Saul Marcadent, Publishing as Curating

A Magazine, Dutch, joe’s, Purple, Self Service, Six and Visionaire are some of the magazines on which the book focuses in order to investigate the functioning of niche periodicals founded by groups of people who have cultivated a collaborative dimension and chosen to carry out experiments in the two-dimensional space of the page. Magazines seen as places of inquiry, means for presenting the discourse of fashion and nurturing it through the languages of art direction, graphic design, photography and styling. Deeply rooted in the 1990s, they link the culture and system of fashion with artistic practices, shining a spotlight on the work of hitherto unknown authors. The visual essay at the beginning reflects on the performativity of these publications and, like an exhibition on the page, brings together the work of six contemporary photographers: Benoît Béthume, Elizabeth Bick, Alan Chies, Paolo Di Lucente, Estelle Hanania and Dario Salamone.

“The comparison of publishing with curating forms the basis of this research, which has now taken the form of a book. In the past it has taken those of an exhibition, a series of meetings, an essay and a public declaration, always in an attempt to throw light on the convergence between publishing practices and curatorial practices.1 A means of analysis, this book shows its hand right from the start, assigning equal importance to images and words: the visual essay is located at the beginning and brings together unpublished photographs, taken for the purpose, and previously published ones, intended for the printed page.”

Saul Marcadent is a researcher at the IUAV University in Venice and curator. His research activity focuses on the relations between publishing, fashion and visual culture, art direction and graphic design, and on the interaction between the approach to publishing and a theoretical and critical perspective. He curates exhibitions and edits publications that he sees as actions of research in their own right. Recently he has conceived the Libro vivo festival for Biblioteca IUAV in Venice and the series of conversations entitled Publishing Traffic for Gucci Garden in Florence.