Enter the Nineties

Enter the Nineties
MIAMI-DADE PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM
June 16 – September 13, 2011
2nd floor exhibition space, Main Library, 101 W. Flagler Street, Miami
Reception: Thursday, June 16, 7-8:30pm
With special performances and a 14-foot inflatable moon courtesy of
MARILYN GOTTLIEB-ROBERTS and THE END
Read review by Anne Tschida

This summer, as part of its year-long 40th anniversary celebration, the Miami-Dade Public Library System remembers the 1990s. That decade was a memorable time for the Library’s summer art tradition: exhibitions organized around one simple, culturally-loaded object or theme–shoes, boats, the alphabet, food, landscape, sound, dogs—with broad participation from many artists. Enter the Nineties adopts that format by inviting artists, writers, librarians, and cultural producers from Miami and elsewhere to trade zines (independent, do-it-yourself magazines or fanzines) with the Library. The Art Services and Exhibitions Department made a 90s throwback zine called Poetry and Power and will exhibit all the zines received in exchange.
Although zine culture dates back to the 1930s or before, many people made, read, and traded zines as part of the flourishing zine culture of the nineties. Some say a zine renaissance is happening right now. The exhibition title comes from ABC No Rio: Enter the Nineties, a 36-page photocopied zine about the history of the New York art/punk squat ABC No Rio. The show includes permanent art collection work from past summer shows along with an extensive array of zines and a lounge area for reading them.
An ever-metastasizing list of participants includes Kevin Arrow, Bhakti Baxter, Mark Boswell, Domingo Castillo, Rosemarie Chiarlone with Susan Weiner, Adalberto Delgado with Maria Amores, Karl Engle, Cristina Favretto, Abel Folgar, Mickey Garrote, Marilyn Gottlieb-Roberts, Adler Guerrier, Patricia Margarita Hernandez, Jay Hines, Kathleen Hudspeth, Jose Isaza, Matt Keegan/North Drive Press, Sky King, Dina Knapp, Hamlet Lavastida, Jillian Mayer; the Society for the Preservation of Lost Things and Missing Time (Division of Letters & Papers) with Raul Méndez, Anonymous, Frank Wick, René Morales, Liz Rodda, Solomon Graves, Emily Ginsburg, Joe Biel, Trista Dix, Nick Lobo, Tim Curtis, and more; Gean Moreno, Brandon Opalka, Ernesto Oroza, Yaddyra Peralta, Jenni Person, Christina Petterson with Elijah Peck, Proyectos Ultravioleta, Alice Raymond, Brian Reedy with Peter Santa-Maria, Claudia Scalise, Barron Sherer, Marc Snyder, Carol Todaro with J. Tómas Lopez, Liz Tracy/The Heat Lightning with Venessa Monokian, César Trasobares, the TM Sisters + P. Scott Cunningham and Matthew Abess, Odalis Valdivieso, Angela Valella, Marcos Valella, Michelle Weinberg, Agustina Woodgate with Stephanie Sherman, and Barbara N. Young with Robert Huff.
For context, Enter the Nineties will also include artists’ zines and publications recently added to the Library’s permanent art collection such as seminal artists’ periodicals Avalanche, Art-Rite, and New Observations; a 1996 zine guide to the Internet published by Paper Tiger TV West; Amy Sillman’s The O-G and Nicole Bachmann’s Me and My Friends; Latin American zines Carne (Venezuela), Vestite y Andate and Colorin Buc (Argentina); image-based zines by artists Beni Bischof, Özlem Altin, and K8 Hardy; and zine collections belonging to Kevin Arrow (including a complete run of Mike McGonigal’s Chemical Imbalance), WLRN Under the Sun producer Trina Sargalski, and Oly Vargas.
For more information, see www.mdpls.org or contact Art Services and Exhibitions at 305-375-5048 or delgadod@mdpls.org .
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