(Re)Presenting 2022 | AXIS FILE | ART ZINES AS NETWORKING TOOL & COMMUNITY ARCHIVE | AXIS*ART*PROJECTS* | Art eXtremists International Syndicate (AXIS) | Does New York Exist? + AXIS-FILE Sites of Dis-Closure 1987-1989 [Art Zine]
DOES NEW YORK EXIST?
“ Our approach will be a critical one; of asking questions…of what it is that constitutes ‘centres’, ‘margins’, and ‘regions’…”
AXIS Art Projects, 1987
AXIS*ART*PROJECTS* – Art eXtremists International Syndicate (AXIS)
Does New York Exist? + AXIS Art Projects – AXIS-FILE Sites of Dis-Closure exhibition 1987-1989 [Brisbane, Los Angeles, New York City, London, Tokyo]
AXIS*ART*PROJECTS* – Art Xtremists International Syndicate (AXIS) Does New York Exist? + AXIS Art Projects – AXIS-FILE Sites of Dis-Closure exhibition 1987-1989 [Brisbane, Los Angeles, New York City, London, Tokyo]
AXIS*ART*PROJECTS* – Art eXtremists International Syndicate (AXIS)
Does New York Exist? + AXIS Art Projects – AXIS-FILE Sites of Dis-Closure exhibition 1987-1989 [Brisbane, Los Angeles, New York City, London, Tokyo]
Q. What does AXIS mean?
AXIS is an acronym: Art eXtremists International Syndicate (AXIS). The group AXIS Art Projects was a media art collective formed in Brisbane in April 1987 by artists Jay Younger, Lehan Ramsay and myself. We intended to produce a series of collaborative art documentary projects motivated by arts based guerrilla artist-tactics at the time, tactics that were collectivist and critical of the ‘mainstream’ artworld of the time.
After much brainstorming in early 1987 about what moniker to actually use for the project in Los Angeles, New York, London and Tokyo we decided on the word AXIS because of its variable meanings: an imaginary line around which a body rotates, and given our shared interest in inclusive terms like multiplicities and pluralism popular at the time, we imagined our iteration of axis as an imaginary line or lines around which many bodies rotate, walk, dance, make art, shoot super 8, contest and play. We also liked that AXIS was a play on the word access.
Paul Andrew
Here are two zines made by AXIS Art Projects in 1987-1989. Many fan zines, art zines and DIY zines were being made throughout the 1970s and 1980s in Brisbane. They were an essential means for transmitting diverse counter narratives to communities and audiences through zine making and then emergent desk top publishing platforms.
Here is a selection of examples of ‘at risk’ AXIS art ephemera and photomedia art works produced in 1988 while living in Clinton Street in the Lower East Side with Jay Younger and Lehan Ramsay, AXIS….2B The Garage, Soho, East Village captured and collected while queer walking through NYC…
