Upcoming Brooklyn museum exhibit spotlights `Zines’ created by artists

Nowadays, people who have a burning desire to express their opinions or to present their artistic creations but who have no other outlet turn to the internet and social media.

But back in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, anyone who had access to a copy machine could put out “zines,” short for “fanzines.” There were innumerable types of zines — science fiction zines, feminist zines, political zines, rock music zines, zines featuring personal journals, art zines, horror zines, even zines designed for workers at a particular company. Those who put out the zines were usually fairly young and, to one degree or another, anti-establishment.

Most zines had circulations of less than 1,000. With the rise of the internet, many zines were transformed into internet zines, also known as e-zines. Still, some paper zines are still around to this day.

Now, starting on Nov.17, 2023, the Brooklyn Museum is presenting “Copy Machine Manifestos: Artists Who Make Zines,” the first exhibit dedicated to a particular type of zine — zines created by artists. The artists’ zines spotlighted here span five decades.

According to the museum, “Artists have harnessed the medium’s essential role in communication and community building and used it to transform material and conceptual approaches to art making across all media. This canon-expanding exhibition documents zines’ relationship to various subcultures and avant-garde practices, from punk and street culture to conceptual, queer and feminist art.”

The new exhibit also examines zines’ intersections with other mediums, such as collage, craft, film, drawing, painting, performance, photography,…