About \ News \ Paper \ Artists
The Newpaper is a newspaper about the work of artists and writers who use the language, visuals or structure of newspapers in their practice.
Print Spec
Issue 1
Printed by Newsfax International Limited, London
36 pp broadsheet newspaper 419 x 578mm
Printed on 52gsm improved newsprint
Print run: 1000
Cover: Eva Weinmayr
Published by Art after Parties
Cover price 50p
Issue 2
Printed by Newsfax International Limited, London
40 pp tabloid newspaper 287 x 380mm
Printed on 52gsm improved newsprint
Print run: 1500
Cover: Michalis Pichler
Published by T\EXT\ART\, London and
'greatest hits', Berlin, ISBN 978-3-86874-103-2
Cover price £1
More information;
3AM magazine
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/children-of-fleet-street/
Now that all the broadsheets are available in tabloid form and I am a little out of practice with the process of sharply opening the first page, folding it back on its central crease, then depending on the placing of the article I am reading, folding in half and then folding in half again, to render the paper behemoth into a more manageable size, it took me a few minutes grappling with The Newpaper before I could start reading.
A parodic critique of a beloved and now, in our electronic age, somewhat beleaguered media form, The Newpaper is strikingly simple, some of the pages are almost entirely bare, whilst others have a more traditional (though still not conventional) set up. Immediately apparent are the missing adverts, replaced with nothing, so one is confronted by the melancholia of the empty page, (or is that no news is good news?) and the crammed efficiency of the more usual broadsheet space with its advertising, life style articles etc is revealed in its sinister complexity.
It contains exactly what you would expect – articles, essays, interviews, share prices, international news and of course, a crossword puzzle – though this being a subversion of the form and function of the paper, the crossword is half done already and is actually a clipping from an older paper so really, its inherent obsolescence is explicit, and stands as a fitting metaphor for the newspaper format and indeed the ‘news’ itself.
This is the broadsheet that Brion Gysin would have produced, given half a chance, a thoughtful and intelligent prod at our media-saturated and largely credulous society, constructed with cut-up snippets and taglines.
After all that folding and refolding I realise I rather miss the process and ritual of reading the broadsheets, even if I take half the contents with a pinch of salt, and I don’t really believe that internet news delivery will ever really extinguish our fondness for newsprint. Get a subscription to The Newpaper, it’ll restore your faith in faithlessness and of course, once you’ve finished reading it, it would make a marvellous Millwall Brick, and you can’t do that with a web page.
Art Vehicle
http://www.artvehicle.com/ArtvehicleMailer/issue12/index.html
Struggling against the tide Eleanor Brown has produced The Newpaper.
AL: What is The Newpaper?
EB: It's a newspaper about newspapers. The content reveals an artist's eye view of newspapers alongside articles about their artwork. I wanted to make a paper that mirrored a newspaper in style and in content but also dissected what a newspaper is.
Eva Weinmayr has designed the cover, a list of words taken from newsstand headlines and reordered to create new headlines. There is a section for news and world news, a comments page written by Khuram Aziz about the death of the printed paper, an arts section featuring art, films and books and there are business and advertising pages at the back. Newspapers are funny things, they try to cram in a little bit of everything for everyone, it makes sense to have a unifier, like finance, business or art to pull it all together.
It includes artwork by: Fiona Banner, Gordon Cheung, Mirtha Dermisache, Graham Dolphin, Jacob, Fabricius, Angus Fairhurst, Nooshin Farhid, Rainer Ganahl, Alex Hamilton, Louise Hopkins, Melanie Jackson, Adrian Lee, Jan Mancuska, Mark McGowan, Hugh Mendes, Carol Morley, Serkan Özkaya, Michalis Pichler, Elizabeth Price, Kim Rugg, David Shrigley, Vibeke Tandberg, Kat Topaz, Gillian Wearing and Eva Weinmayr. There are articles by Khuram Aziz, Eleanor Brown, Jo Brinton, Craig Burnett, Brian Butler, Paul Eachus, Rainer Ganahl, Althea Green, Ali MacGilp, Rebecca Page, Michele Robecchi, Andrew Stevens and Miria Swain.
AL: Why is it so big?
EB: The Newpaper is a broadsheet newspaper, possibly the largest in London if not the world. The broadsheet size enabled me to reproduce some of the art works in actual size. I have reproduced an excerpt from Michalis Pichler's War Diary, created from the New York Times, and broadsheet pieces from Kim Rugg and Alex Hamilton. It ended up being even bigger than the regular broadsheet because of a late night miscommunication with the printer, but I think that is a good thing, it is 'old school' size.
AL: How is it being distributed?
EB: I launched the paper from a newsstand outside a bar on Whitechapel Road in East London. That newsstand is now going to go on tour of bookshops, galleries and art events. It starts at Nog Gallery (www.noggallery.com) in Brick lane on Saturday 24 March for one month. You will also be able to get a copy from art bookshops or from The Newpaper website (www.thenewpaper.co.uk).
AL: How much does it cost?
EB: It costs 50p - it's a bargain, it's not going to break the bank. Buy it, look after, one day it might be worth a pound.