J. Hackson

Clod Magazine Issue 19

This exhibition is a magazine; the fifty pictures in the show are the fifty pages that make up Clod Magazine Issue 19.

The idea behind it was to reduce a magazine to a single one-off piece of work.

Unlike mass publication, the original master copy is more important than the printed run. Magazines usually, and intentionally, deal in multiple runs, so to have one main copy as the focus of attention would help to make Clod Magazine look more out of kilter, and less capitalistic, in an increasingly capitalistic and inclusive age. (Clod Magazine has a history of being on the margins of style, popularity, taste and humour).

The 50 pages are primarily works in colour and composition, and contain no real text. However, as with the ‘word’ editions of Clod Magazine, they show an editing process; from the stage of finding the discarded bits of paper, (fragments have come from streets and pavements all over Europe), to their presentation as collages.

The exotic glamour of the locations of the found bits and pieces, is in contrast to the filthy nature of the absolute waste that the collages are made of. When people think of Paris or Vienna, they don’t tend to associate them with a lost cigarette paper in dirt, and/or shit. The show-boating of art doesn’t seem to be operating in this series of collages.

The frames were deliberately picked up secondhand, and as cheaply as possible. This was to stress the feeling of alchemy at work in the unsung value of such damaged and rubbished materials.

J.Hackson
Clod Magazine