Preface to _ASSEMBLING 13.1_

by Karl Young

For this issue of _Assembling_, contributors were asked to supply 200 
copies each of one, two, or three 8 1/2" x 14" sheets. Anyone could 
contribute, and contributors alone decided what work would be included, 
without advice or direction from an editor. Except for the sheet size 
and the number of copies, that's how _Assembling_ has come together 
through its first twelve issues. In this issue, contributors were also 
asked to use color in some way.

The initial impulse behind _Assembling_ was the need to create a 
medium in which contributors would have absolute artistic freedom. 
Early issues bore the subtitle "A Collection of Otherwise 
Unpublishable Manuscripts." Although these issues included work that 
could be, and often was, published elsewhere, the subtitle conveys 
some of the sense of urgency behind the magazine. It was founder 
Richard Kostelanetz's contention that the best work produced in this 
country was unpublishable not because it was bad, but because it was 
too good -- it presented too much of a challenge and a threat to 
established publishing houses. In many respects, he was right. 
However, during _Assembling's_ first decade, small presses were active 
and healthy. Many had the courage to publish daring work; others had a 
commitment to work that may not have been all that radically new but 
still, for market reasons, would not be published by established 
houses. At the beginning of 1987, the small press movement of the 60's 
and 70's seems to be dying or becoming complacent. Many presses have 
ceased to operate for lack of funds. Many of those that are still 
going have become dismally predictable. Most magazines represent one 
clique or another and the tables of contents for magazines in any one 
clique are little more than rearrangements of the same lists of names. 
This is not to say that there is necessarily something wrong with the 
artists whose names appear in those lists; it is to say that there is 
other work, at least as good, that simply doesn't appear. I think this 
sort of stagnation finds its base in a curious kind of market 
censorship -- editors feel that by publishing recognized artists they 
may better be able to attract an audience and to hold on to their 
precarious grants.

The need for recognized artists leads us to a much deeper and more 
dangerous problem, the problem of the need for reassuring authority. 
Editors of stagnant magazines feel assured that what they do has value 
if they publish recognized work; readers can feel assured if they feel 
the works they see have been consecrated by a consensus of opinion 
established more than a decade ago, and given a stamp of approval by 
an editor, even if that editor may be as insecure as they are. It 
might be argued that such works aren't really read, they simply confer 
a type of status on editors, and assure readers that their taste is 
good.

_Assembling_ constantly challenges the complacency of editors and 
readers, returning responsibility to artists and authority to their 
audiences. The artists themselves chose what to print and how to go 
about doing it. No production restrictions, other than page size, 
hamper them. Any defect -- from conception to execution -- is the 
artist's fault. Readers themselves have to determine what has value 
for them, without any reassuring authority figure validating anything. 
No mediator stands between artists and audience judgment. Publication 
in _Assembling_ simply makes work available; it doesn't validate or 
consecrate anything, nor does it offer anyone any kind of assurance. 
These are basic tenants of any sort of freedom. They may be 
frightening, but the alternative is even more frightening.  Look at 
the world around you and you'll see the results of people abdicating 
their responsibilities and placing their trust in authority figures.

The fact that _Assembling_ doesn't validate or consecrate anything 
tends to focus attention on the work itself and away from the artist. 
It sometimes takes a bit of effort even to find the name of the author 
of a given page.  I don't advocate anonymity (I label my own 
contributions), but I do think the way _Assembling_ shifts attention 
from the artist to the work is a healthy corrective to the current 
overemphasis on personality.

I mentioned market censorship above. _Assembling_ can help alleviate 
this problem to some extent, but not as much as we'd like. The problem 
that remains is the cost of printing contributions. "Freedom of the 
press is guaranteed only to those who own printing presses," runs an 
old axiom in small press circles. Most contributors don't own presses, 
and are faced with ever escalating printing costs. The smaller press 
run of this issue may help, but still a solution to this problem 
remains unfound. Perhaps contributions by some of the Soviet Samizdat 
artists, who are used to a more severe sort of censorship than we find 
in North America, may suggest solutions to the rest of us.

There have been several aspects of _Assembling_ that weren't clearly 
thought out when the magazine was first conceived, but which have 
helped make it one of the best magazines around. Collage and chance 
processes have dominated the arts throughout this century, and 
_Assembling_, with its varied contributors sequenced in alphabetical 
order, seems to be the chance generated collage par excellence. 
Performance art has become increasingly important as we've moved 
closer to the end of the millennium, and _Assembling_ is a sort of 
Happening done in print, an Event created by a number of people going 
in different directions, following a simple program, unable to see the 
final result until the Event has been completed.

We hope that the page size and the request for color will be creative 
and challenging factors in this issue. In the invitations I sent out, 
I suggested that contributors might think of three sheet contributions 
as mini-books or to work in terms of two page openings or spreads. 
Aside from any retinal, emotional, or symbolic qualities color may 
have, it allows greater complexity of information to be conveyed. For 
instance, by using two colors you can superimpose one text over 
another and still let each be legible; using color, a contributor can 
create an illusion of depth, so that one visual field or text can seem 
to appear over another, or to block out another;in a performance 
score, you can color code the text so that several participants can 
distinguish their parts by color. There are many other possibilities 
for constructive use of color that we may hope to see extended in this 
issue.

The assemblers are trying to bring in contributions from countries 
outside the United States and we hope to see _Assembling_ become more 
of an international magazine. _Assembling_ has always tended to cut 
across barriers of one sort or another, primarily those set up by 
cliques and users of different methods.  The magazine should be a 
place where different points of view and opposing methods can come 
together, encouraging interaction, constructive debate, and, ideally, 
mutual tolerance. I hope that constructive diversity will continue to 
grow in each successive issue. This should be increased and enhanced 
by international participation.

One of the most interesting things to me about past issues of 
_Assembling_ has been the need felt by some contributors to test the 
few limits placed on them by the magazine's format. I was one of the 
few contributors to No. 12 to follow the request that works address 
the notion "our place in nature, and nature's place in us." I imagine 
quite a few contributors will ignore the request for color, and I hope 
that others will find ingenious ways to work against the magazine's 
format. Such impulses get us started; how intelligently we use them is 
our own responsibility.


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

_Assembling 13_ was compiled by Charles Doria, Andrea Schwartz,
Andrea Von Milbacher, and Karl Young in 1987 and published by
Assemblig Press/P.O. Box 1967/Brooklyn, N.Y. 11202/U.S.A.

