathering sites.

Quote:

"The copy shop was itself a node of production and often of distribution as well...You know, the record store was also not a site of production, but a note of distribution, certainly, even if your zine was not necessarily one that related to music."
—Brandon Joseph (12:41)

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Brooklyn’s Unique Zine Scene (14:36–16:40)

• Local Flavor
  • The exhibition is rooted in Brooklyn: early zine work by John Dowd (Park Slope), contemporary works with Brooklyn connections, and a thread running through the show’s entirety.
  • Exhibit also represents national and international scenes: LA, San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto, Mexico City, and beyond.

Quote:

"There's a through line of Brooklyn that starts and ends the exhibition, but we also have Manhattan, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Guadalajara, Mexico City, Toronto, Vancouver are all pretty important nodes throughout this exhibition."
—Brandon Joseph (16:17)

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The Zine Landscape Today & Closing Thoughts (16:40–18:02)

• Current Relevance
  • Zines are highly popular among artists—affordable, accessible, and maintaining community-based intent even as the art market grows.
  • Recent years saw a surge in production (2019 onward), culminating in vibrant scenes and major events like the Printed Matter zine fair.
• Accessibility
  • Zines provide a way for people to own a piece of art or support an artist for just a few dollars, a democratizing force in art.

Quote:

"They're just a way, I think, for artists, especially in a sometimes burgeoning art market, to be able to make work that can be bought cheaply, given away, that can have that community function and network function."
—Brandon Joseph (16:57)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Paper and Process:

  "Paper and language are the two most essential tools for zine making, aside from a copier or a printer. It is really helpful for me to be surrounded physically by the material image in the liminal space of selecting and framing. It is as if the paper and I are having a tactile conversation. This conversation becomes the language of the zine, the content."
  —Niall G. Kim Kaliske (01:31, quoted by Alison Stewart)

• On Community:

  "They’re more open and collaborative with a community than your typical magazine that has a sort of gatekeeper function of editors and others."
  —Brandon Joseph (04:44)

• Manifesto as Method:

  “Often the zine contains manifestos in it. This is what we're doing. This is why we're doing it. And just as often, the zine itself acts as a manifesto in its form and in its content.”
  —Brandon Joseph (09:26)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:31] — Show intro, exhibit context, zine definition, and quote from Niall G. Kim Kaliske
• [03:53] — What makes a zine a zine? Joseph on the history and community aspect
• [05:33] — Mail art and the evolution of early zines
• [08:32] — Explanation of the “manifestos” in the exhibit title
• [10:34] — Listener call: Fact Sheet 5 and Ray Johnson’s influence
• [11:58] — Listener call: Production and distribution hubs like Todd’s Copy Shop
• [14:50] — The “Brooklyn-ness” of the exhibition and locational threads in zine culture
• [16:53] — The contemporary zine landscape; current trends
• [17:44] — Closing summary and thanks

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Conclusion

This episode delivers a rich, engaging look into zine culture through the lens of Brooklyn Museum’s latest exhibit. Host Alison Stewart and Brandon Joseph highlight zines' community roots, artistic and activist roles, and how these DIY publications persist as accessible, vital forms of cultural production and self-expression today—right in the heart of Brooklyn and beyond. Listeners are invited to reflect on their own connections to zine culture and to experience the ongoing vibrancy at the Brooklyn Museum’s exhibit and accompanying zine fair.

Transcript

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Listener support WNYC Studios.

[Alison Stewart]

This is all of It on WC. Welcome to NYC. I'm Alison Stewart. The Brooklyn Museum has a new exhibit opening today. It's called Copy Machine Manifestos. Artists who make zines. A zine, of course, is the shortened version of magazine, but zines are more than smaller versions of their corporate cousins. They're typically do it yourself endeavors, curated and crafted as acts of artistry themselves, as well as providing a platform for individual expression. Listen to how zine artist Niall G. Kim Kaliske frames his work. He says, quote, paper and language are the two most essential tools for zine making, aside from a copier or a printer. It is really helpful for me to be surrounded physically by the material image in the liminal space of selecting and framing. It is as if the paper and I are having a tactile conversation. This conversation becomes the language of the zine, the content. The Brooklyn Museum's exhibit includes more than 800 images from the world of zines from the 1970s to today, broken out in categories like the Punk Explosion, Critical Promiscuity, something called Subcultural Topologies. It is open now as of today, and you can catch it at the Brooklyn Museum until March. And this weekend the museum is getting extra ziny because on Sunday they're hosting a zine fair put on by the nonprofit publisher Printed Matters, which will feature more than 60 zines and zine makers currently putting out work. Joining me now to talk about all of it, please welcome Brandon Joseph, professor of modern and contemporary art at Columbia University and one of the contributing curators to the exhibit. Welcome to all of it.

[Brandon Joseph]

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[Alison Stewart]

Listeners, give us a call to shout out the zines in your life, past and present. Maybe you are or used to be a zine maker or maybe you are a subscriber to a punk zine or a queer or feminist zine or an art zine that made you feel like part of a community. Maybe you felt seen in a zine. Give us a call, 212-433-W NYC 212-433-9692. You can call in two, join us on the air or you can text to us at that number or you can tell us about it on our social media at all of it. Wnyc. So, Brendan, you know, we know what a pamphlet is or a flyer or a brochure. What makes a zine a zine?

[Brandon Joseph]

Well, historically, zines have been related, as you said at the opening, to magazines, but they've also been related to all of those publications, independent publications that you just mentioned, but also to what was known as the fanzine. So we think of zines and the zines in the exhibition are largely like this, as photocopied. You know, the classic zine might be regular 8 and a half by 11 paper, photocopied, stapled, folded in half and stapled. But zines actually begin in the 1930s in mimeograph form. And they were the same chick, cheap, quick, ephemeral and usually self made publications. But they were related integrally to fan culture. They started around science fiction fandom, they moved into comic book fandom. They they ultimately in the early 70s, move into rock fandom, even before punk rock happens. And so there are fan communities that are that are interested in certain comics or certain types of music and often, almost all the time. Actually, part of the ethos of these fanzines is that they're very open to reader feedback and participation. So they welcome correspondence, they welcome contributions, they welcome mentioning other types of zines. So they're more open and collaborative with a community than your typical magazine that has a sort of gatekeeper function of editors and others. So they're really open to creating and fostering senses of community in that sense.

[Alison Stewart]

Some of the wall text explains that the earliest zines came out of something called mail art networks. What was mail art?

[Brandon Joseph]

Yeah, so our exhibition, the exhibition that Drew Sawyer and I put together is not all zines, of course, but it's zines particularly done by artists. And the earliest zines in our exhibition are from. Well, the earliest is November 69, but basically from the 70s on. And there was a group in the 70s that was national and international that was interested in correspondence art. They were interested in making things that were cheap and ephemeral again and that could be mailed to other people. And it was also a sense of feedback. You would mail your piece to someone and they would mail you another piece, or maybe they would even take the piece you mailed to them and modify it and send it on to somebody else. And the earliest artist zines that we chronicle in the exhibition are really ones that came out of these type of networks. So for instance, we have. There's one instance, which is in one case, actually physical case, of a publication that was called the New York Correspondence School Weekly Breeder. Right. So it was a joke on Weekly Reader. And it started as a one page mailer that was sent around and then another person took it over. So the first person was Ken Friedman, artist. The next was Stu Horn, an artist in Philadelphia. And Stu Horn took that and made it a two page mailer. And then it was passed on to a man named Tim Mancusi in San Francisco, an artist, and he made it into a full fledged zine of 35 pages. So, and often these correspondence zines basically gathered mail that was sent to them artists, mail that was sent to them images, texts, et cetera, collated it, reproduced it, bound it often with just a staple and sometimes with just a paperclip, and then sent it out and distributed it to other people. So that was. So not all correspondence art ended up in these little magazines. But some of the earliest artist zines that we chronicle come out of these distributed network communities that were really using the postal system as an alternative to the High Art Museum as a place to show and disseminate their work.

[Radio Host]

My guest is Brandon Joseph, co curator of Copy Machine Manifestos, Artists who Make Zines. It's at the Brooklyn Museum. It opens today. He's a professor of Modern and Contemporary art in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University. I do have to ask about manifestos.

[Brandon Joseph]

Yes.

[Alison Stewart]

Why is that in the title?

[Brandon Joseph]

Well, the term, the title, Copy Machine Manifestos was actually taken from an article that was published in the San Francisco Bay Guardian in the 1990s that was talking about the explosion of queer zines in the early 1990s. And that was the title of the, of the article. And we liked it because first of all, it foregrounds the copy machine. But second of all, many of these zines that we found over and over and over again. So I just mentioned that Correspondence Art was sort of an alternative to the Hyard Museum. Very often the zine comes out of people that want to take the means of production to get their voice told and against something that they perceive as anywhere from oppressive to just plain boring. They want an alternative. And often the zine contains manifestos in it. This is what we're doing. This is why we're doing it. And just as often, the zine itself acts as a manifesto in its form and in its content. Whether it says this is a manifesto or not, it serves as a calling card, as advertisement, as a billboard of a particular person or a particular group's point of view. And so that artistic and activist dimension of zines, we like the way that the title foregrounded it. And of course, manifesto is something that, you know, if you're a card carrying art historian or a frequent museum visitor, you know that manifestos are often associated with art movements. So it's a very art historical term too, while it's also an activist term. And we like the way that it's switched between activism and art, because that's exactly what these zines largely do.

[Alison Stewart]

Let's take a call. Jerry is calling from Nassau County. Jerry, thank you for calling wnyc. You're on the air.

[Caller]

Thanks. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I feel like I'm back in 1990. Do you have any copies of Fact Sheet 5 in your exhibition or any works by Ray Johnson, who was like the godfather of mail art?

[Brandon Joseph]

Well, we don't have backseat 5. We knew of Factseat 5. And we. That was a clearinghouse in itself, a network. It was a zine that actually allowed you to connect to other zines. But we do have Ray Johnson. We have an original piece of Ray Johnson, original drawing by Ray Johnson that he submitted to the West Bay Dadaist, which is one of the early correspondence zines. And we have a work by an artist, John Dowd, who was close to Ray Johnson, who made a collage sort of in homage to and was sent to Ray Johnson. We did do research in the Ray Johnson Estates archives too, for this exhibition. And most of the artists in the first section. There are six sections in the exhibition. In the first section were in male correspondence dialogue with Ray Johnson. So he was a very central figure.

[Radio Host]

Let's talk to Cliff calling in from Manhattan.

[Alison Stewart]

Cliff, thank you so much for calling all of it.

[Caller]

Well, thank you for the program. I am involved in correspondence art and in the 80s was involved in a zine called Secret Love, which is a gay male zine. And my question is, is Todd's Copy Center, Todd's Copy Shop, mentioned in the exhibit? It was an enormously popular place for zine makers here in the 80s, I guess.

[Brandon Joseph]

Yes, it was in. Is it in Greenwich Village? West Village, I forget. Yeah, yeah, yes. It's not specifically mentioned, but artists did mention it and, and utilize it. Kate Hud, David Wojnarowicz, artists that are in the exhibition. I think, I believe Kate, huh, worked there. She worked at a copy shop. I think it was that one. And so yeah, the copy shop was itself a node of production and often of distribution as well. People would make their photocopy zines there and maybe leave them there. You know, the record store was also not a site of production, but a note of distribution, certainly, even if your zine was not necessarily one that related to music. So yeah, these sites are very important for the history of zines. We chose to emphasize in the exhibition more the sites, these sites of distribution. So for instance, we feature the Spew Festival, which happened two or three times and was one of the first queer zine conferences where people came together. We featured 1974 Confluence of Correspondence artists in Los Angeles called the Deca Dance and which was a sort of faux Hollywood style award show that happened in Los Angeles was a couple years in the making where all of these correspondence artists from Vancouver, New York, the Bay Area, in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, all came together in this to stage this giant happening which was an award show. But it was also the first place that many of them met each other in person. And so these moments where the virtual network becomes a real place of engagement is something that we foreground from the deca dance in 74 all the way to Devin Morris's brown paper zine fair in the 2000 teens.

[Radio Host]

Throughout the exhibition, the publicans the publications are also eclectic and original. But can you pick out any connective tissue among the zines that come out of our area or out of Brooklyn and really have Brooklyn ness about them?

[Brandon Joseph]

Well, there's a lot of. The exhibition actually begins. That first publication that I talked about, November 69, was done by John Dowd and Stanley Steller. John Dowd was lived in Park Slope. That was where his studio and home was. He worked at the Eagle Bar in the West Village. He was a graphic designer. He was a pop artist before that. And so he dao to land, which is what in the correspondence art network he called his studio was located in Brooklyn. So the exhibition begins in Brooklyn. We have an opening piece when you come in, which is by Yousef Hassan, Kwame Sorrel of Black Mass Publishing in collaboration with Ari Markopoulos and the musician, rapper and musician Mike, AKA DJ Black Power. So all of them have Brooklyn connections and roots in the front of the exhibition. And when we get to the end, which is the last section, the sixth section of contemporary artists, many are also Brooklyn based. So Candace Williams, who just moved from Los Angeles to Brooklyn, Devin Morris, who had moved a couple of years before from Baltimore to Brooklyn, Netta Bomani. I don't know if Lucinia Cruz lives in Brooklyn or not, but Pat McCarthy does. So we have a lot. There's a through line of Brooklyn that starts and ends the exhibition, but we also have Manhattan, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Guadalajara, Mexico City, Toronto, Vancouver are all pretty important nodes throughout this exhibition.

[Radio Host]

As we said on Sunday from 11 to 6 at the Brooklyn Museum, you can catch the Sunday zine fair put on by the nonprofit Printed Matters. How would you describe the zine landscape today, given everything we've been talking about? We've got about a minute.

[Brandon Joseph]

Zines are incredibly popular now, especially amongst artists. And they're just a way, I think, for artists, especially in a sometimes burgeoning art market, to be able to make work that can be bought cheaply, given away, that can have that community function and network function that people can take a zine or have a zine from an artist for $5, whereas maybe they can't buy a painting for, you know, the higher prices that there are. And really, as we worked on this exhibition from 2019 to now, we really saw a wave of production. So it's as popular now as it's ever been. And the Printed Matter zine fair on Sunday is really going to feature that.

[Radio Host]

The name of the exhibit is Copy Machine Manifestos, artists who make zines. It's at the Brooklyn Museum and it opened today. My guest has been Bre Brandon Joseph, professor at Columbia University, one of the co curators. Thank you so much for joining us and congratulations on the show.

[Brandon Joseph]

Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.

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