Many artists, writers and musicians have inspired me in my research. I would like to mention Sylvan Hoffman and C. Hartley Grattan’s book News of the World, a History of the World in Newspaper-style (1953), On Kawaras I read (1966 to the present), the news paper insert in Dead Kennedy’s album Bedtime for Democracy (1986), Tom Lehrer’s That Was The Year That Was (1965), Ken Loach’s segment from the film September 11 and Guy Schraenen’s exhibition Kunstzeitung/Zeitungskunst about the history of artworks in and around newspapers. I looked for, but regrettably never found, Aleksandr Mosolov’s Four Newspaper Advertisements (Chetyre gazetnyh obyavlenya) a 1926 composition inspired by real advertisements in the Russian newspaper Izvestija.’

Jo Brinton: Which was the starting point for the project, the exhibition or the publication?

JF: The starting point was the Old News newspaper, the printed matter, which can easily exist (and is meant to exist) outside the exhibition space. The Old News newspaper is part of the exhibition and the exhibition is not meant to be without the stacks of newspapers.

JB: How does the production process differ between the exhibition and publication, in terms of location, financing, timescale and people involved?

JF: Putting together the Old News newspaper seems to be more like doing an exhibition than an actual publication. Time wise it is very consuming, especially the first one.
The newspaper has to be financed before it can be printed, so there is a lot of work before anything is actually in print. The distribution of the first issue of Old News was done with the help of the Danish daily paper Politiken who sent it out to Danish schools for free. Some 400 schools have received information about the project and the teachers have the possibility of ordering as many as s/he wants to use in their teaching. It is interesting that the artist’s selection of cuttings, and their thoughts and comments are discussed outside the regular exhibition space by teenagers in schools.

JB: You exhibited other newspaper related material alongside the cuttings at LACE. What were your particular favorites and their origins?

JF: There are so many great artist projects that use newspapers, and so many that I didn’t present at LACE, so I can’t give you a favourite from the exhibition. I find it really interesting that Tom Lehrer’s That Was The Year That Was (1965) record still is so relevant as a comment on American foreign policy today. The song Send the Marines (1:46) is fantastic, but there are 13 other tracks for your entertainment.

JB: The redesign of Old News No.2 included a format change from tabloid to broadsheet, was this adjustment related to content, finance or just for an update?

JF: Going broadsheet seems passe these days, since many papers go from broadsheet to tabloid. The reason why No.2 is B/W and broadsheet is to get a better reading quality. B/W makes it easier to read and cheaper. It is not as handy, but I think it reads better. The idea is that the design changes every year.

Jo Brinton

Old News issue 2 includes clips by: Adam Broomberg/Oliver Chanarin (South Africa, Gerard Byrne (Ireland), Tacita Dean/Mathew Hale (England), Celine Duval (France), David Shrigley (England), Kawasaki/Sound Bum (Japan), Cecilia Wendt/Annelie Nilsson  (Sweden), Jan Mancuska (Czech R).Insert by Thomas Hirshhorn.

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