The Thing is: Is it a magazine or a work of art?
[2008-12-23 17:03:34]
The Thing is: Is it a magazine or a work of art?
That physicality extends to the shipping process. This summer, forthe fourth time in the journal's inaugural year, and for the firsttime in Los Angeles, the Thing hosted a wrapping party. Under aclimate-curdling heat wave, some two dozen Angelenos -- fueled bycold pizza, gratis beer and a rousing impromptu rendition of thePolice's "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic," toiledassembly-line style in the Outpost for Contemporary Art’s spartan Highland Park headquarters, packaging Walsh'smuch-delayed, wildly out-of-order issue No. 2. "It's like abarn-raising," said Herschend, who hails from Missouri. "It wouldbe cheaper to pay a shipper to do everything or to do itourselves."
"We want people's hands on it," Rogan said.
(As Ezawa's crisp white baseball caps made their way out into theworld as Issue No. 3, a little pizza stain got recorded on one forposterity. Its recipient wasn't exactly amused, but "he was verycool about it," Herschend said.)
As editors, Hogan and Herschend let contributors dictate both whatform their issue will take and its content; whether the Thing isart or literature is a question the pair haven't entirely settled."It depends on when you ask," Rogan said. "Looking at each objectindividually, some would be more literature and some would be more. . . object-y."
For Walsh, her doorstop was definitely a creative writing exercise.She re-created a thank-you note that she sent to tennis legendBillie Jean King after her 1973 Battle of the Sexes triumph overBobby Riggs, with a little Wiki-help , incorporating facts and context -- as in "My family and I watchedyou play on tv tonight. We saw you beat Bobby Riggs in 3 sets.WOW."
"A lot of my students didn't know who Billie Jean King was," saidWalsh, an associate professor of electronic media at UC Berkeley.
A year into their venture, the entrepreneurs have just more than1,200 subscribers (subscriptions run $140 a year). L.A.'s Museum ofContemporary Art will begin stocking back issues in the museum'sgift shop after issue No. 5 comes out this month. "It is perfectfor the MOCA stores, since we specialize in artist-produced items,and this is a real artwork that is highly collectible and unique,"said Grant Breding, the museum's director of retail operations.
"We have a lot of subscribers in the Midwest, in small towns,"Herschend said. "Well, probably not a lot, but enough that it'scool," Rogan said.
And when those subscribers write in, the Thing serves its larger purpose of artas social lubricant. "I love checking the e-mail. Sometimes I haveamazing conversations with people. Maybe someone doesn't understandand thinks it's a joke on them. That's a conversation I'd neverhave [otherwise] with someone in Nebraska," Herschend said. "Wetake this really seriously. Sometimes I spend days thinking abouthow to write back."
Big ambitions like connecting such far-flung dots is one of thereasons Rogan and Herschend's only dictate for the Thing is that ittakes the form of household artifacts. It was key, they say, thattheir art be not only affordable but also, well, useful. With the doorstop, they joke that they'vecreated the world's first truly functional metaphor. "Billie JeanKing opened the door and held it open for other women," Walsh said.
"The first thing we thought of is: We want people to live with thisstuff, in a practical way," Rogan said. "We want to collapse thedistance" between the artists and the subscribers, between art andlife. Whatever else the Thing is, it's more art than business. TheThing came modestly into being after San Francisco gallery SouthernExposure provided the pair with a start-up space and some funds.Their next bit of venture capital arrived unexpectedly when theywon a distinguished alumni award of a couple thousand dollars fromBerkeley. Now, the editors say, the Thing pretty much holds itsown, but nobody's quitting his day job.
"My brother's a CEO, and at one point he was like, 'This is goingto totally fail,' " Herschend said. "He's a subscriber."
"Basically, we had no strategy," Rogan said. They do now. "We wantto keep working with cool people, how's that for a business model?"he asked.
mindy.farabee@latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-et-thing20-2008oct20,0,2619169.story [2008-11-4]
Tag : DoorstopThat physicality extends to the shipping process. This summer, forthe fourth time in the journal's inaugural year, and for the firsttime in Los Angeles, the Thing hosted a wrapping party. Under aclimate-curdling heat wave, some two dozen Angelenos -- fueled bycold pizza, gratis beer and a rousing impromptu rendition of thePolice's "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic," toiledassembly-line style in the Outpost for Contemporary Art’s spartan Highland Park headquarters, packaging Walsh'smuch-delayed, wildly out-of-order issue No. 2. "It's like abarn-raising," said Herschend, who hails from Missouri. "It wouldbe cheaper to pay a shipper to do everything or to do itourselves."
"We want people's hands on it," Rogan said.
(As Ezawa's crisp white baseball caps made their way out into theworld as Issue No. 3, a little pizza stain got recorded on one forposterity. Its recipient wasn't exactly amused, but "he was verycool about it," Herschend said.)
As editors, Hogan and Herschend let contributors dictate both whatform their issue will take and its content; whether the Thing isart or literature is a question the pair haven't entirely settled."It depends on when you ask," Rogan said. "Looking at each objectindividually, some would be more literature and some would be more. . . object-y."
For Walsh, her doorstop was definitely a creative writing exercise.She re-created a thank-you note that she sent to tennis legendBillie Jean King after her 1973 Battle of the Sexes triumph overBobby Riggs, with a little Wiki-help , incorporating facts and context -- as in "My family and I watchedyou play on tv tonight. We saw you beat Bobby Riggs in 3 sets.WOW."
"A lot of my students didn't know who Billie Jean King was," saidWalsh, an associate professor of electronic media at UC Berkeley.
A year into their venture, the entrepreneurs have just more than1,200 subscribers (subscriptions run $140 a year). L.A.'s Museum ofContemporary Art will begin stocking back issues in the museum'sgift shop after issue No. 5 comes out this month. "It is perfectfor the MOCA stores, since we specialize in artist-produced items,and this is a real artwork that is highly collectible and unique,"said Grant Breding, the museum's director of retail operations.
"We have a lot of subscribers in the Midwest, in small towns,"Herschend said. "Well, probably not a lot, but enough that it'scool," Rogan said.
And when those subscribers write in, the Thing serves its larger purpose of artas social lubricant. "I love checking the e-mail. Sometimes I haveamazing conversations with people. Maybe someone doesn't understandand thinks it's a joke on them. That's a conversation I'd neverhave [otherwise] with someone in Nebraska," Herschend said. "Wetake this really seriously. Sometimes I spend days thinking abouthow to write back."
Big ambitions like connecting such far-flung dots is one of thereasons Rogan and Herschend's only dictate for the Thing is that ittakes the form of household artifacts. It was key, they say, thattheir art be not only affordable but also, well, useful. With the doorstop, they joke that they'vecreated the world's first truly functional metaphor. "Billie JeanKing opened the door and held it open for other women," Walsh said.
"The first thing we thought of is: We want people to live with thisstuff, in a practical way," Rogan said. "We want to collapse thedistance" between the artists and the subscribers, between art andlife. Whatever else the Thing is, it's more art than business. TheThing came modestly into being after San Francisco gallery SouthernExposure provided the pair with a start-up space and some funds.Their next bit of venture capital arrived unexpectedly when theywon a distinguished alumni award of a couple thousand dollars fromBerkeley. Now, the editors say, the Thing pretty much holds itsown, but nobody's quitting his day job.
"My brother's a CEO, and at one point he was like, 'This is goingto totally fail,' " Herschend said. "He's a subscriber."
"Basically, we had no strategy," Rogan said. They do now. "We wantto keep working with cool people, how's that for a business model?"he asked.
mindy.farabee@latimes.com
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