When Michael Nevin was 15 years old, he used money made from dishwashing to open his first business, a skateboard company called Smooth. Three years later, Nevin started The Journal as a photocopied zine. The Journal was envisioned as a community space, synthesized with a gallery, which opened in the East Village in 2004 before moving to Williamsburg when they got kicked out in favor of condo construction. The publication grew out of skateboard and snowboarding culture, and the emphasis on youth, experimentation and immediacy has remained part of the organization's mission. We asked Michael Nevin to discuss the popularity of drawing in contemporary art because of The Journal's role in its support—a show for Eddie Martinez in August, an exhibition of Jonathan Meese's drawings in September -- and because of the publication's interest in immediacy and craft.
"Ilike artists that work fast, which is probably why there are so many drawings in the journal. I like gesture. The journal works in a really diaristic way. The name "the journal" refers to the book with all the notes in it and your appointments, and maybe things aren't perfect. It's just a record of what you were doing and who you were at a certain date. That's why I don't want to control the content too much; I'm more interested in selecting people to work with. The Salon sections in the journal are places where I say, 'Here, do what you like with these pages.' It's much like one would do with a zine, which is the foundation of the journal. Besides, we don't want to re-show the same paintings that just showed in a gallery somewhere.
I started the journal when I was 18. I grew up in Vermont and was part of the snowboard community there, which at the time was the center of the snowboard world. We started the journal as a photocopied zine during our first year at Montserrat College of Art, in Beverly, Massachusetts. At the time we were interested in the creativity that came out of the snowboard-skateboard community. None of the magazines were showing this aspect of the culture, so we put together a rough zine, which was comprised largely of our own pictures and words, and gave it out to friends. Drawings, even though they have become more finished (as has independent publishing), still have that unfinished, immediate and very manageable quality to them.
Skateboarding doesn't really inform the journal anymore. The skateboard-snowboard community became mainstream and culturally pretty dull. However, both skateboarding and drawing are cheap means of expression. Skateboarding is a poor kid's sport. You've got $100 and you're good to go. With drawing you need a pen and paper. If you want to paint you might need some money and extra space. Drawing is portable, which is especially important in a city like this where space is so limited."
NEVIN'S RAD ARTIST PICKS
JACK
PIERSON:Ilove this project that Jack Pierson did as a supplement a
few issues back. Basically, they were these compulsive drawings. He was
quitting smoking and every time he needed a cigarette, he drew a picture
of Jackie Onassis.
EDDIE MARTINEZ: He photocopied elements
onto letterhead and made a zine out of the result. Thus he made drawings
out of letterhead that didn't exist as originals. It's interesting also
as a comparison to self-publishing.
RITA ACKERMANN: She did
this series of drawings over posters by Ari Marcopoulos. I like the
sense of repetition that you get from the photographs, with the drawings
layered over them.
DAN MCCARTHY:He's got an interesting
process. He uses this really glossy paper, almost like photo paper, and
scratches into it. Then he uses a water-based paint so that the
uncovered regions of the paper expand.
[From top to bottom] Jack Pierson: "Melancholia Passing Into Madness, 5 and 6," 2005, Courtesy of Cheim & Read, New York. Eddie Martinez: "Untitled," 2008, Courtesy of the artist and Zieher Smith, New York. Rita Ackermann: detail of "Black Out," 2007, copyright by the artist. All photos by Jason Mandella, Images courtesy of Andrea Rosen. Dan McCarthy: "Untitled" 2003-2004, courtesy of Anton Kern Gallery.
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