Last night the first issue of The Coelacanth Journal was launched in London by its editors, the artists Phoebe Blatton and Susan Finlay. The venue was Shipley Art Booksellers on the Charing Cross Road, where earlier in the day I had acquired an unparalleled haul of works by my favourite author, Margery Allingham (but that’s another story).
The Coelacanth Journal is of interest not just because it’s witty and provocative. It is one of a number of brilliant new ventures which illustrate an increasing tendency by artists engaged in the book form to become editors, merging the model of art production with that of publishing. These artists and critics play with academic structures and dialogues as a point from which to depart towards new conceptual work.
Earlier this year London was slapped in the face by Linguistic Hardcore, the first issue of The Happy Hypocrite, edited by Maria Fusco. This journal cocks a snook at traditionally elitist art journals and allows the artist back between the covers. The Happy Hypocrite (named after a short story by Max Beerbohm) champions experimental art writing, including Andrea Mason’s painful account of a critic suffering from a surfeit of hot air..
Book artist Francis Elliott has also hoisted himself onto the academic rostrum. Elliott has recently dedicated his time to producing exquisitely researched entries for Wikipedia which aim to construct a canon for the artists’ books community (read more here). Meanwhile Emily Artinian has used the Wikipedia ‘artist’s book’ page as an experiment in critical writing.
The editors of The Coelacanth Journal write:
‘The Coelacanth is an ugly fish, with the peculiar feature of possessing a heart not unlike that of the human. It was once thought to be extinct, which in some way gave it mythical grandeur. Then later the Coelacanth was rediscovered, under a ledge. It had been there all along, its prototype human heart beating in the murky depths.’
Perhaps that mysterious and ancient species, the printed book, finds itself in the same deep waters today.
I’d be interested to hear comments from other any artists working in a similar vein with journals and the media.