JAB34

SELF PUBLISHING AS EMANCIPATION

Agata Szydlowska

n the summer of 2011,

Iphotography
Gzuiosc, a Warsaw
gallery, opened
an exhibition titled Publish
Yourself The spacious
interior of a prewar villa
wasfilledto the brim with
visually modest photobooks.
For those more interested
in books than photography,
the most intriguing aspect
of the show was Samouczek
poczqtkujqcego wydawcy
niezaleznego {A Beginner's
Cuidefor the Independent
Publisher), which, designed
and printed in the simplest
possible way, was distributed
for free. It contained a
"ten commandments" for
photobook authors, including
step by step instructions
on conceptualization,
publishing, and distribution of
one's own art publications. The
commandments read as the
following:
After choosing the layout for your pictures, you can
move on to typography. Remember that a good font is
fundamental. Think about whether the pictures alone
are enoughmaybe it would be worth giving them some
additional meaning through the inclusion of a short
caption or a longer description that would lead the viewer
to what you have in mind. It is always important to think
about what information you want to include in your
publication, including the print run, year of publication,
people involved in the project, and maybe even the
printers or kind of paper used.
The Guide's simplicity, honesty, and practicality make it read
like a Do-It-Yourself manifesto. Thefinal,tenth point reads:
"Distribution. Wherever you canphotography festivals,
exhibitions, parties, events, web pages, through the grapevine,
friendly bookstores." The exhibition's organizers suggested not
only engaging in DIY printingcreating books without the help
of professional editors, graphic designers, and printersbut also
creating some kind of an institutionalized form of DIY.
The Warsaw exhibit took place during Photography Month
in Krakow, which organized a series of events devoted to self
publishing. These meetings, presentations, and discussions about

EmelieOstergren,Ze5.z/ 2; r!/sinA:am (Notebook with Drawings), issue # 2, 2013

this phenomenon were intended to reveal the previously unknown

field, and to reflect on its function and meaning. Placing self
publishing alongside collecting, the other leading theme ofthat
year's Photography Month, shed further light on the phenomenon.
Through this kind of publishing, photography regains a haptic
quality, materiality, simply put, its objectivity, through its existence
in the private sphere, yet outside the confines of the gallery. In the
context of collecting photography, self publishing can be perceived
as an intimate phenomenon, and photography as an object of
individual choice, acquisition, and contemplation.
In an article about art books and self publishing written
for the weekly magazine Polityka, Sebastian Fr^ckiewicz
discusses photobooks as a relatively inexpensive and easy way
to distribute photography, particularly in light of the difficulties
of selling photographs and the absence of a forum for ambitious
photojournalism. One can extend this diagnosis even further,
interpreting the Guide as a kind of incentive to free one's self
not only from the art market and mainstream media, but also
from galleries and curators, in other wordsthe entire artistic
establishment. The independent publisher envisioned by the Guide
chooses his own photographs, writes his own texts, and in the
end promotes, shows, and distributes his own work, using his own
money.
Since the above mentioned summer of 2011 through the
winter of 2012-2013, when the publishing house Morava publicly
31

JB34

Kinga Nowak, G/XJ GILIZINE, issue # 3

folded, we have observed a lightning fast rise, and even quicker

demise, of self publishing in Poland. This heroic story was to a
large degree created by journalists who enthusiastically announced
the emergence of this new phenomenon, only to later bury it with
equal verve. These journalists had likely been infected by Honza
Zamojski's pessimism, who for financial reasons was forced to
close the most important and progressive self-publishing initiative,
which had been a media darling. [See page nineteen of this JAB for
an interview with Honza Zamojski.] Journalists concentrated their
attention on the commercial failure of independent publishers in
Poland. During little more than a year and a half, several exhibits,
festivals, and fairs devoted to self publishing were organized; even a
few ephemeral art-book stores opened during this time.
It is hardly surprising that publishers want to sell their
publications. If, however, we were to take another look at some
conclusions that could drawn rom A Beginner's Guidefor the
Independent Publisher, then it may turn out that the true value of
Polish self publishing lies in its emancipatory potential, which
places its work beyond the boundaries of the art world, and the
market for that matter. From this perspective the era of Polish self
publishing started long before independent publishers began selling
their books, and is also a long way from being over.
Creating and publishing art books at one's own expense
offers authors a unique opportunity to freely select texts without
outside editorial pressure, while at the same time maintaining
the materiality, and even the sensuality, of a given piece of art.
Authors have a range of relatively convenient tools and media at
their disposal, which in many cases elude the intervention, control,
and selection by curators, institutions, gallerists, and a whole range
of other intermediaries that can stand between the artist and the
viewer. Art zines have a special place here, both because of their
punk origins and their relatively modest costs of production. Art
zines rarely aspire to become collector's items la the masterfully
produced, signed, and preserved art booksthe art books instead
attempting to maintain the Benjaminian artistic aura. Of course
zines are nothing new to Poland. In the 1990s over one hundred
independent magazine titles emerged, and again as many one-off
publishers. Their popularity waned, however, with the advent of
the Internet era, which allowed for easy, cheap, and instantaneous
distribution of any content. The Internet absorbed most of the
independent publishers, leaving only those for which a printed,
paper medium, is important in and of itself.
32

Lukasz Belcarski, GILI GILIZINE, issue # 3

Keeping with traditional printing could have resulted from

two things. On the one hand we have a meta-refiection on the
subject of the very medium of the printed magazine, which often
takes the form of ajoke or pastiche. The Gdansk-based Krecha,
which was published from 2006-2009, was a descendant of the
politically engaged zines. It was radical, both formally and in terms
of its content, mimicking a daily newspaper, while critiquing the
media and its discourse. The people behind it, turned off by both
sztuka krytyczna's (critical art's) deathly seriousness and hermetic
nature, found a means of cultivating direct social criticism imbued
with a sense of humor. The link between the artistic message and
written commentary was an important aspect oi Krecha, which,
along with its direct distribution, allowed artists to disengage from
curators-cum-intermediaries, that is translators between the artist
and the viewer. Krecha's sharp criticism was above all leveled at
the media's talking heads and the dictatorship and "terrorism"
of consumptionthe last of which was the topic o Krecha's best
known issue, which included an envelope filled with flour that was
labeled "anthrax."
Similar criticism is also contained in the irregularly published
GrafikREBEL, which harnesses a brutal and amateurish creative
aesthetic. The second issue, titledZycie naprzemiai {Wasted
Lives), is a visual parody of tabloid, gossip magazines. The logo
is an utterly inept freehand drawing, while the interior pages,
a continuation of the elaborately drawn cover, contain serious
texts about conscious and sustainable consumption. Each of the
hand drawn pages imitates a tabloid's standard fair, yet contains
accessible, educational content. The illustrations that mimic
children's drawings are printed on the cheapest newsprint, which
can be interpreted not only as a pastiche, but also as a means
of universalizing the message of the entire newspaper. Similar
topics were also broached in the third iisue, titled Konsument.
Instrukcja obsiugi {Consumer. Instruction Manual). The postpunk form of the collage, complete with stylized announcements
and advertisements, was chosen tofitthe theme of advertising
and marketing manipulation. The form of this issue is no less
developed or radical than the previous one, though this time it
more directly refers to the punk origins of this kind of publication.
The newspaper also organized discussions and exhibits related
to the subjects explored in its pages. Both the failed Krecha and
CrafikREBEL were free of charge, though the latter was more likely
to land in the hands of random people.

JAB34

1
PolE, zine, n.d.

The second reason for the return, or rather the continuation

of print media, is the desire to maintain a sense of materiality,
tangibility, but also because of the direct and lasting interaction it
provides with a piece of art in a given time and place. Just as with
photobooks, zines are away to put your art in the hands of the
viewing public .Zines are also a way of freeing yourself from the art
market, which is particularly difficult, if not entirely impossible,
for young artists to get access to. Piotr Grabowski, the man behind
PolEa zine that promotes his own art as well as that of other
artists, talks about this directly:
You know how it is, you've got a lot offinishedwork, but
no way to show it. Art Schools organize year-end exhibits,
but they're sewers, and even if something cool winds up
there, it ends up getting lost in the overall excess. There
is tragically little interest by institutions from around the
city; you have to force yourself upon them by just showing
up, and then you have the feeling that someone is just
doing you a big favor. It's very frustrating, and of course
the pressure is growing. You've got tofindyour own way,
create your own path.
PolE became a means of making contact with the public, as well as
a medium that is in and of itself an artistically inventive object that
demands interaction with the viewer, becoming an independent
artistic statement. It is always distributed during each issue's
publication launch, which creates a more traditional exchange
such as one would have with traditional art at a traditional exhihit,
which would not be possible with digital media. Piotr Grabowksi is
simultaneously the artist, publisher, editor, and printer, and just as
with other self-publishing artists, he perceives all of these roles as
a cohesive whole, closing the gap between a publication and being
published.
Jan Rogalo's Normalizm, aimed at young artists working in
the vein of "boring photography," is yet another title that publishes
the artist's work, as well as photography by other artists. Zeszyt
z rysunkami {Notebook with Drawings), run and illustrated by
an all female staff, has goals similar to those of the previous two
publications. It serves as a platform to publish their own drawings,
which were not commissioned, so have little chance of finding
themselves on paper in any "normal" publication. Each issue of the
carefully published Zeszyt is dedicated to a particular theme, and

PolE, zine, n.d.

other female illustrators, graphic designers, and artists from both

Poland and abroad are invited to participate.
We can see that the emancipatory nature of self publishing
has a twofold characterit can arise from the contestation with
the surrounding reality, media discourses and media in general, or
it can also be a gesture or tool that frees the artist from the artistic
establishment. The emancipatory roots of DIY are to be found in
the punk movement, and more specifically punk zines to which
the above mentioned titles have to refer. DIY in Poland stands not
only as an anti-system ethos, but also, traditionally, as a strategy
in the face of deficiencies. The skills of organizing and creating
things on one's own, once a necessity during times of material
privation, now stand as a collective or anonymous activity in the
face of institutional deficiencies and neglect like roads repaired
by ordinary citizens, ad hoc solutions to resolve an ongoing problem.
In this light, one can attribute the Polish self-publishing movement
to abroader DIY tradition that serves as a surrogate or alternative
to institutions, which is not so much an active opposition to the
establishment, but rather an attempt to get by without it.

Agata Szydiowska is design critic and curator based in Warsaw. In

her work she focuses on social and political dimensions of design
exploring not only an established design production, but also the
vernacular and the quotidian. She is a member of the editorial
board of Polish design quarterly 2+3D. She has collaborated with
Polish Association of Graphic Designers and now she runs her own
Design Critique Platform. As a lecturer she works in the School of
Form, an innovative design school in Poznan where she teaches
design history and typography. In 2013 she was awarded "The
Young Poland" scholarship for young creators who already achieved
success in theirfieldof art.

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