Foreward to _ASSEMBLING 12_

by Karl Young

It's time to assemble again -- and about time, too. It's been five 
years since the last issue of _Assembling_ appeared, and that's 
five years too many. 

_Assembling_ represents the only major innovation in magazine 
publishing since Ezra Pound's experiments with _The Exile_ in 1917. 
The four issues of _The Exile_ under Pound's editorship show an 
all-encompassing intellect attempting to fuse the contributions of 
various artists into single units, something like novels or Pound's 
own _Cantos_. _Assembling_ goes in just the opposite direction: no 
central intelligence controls the magazine, the magazine is a 
spontaneous event in which no editor or contributor dominates 
anything. Curiously enough, however, issues of _Assembling_ can 
be read as whole entities, raising several of this century's most 
important art forms to high levels. Issues of Assembling can be read 
as chance-generated collages, and as spontaneous pieces of printed 
performance art. The rapid parataxis of _Assembling's_ pages goes 
beyond the scope of Paris-Zurich dada; nothing conceived in the 20's 
dared be as democratic or as anti-authoritarian. 

_Assembling_ offers contributors as much freedom as magazine format 
can handle. The only restrictions placed on participants are the 
8 1/2" x 11" page format and limitation on the number of sheets each 
can send. As far as the graphic nature of their work goes, 
contributors are limited only by their own abilities. This is ideal 
for artists who can print or otherwise produce their own work; for 
those who can't, a trip to a local printer should be instructive. 
Whatever the case, contributors don't run into editorial restrictions 
like "no half-tones" or "no large solids" or "no color" -- 
restrictions common to most magazines. Work appears as contributors 
want it to appear: they need fear no censorship; any typos in the work 
are their own fault; any compromises that may be made are their own 
responsibility. Anyone can contribute. Participants contribute the work 
that seems most appropriate to them. THEY, rather than an editor, 
decide what is their best work, or what they feel best represents them, 
or what they feel would be most useful in contacting other people 
working in similar modes, or what seems most appropriate to a 
"happening" of this sort -- some  have sent work that tests the limits 
of the format or challenges the basic premises of the magazine. 

Seasoned veterans and previously unpublished artists have contributed 
to the magazine. Some inclusions have been wildly experimental, others 
have been surprisingly conservative. Contributions have ranged from 
spartan minimalism to extravagant neo-baroque productions, including 
examples of nearly every current form of experimentation in print art. 
Some participants have seen _Assembling_ as an opportunity to publish 
their most sober efforts; others have seen the magazine as a sort of 
party, an opportunity to celebrate in print. 

Despite the lack of a central, selecting authority, the quality level 
of  work presented in _Assembling_ has been better than that of most 
magazines edited along conventional authoritarian lines. Some of the 
most amusing work that has appeared in _Assembling_ has been of the 
"let's see what we can get away with" variety. Critics may condemn this 
sort of thing, but I have nothing against this sort of comedy -- I still 
get a laugh out of some of these pieces and realize that they could not 
have been done without a magazine like _Assembling_ to act as stimulus 
and foil. If you wish, you can read something deeper into these pieces: 
even when given as much freedom as magazine format allows, some people 
will still strive for more. I'm not going to object to that impulse, 
particularly at a time as oppressive and complacent as the present. 
Contributions to _Assembling_ range from high seriousness to slap stick, 
allowing each inclusion to stand out distinctly and increasing the 
variety of elements in the collage. 

"Freedom demands responsibility" runs an old saw. _Assembling_ demands 
responsibility on the part of both contributors and readers. 
Contributors who send inferior work must bear the consequences -- 
they can't blame an editor. Just as important is the responsibility 
placed on readers. Implicit behind magazines edited by a central 
authority is the assurance that the work published has value. Readers 
interested in high quality should always read critically, but that is 
not always the case. Many readers feel the need to be reassured by an 
authority figure; feel that a work must be consecrated by some sort 
of expert; feel the need to be told what is good and what is not. 
_Assembling_ makes no such assurance; publication in _Assembling_ does 
not consecrate or validate anything. Instead, it returns the 
responsibility of judgment to the reader, where it belongs.

In the past, _Assembling_ has brought together the work of people 
going in radically different directions. This can help break down the 
self-ghettoization common in the arts today. In past issues, concrete 
poetry has appeared adjacent to performance scores, language-centered 
pieces have faced projective verse, mail art has appeared in 
conjunction with conceptual work, fluxus has bumped into academia, 
etc. This, too, increases the variety of the collage. But more 
important, I hope that _Assembling_ will continue to be eclectic, not 
being dominated by any one clique or school or movement. Many of us 
seem to be hiding more and more in our own little coteries, ignoring 
work in other modes. I doubt that _Assembling_ can change this 
general tendency, but I hope it can continue to be a place where 
different points of view and opposing methods can come together, 
encouraging interaction, constructive debate, and, ideally, mutual 
tolerance.

The only contributions to this issue of _Assembling_ I've seen are 
my own. I'm curious to see how much this issue differs from its 
predecessors. I'm not happy with the one-sheet-from-each-contributor 
limitation, though this will make the parataxis of the collage more 
rapid and more pronounced. I imagine there will be quite a few new 
contributors not represented in previous issues. The suggestion that 
contributors address the theme "our place in nature and nature's place 
in us" may produce interesting results. I assume that many contributors 
will disregard this theme, so that it will appear sporadically through 
the magazine -- a flexible motif recurring through the collage, 
appearing in widely different forms.

At this point in history, printed art is largely a participatory rather 
than a spectator sport. Its audience is made up primarily of other 
artists. We may not be able to make much money or receive recognition 
or respect from main-stream society, but we are free in a way that no 
artists have ever been free before. We should be more sensitive to the 
advantages of our freedom, not limiting ourselves by a ludicrous sense 
of clique loyalty or fear of authority or anxieties about salability or 
acceptability. _Assembling_ allows us to make more use of our freedom 
than any other magazine now going; let's make the most of it!


@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

_Assembling 12_ was compiled by Charles Doria, Robin Middleman, 
Jude Schwendenwein,& Leslie Hollis Soga in 1986, and published by 
Addembling Press/P.O. Box 1967/Brooklyn, N.Y. 11202/U.S.A.

