Aspen and 1¢ Life

To an even greater extent than books or catalogs, which are designed to be long- lasting and serve as documentation, magazines offer a cross-sectional perspective thanks to their often periodical production and focus on current events at the time of publication. They create a public realm, provide space for public opposition, depict discussions and controversies, and, given that they are intrinsically collective in nature, are always an expression of social contexts and particular scenes.

Magazines enjoyed a huge boom during the 1960s, especially in Western societies characterized by growing prosperity, rising consumption and ever-intensifying media communication. They were also an important medium for artists, with magazines’ specific traits increasingly becoming the focus of attention. Against the backdrop of a general shift within art towards the mass media, magazines and publications gave artists a chance to move beyond the closed, elitist circles of museums and galleries in order to reach a broader audience.

Aspen is a prime example of this kind of magazine designed by artists. Ten issues were published at irregular intervals between 1965 and 1971; founder and editor Phyllis Johnson described the publication as a “magazine in a box”, as it was made up of a number of unrelated contributions in a wide range of media, bundled together in a cardboard box. Aspen was thus a kind of reproducible, mobile mini-gallery – another expression of the blurring of media boundaries during that era.

Johnson gave the participating artists and authors free rein in compiling and designing the various issues. Andy Warhol and his then studio assistant, rock critic David Dalton, were for instance responsible for Aspen 3, published in late 1966. Pop Art, circles around Warhol’s Factory, underground film, American counterculture, rock music, and the emerging Californian LSD culture came together in a box that imitates detergent packaging.

In a media-reflective vein, the Aspen 3 box also contains the only issue of a newspaper entitled The Plastic Exploding Inevitable. Warhol and director Paul Morrissey organized a series of multimedia events under this title in 1966 and 1967, at which The Velvet Underground also performed. In the adjoining room, a film by Ronald Nameth documents one of these shows that played a pioneering role in use of light and media for musical stage performances.

Further issues of Aspen focus on various other themes and scenes. Issue no. 4 from 1967, for example, was designed by Quentin Fiore, who also produced the graphic design for the groundbreaking The Medium is the Massage co-published in the same year with media theorist Marshall McLuhan. Finally, issue no. 7, from 1970, addressed the art scene in the United Kingdom, bringing together pieces by Eduardo Paolozzi, David Hockney, Ian Hamilton Finlay, J. G. Ballard, as well as by Yoko Ono and John Lennon.

The 1¢ Life portfolio, on the other hand, stems from an extraordinary collective collaboration between New York and Paris, uniting trends as diverse as Abstract Expressionism, CoBrA, and Pop Art. Shanghai-born artist and poet Walasse Ting, who had spent time in Paris before moving to New York in the 1950s, where he associated with artists like Pierre Alechinsky, Karel Appel and Asger Jorn, teamed up with the painter Sam Francis for the 1964 publication. Together, the two organized contributions from a grand total of twenty-eight artists, including Enrico Baj, Öyvind Fahlström, Allan Kaprow, Kiki Kogelnik, Joan Mitchell, Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, and Tom Wesselmann. The artists they invited to participate often responded directly to Ting’s poems, which make up a significant part of the publication. Reproductions of advertisements and postcard motifs were also incorporated into the visual program.