Marc Fischer
Interview realised in autumn 2021
Marc, since 1998, you’ve been involved in a group called Temporary Services (a group you created with Brett Bloom and others that have since left the group, based at the time, in Chicago). Ten years after, in 2008, both of you created Half Letter Press, an online library and publishing house. In 2007, you started Public Collectors, your own publishing house and project. Can you please tell us more about the beginnings of this project of yours?
For all of my adult life I’ve been involved in creative work that produces publications and other printed things. When I was a teenager I published seven issues of a ‘zine called Primary Concern that was mostly focused on underground hardcore and metal, with some political writing. During that time (about 1988-1991) I was networked with similar publishers all over the world and constantly trading my ‘zines with others and collaborating with other publishers. I primarily made paintings and drawings in college and grad school but abandoned that kind of art practice by around 1996 and started becoming more interested in publishing and projects that had a strong social dimension and could live outside of the gallery world.
Temporary Services began publishing right from the beginning of our work in 1998 and we quickly networked with other artist groups who were often also publishing. Museums and galleries are largely disinterested in the work of artist groups (and the feeling is often mutual) so the best way to learn about a lot of this kind of work was to reach out to the people who were making it. As in my youth, exchanging publications became a way of life and we quickly became repositories of each other’s printed matter. As my personal archives and collections grew, it began to weigh on me that the only person looking at this stuff was usually myself. When I teach, a lot of my students don’t make art that is anything like my own so they aren’t necessarily an ideal audience for many of these things either.
Around the time that I started Public Collectors, I was having extremely positive interactions with people like Stephen Perkins and the late collector, dealer, and scholar Steven Leiber, who would always generously share their primary docu-
ments and knowledge any time I had the pleasure of visiting them. I was also seeing a lot of expertise happening on discussion forums—like forums for record collecting, where people would help each other understand things more deeply, constantly, as a way of life. Those experiences were influential and made me want to formalize a project that encouraged people to share their personal knowledge and resources outside of an institutional framework, where there could be less gatekeeping, and more basic generosity with no expectation of financial reward.
Convincing people to inventory their collections and open their homes to strangers proved difficult and when people were willing to do this, not many people took advantage of what was offered. Gradually Public Collectors shifted toward other kinds of creative projects and collaborations and the publishing activity increased as well.
Even though we already could feel that spirit in the first projects, Do It Yourself (DIY) is part of how you work, it almost defines your work. From the form (mainly pamphlets and booklets) to the way you produce them, you are involved in every step, from the conception to the realization, to the distribution. Is it important to you? What does it represent?
For some projects a DIY approach is just the most efficient way and it’s unnecessary to do things in a manner that is less direct. DIY for me often means working within your own means. It’s nice to dream big but I love being able to afford to make and do things when inspiration strikes without having to wait for funding and outside support, even if it means a smaller project. When possible, I love printing at home on a Risograph or even a desktop black and white laser copier and it can be a great way to bang out a hundred copies of something very quickly without ever leaving the house. Other projects are larger and demand different forms of printing and paying for other kinds of production and assembly. Through working with other kinds of printers, I learn more about their processes, papers, inks, and machines that are otherwise foreign to me. I don’t have to do all of the labor, but I like to be part of the process and have the experiences that come with that.
I like sending out mail orders and seeing the people at the post office. I like working with the stores that sell my publications. I like standing at a table at book fairs and talking to people who are interested in this work. That direct connection matters to me and becomes interactions with many thousands of people over decades. Being directly available and accountable to the people that care about what I do feels no different than when I was 17 years old, mailing people copies of my ‘zine to readers or selling copies out of a backpack at hardcore shows. Using distributors is helpful but generally I would rather do less and be directly involved, than do much more but in an impersonal way where someone else always does all of the labor. In my experience, staying directly involved with how my art goes out into the world creates more opportunities for collaboration, as well as life-sustaining friendships that evolve alongside the creative work.
What role does archive play in your process?
Much of what I do does not feel formalized or collective enough to be fairly called an archive. My collections are more like labeled files devoted to individual artists and groups and publishers, or boxes labeled with the kind of things they contain (like music-related ‘zines, flyers, booklet-format publications created for all kinds of subjects, religious or politicalparaphernalia, found writings and photos, etc.). I dip into these collections for inspiration, to share with others who visit, sometimes to share with my students, or to simply revisit the printed or recorded work of my peers and add new things as they give them to me. There are collections and files that are the result of friendships, and then I also buy or find other things I’m interested in through the usual secondary channels. Some of my interests and collections get turned into publications. Other things just sit around because I like returning to them and may one day find a way to share them in a project like an exhibit or book. I might also return to them when I’m inspired to do more scholarship and share the collections in a more thoughtful way.
Since the beginning of your activity (and I’m not only referring to Public Collectors, but also to Temporary Services, but also Half Letter Press), collaboration has been an important part of your work. Public Collectors is even built on this idea of collaboration. I’m thinking about the Joong Boo Residency for which you shared a meal and a conversation with your guest, or more recently your Quaranzine project, a daily one page publication that ran for 100 issues for which you collaborated with almost 90 different persons. Could you please tell us more about the importance of collaboration in your process and what does that mean to you?
For me, an important part of collaboration is spending time with another person and their ideas and thinking. If I value what someone does, I want to work with them in some way, and do something that advances their work. Making a publication with someone is committing to spend time with each other, listen to each other, try different things, and then celebrate when you complete something. That’s such a great pleasure—even when it’s challenging and there are disagreements. The Quaranzine project—where I made a publication that consisted of a single sheet of paper printed on both sides, every day, for 100 days straight—was an incredible immersion in that process. Some people gave me work that hardly needed any editing or designing. Other collaborations required many emails back and forth until we both felt satisfied with the publication. The project deepened my relationships with so many contributors, introduced me to new people who submitted work—people I’ve never met in person and may never meet—and it opened the doors for lots of future collaborations.
The Joong Boo Residency was a project where artists living outside of Chicago could apply simply by contacting me, and I would buy them lunch at a Korean market (named Joong Boo) in my neighborhood and we would have a conversation. That was the residency! After our meal I’d post a little report on social media and write a little about each person’s work. Usually the residency lasted only about a hour or so, but it was a shared commitment to make focused time with each other to have an exchange. Sometimes this included book exchanges when the resident was also an artist publisher. Other times it was just a great conversation and a delicious meal.
I realized in this project how infrequently I sit with just one other artist and have a real conversation. Some residents were people I have known for ten years who have moved away, but that hour-long conversation was the longest we’d ever spoken to one another. In the past we might have mainly seen each other at events or art openings or parties where there are lots of other people and distractions. While it seems strange to have to schedule time with another person in this formal way, I think it’s a reality of adult life that sometimes this might be what it takes to actually commit to a conversation. It was fun to turn that into a project and the whole thing was a fantastic experience.
When I got tired of the Joong Boo Residency, I turned it into with me observing criminal court in Chicago, followed by a meal at a nearby taqueria. Usually the day lasted at least five or six hours. In one case the day lasted over nine hours, as the artist and I spent all day in court observing a historic sentencing hearing for a Chicago police officer that was convicted of second-degree murder. For these residencies I would record the conversation during the meal, we would edit it together, sometimes the artist would write something additional, and then I’d publish the results as a series of booklets titled The Courtroom Artist Residency Report. There were 16 of those residencies and four booklets. The project was ended by the Covid-19 epidemic when it became impossible to observe court directly and I stopped dining indoors. I would like to start another meal-based artist residency but with Covid and the Delta variant still a great threat, now is not the time.