LUNAR LAMP BY KONSTANTIN GRCIC, FLOS 2008
032c is the unpronounceable, Berlin-based art and culture magazine with the red cover, the typeface that seems to be always changing, and the unpredictable features with an ironic approach to pop culture and fashion that's never quite distant. The 18th issue of 032c is dedicated to the inscrutable Thomas Demand and includes a portfolio and theoretical discussion of the artist's work; there's also a birthday card to Berlin bookstore ProQM, an Alasdair-McClellan shot mens story about tough Brits, a profile of the socialist candidate to the forthcoming Albanian presidential election, and party photos by Purple editor Olivier Zahm. The new issue coincides with the magazine's first New York exhibition (they have a Berlin space that irregularly hosts events), which founder and editor Joerg Koch hopes will elucidate his international mission—which is perhaps why it includes a lamp.
INTERVIEW: What are the themes in this exhibition that you were hoping to bring out with this show?
JOERG KOCH: The exhibition looks to map the history and shifting identities of the magazine through the work of some of its defining contributors and contributing artists. For example, Konstantin Grcic is principally an industrial designer, but he's also been a major contributor to and influence on 032c. Helmut Lang has been involved as an advertiser, a topic on investigation, and a stockist. Above all, his career in particular instigated 032c's involvement with fashion. Another great example is the artist collective Slavs and Tatars, whose geopolitical and polemical work has become an important part of 032c's efforts to provoke the present by confronting the past. Cyprien Gaillard's work, as well, is a sort of pure emotional expression of that effort.
INTERVIEW: Tell us about the title, "Industrial Light Magic," which sounds quite spectacular...
KOCH: "Industrial Light Magic," is admittedly a pretty hyperbolic title, but each of those catchphrases is important to the magazine. 032c was founded in the post-Wall, post-industrial atmosphere of Berlin, and has embraced that instability. We're propelled by fantasy, or magic—any good magazine is essentially a fantasy machine. And I think that once people see the works in the space of the Goethe Institut, 032c's powerful and unified aesthetic will become apparent. It's like the magazine itself—I mean no one really knows how to pronounce the name, but once you open it up, you see a very deliberate spirit and vision.
INTERVIEW: The show takes place in the Goethe Institut's rarely used Wyoming Building space. Do you think of yourself as representing a particularly German perspective?
Well, I don't think we are on a diplomatic mission representing the Vaterland. The only Germans in the show are Thomas Demand and Konstantin Grcic. Although we operates on a more international scale at this point, the magazine's editorial direction and aesthetic would be completely different if we had started it in London or New York.
INTERVIEW: What about the building itself? Or the funny incongruity of the Goethe Institut and its building, which is called the Wyoming?
KOCH: The show's organization is quite specific to the architecture of the Goethe Institut in the Wyoming Building on the Lower East Side, but I would be lying if I said its history—the communist party had a printing shop in the 1920s, the building developer came from Wyoming back then, etc.—had an affect on the show.
INTERVIEW: Why Thomas Demand? Why now?
KOCH: The new issue coincidences with one of Demand's most ambitious exhibitions to date, a major show at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin that deals with Germany and its history. We've collaborated with Thomas for a long time now—he produced work on the Lamborghini Gallardo for 032c's 10th issue, which we are exhibiting in the show; he interviewed Collier Schorr for issue 15. So Thomas Demand, now and forever!
Industrial Light Magic opens tonight, 6–9 PM. The Goethe Institut, Wyoming Building, is located at 5 East 3rd Street, New York.
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