Two weeks ago we had the pleasure of returning to Mexico City for the fifth iteration of Rrréplica, a non-profit, fiercely independent initiative organized by Gato Negro Ediciones. This was our fourth time participating and it was another opportunity to deepen our ties to the many great artist publishers working in Mexico, as well as participants traveling to the event from abroad. We find lots of common ground with how people work in this country and had many delightful and surprising encounters, including learning that one guest at the event had translated Marc’s essay Against Competition into Spanish in order to teach it to his students, and two more people came forward with the proposal to translate and reprint our booklet What Problems Can Artist Publishers Solve? for Spanish speaking audiences.

We hope to continue visiting Mexico regularly for many years to come, and look forward to finding more ways to collaborate with the great people we meet there. If you missed the fair, we were able to stock the excellent art book store Casa Bosques with a number of Temporary Services and Half Letter Press titles so drop by and see if they have what you need. We also donated more of our publications to the art book library Aeromoto who already have lots of examples of our work from all four presses. Now they have even more!

 

We have a fresh reprint of the very popular and previously mentioned What Problems Can Artist Publishers Solve? This collaboration with PrintRoom in Rotterdam keeps finding new readers that teach the texts to others or write to us to tell us how inspired they were by particular essays from the 17 contributors. It’s a pleasure to have about 500 more copies of this one to share with people. Public Collectors hit the ground running in 2020 with a reprint of Hardcore Architecture and two new booklets. 14 Days of Strike is a collaboration with Chicago high school students detailing what they did (or didn’t do) during the Chicago Teachers Union strike last October when school was canceled. The latest Courtroom Artist Residency Report contains four new discussions of what artists saw when Public Collectors brought them to observe Criminal Court in Chicago. We also have a book from our old friend and collaborator Nance Klehm—Soil Keepers: Interviews with practitioners on the ground beneath our feet—another collection of conversations with people who work with soil. 

 

We will have more news for you soon including announcements of three spring book fairs and ‘zine fests we’ve already placed on the calendar, reading events by Susan Snodgrass for her book Inside the Matrix on Ken Isaacs, a new publication from Brett’s Breakdown Break Down Press, and a Half Letter Press booklet reprint from a publication that sold out much too quickly.

As always, thanks for spending time with our work and words. And remember that if you live in the US, media mail postage is free on orders $15.00 and greater. 

—Marc & Brett