Saul Marcadent | IUAV University Venice (original) (raw)

Books by Saul Marcadent

"A Magazine", "Dutch", "joe’s", "Purple", "Self Service", "Six" and "Visionaire" are some of the ... more "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.

Book details: https://www.marsilioeditori.it/lista-autori/scheda-libro/2970874/publishing-as-curating

"A Magazine", "Dutch", "joe’s", "Purple", "Self Service", "Six" e "Visionaire" sono alcune delle ... more "A Magazine", "Dutch", "joe’s", "Purple", "Self Service", "Six" e "Visionaire" sono alcune delle riviste privilegiate per investigare il funzionamento di periodici di nicchia fondati da gruppi di persone che coltivano la dimensione collaborativa e sperimentano nello spazio bidimensionale della pagina. Riviste intese come luoghi d’indagine, dispositivi che mettono in scena il discorso della moda e lo alimentano attraverso i linguaggi dell’art direction, del graphic design, della fotografia e dello styling. Connesse in profondità agli anni novanta, allacciano la cultura e il sistema della moda con le pratiche artistiche manifestando il lavoro di autori prima sconosciuti. Il saggio visivo in apertura riflette sulla performatività degli oggetti editoriali e, come una mostra in pagina, tiene insieme il lavoro di sei fotografi contemporanei: Benoît Béthume, Elizabeth Bick, Alan Chies, Paolo Di Lucente, Estelle Hanania e Dario Salamone.

Scheda: www.marsilioeditori.it/component/marsilio/scheda-libro/2970873/editoria-come-curatela

Desire and Discipline is a book that sets out to describe a unique approach to work. Ten years of... more Desire and Discipline is a book that sets out to describe a unique approach to work. Ten years of Designing Fashion at Iuav are covered in ten passages divided up into conceptual maps and visual essays that utilize images, ideas, projects and much more of what we have produced during these extraordinary years to recount a way of working, and a way of interpreting and teaching fashion. Each theme is associated with an essay, and each essay tackles one piece of a multifaceted whole made up of research and teaching linked to the design and culture of fashion - http://www.marsilioeditori.it/libri/scheda-libro/3172583/desire-and-discipline - edited by Maria Luisa Frisa, Saul Marcadent, Gabriele Monti - published by Marsilio Editori

Essays and articles by Saul Marcadent

Graphicus, 2023

L’osservazione di una serie di riviste su carta contemporanee, perlopiù europee e fondate nell’ul... more L’osservazione di una serie di riviste su carta contemporanee, perlopiù europee e fondate nell’ultimo decennio, conduce a una riflessione sulla centralità del tema del viaggio nell’orizzonte editoriale di nicchia contemporaneo. Pubblicazioni come Cartography (Milano, 2016), Flaneur (Berlino, 2013) e Migrant (Londra, 2016) prestano attenzione a narrazioni ed esperienze di viaggio, al tema del confine e della migrazione, e si caratterizzano per un alto grado di sperimentazione nella progettazione editoriale. La periodicità più frequente è semestrale o annuale, e in alcuni casi privilegiano la discontinuità, ovvero non seguono un andamento regolare ma sono pubblicate nel momento in cui la qualità dei contenuti ha raggiunto un livello soddisfacente e i mezzi economici a disposizione permettono la stampa e la distribuzione. Nate nell’era digitale, sono integrate a piattaforme con contenuti alternativi al formato cartaceo: i rapporti con il parallelo mondo digitale sono proficui, in armonia con la complessità mediale del presente che richiede un’interazione serena e duttile tra media e tecnologie differenti. Il testo, pur focalizzandosi su un numero ristretto di casi studio, restituisce la complessità del fenomeno che tiene insieme esperienze editoriali interne alla cultura visuale come Genda (Milano, 2015), South as a State of Mind (Atene, 2012), The Travel Almanac (Berlino, 2010) e Too Much (Tokyo, 2011).

Design esposto: mostrare la storia, la storia delle mostre, 2022

Nel 2010 Sophie von Olfers cura la mostra "Not in fashion: Fashion photography in the 90s" al Mus... more Nel 2010 Sophie von Olfers cura la mostra "Not in fashion: Fashion photography in the 90s" al Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK) di Francoforte e invita M/M (Paris) a mettere in scena il proprio archivio di ephemera della moda. Il duo creativo formato dai graphic designer Michael Amzalag e Mathias Augustyniak, impegnati spesso in una riflessione sul rapporto tra la bidimensionalità della pagina stampata e la tridimensionalità dello spazio espositivo, concepisce "Fashion archives 1995-2009", un’installazione che tiene insieme una molteplicità di materiali – poster originali, riproduzioni, leaflet, inviti, mockup in miniatura, booklet di CD, cartoline – realizzati per i marchi di moda nel corso di quindici anni di attività. Questo universo di materiali, in larga misura stampati, restituisce l’attenzione peculiare di M/M (Paris) verso la progettazione editoriale. L’installazione è uno dei dispositivi in mostra che più contribuisce a manifestare le intenzioni della curatrice, interessata non tanto a documentare gli anni novanta e il passaggio al nuovo millennio quanto piuttosto a restituirne l’atmosfera e la relazione tra gli aspetti tangibili e intangibili. Attraverso la creazione di specifici supporti, denominati Portants e Cadres, Amzalag e Augustyniak mostrano questo inventario di oggetti, sottolineandone la performatività e inseguendo un’idea di editoria espansa. Se solitamente una pubblicazione costituisce il momento finale di un progetto espositivo, qui il materiale stampato è il punto di partenza: la mostra si configura, così, come il luogo nel quale riflettere sulla fotografia di moda in quanto linguaggio che trova piena espressione nella messa in pagina, nell’intertestualità, nel processo che conduce alla realizzazione di un oggetto editoriale e nella sua esposizione. Nel contributo, il lavoro di M/M (Paris) è letto attraverso la definizione di estetica relazionale elaborata dal critico e curatore Nicolas Bourriaud, sia a partire da aspetti espositivi che speculativi. La vicinanza tra questo concetto e l’approccio alla progettazione di Amzalag e Augustyniak trova piena espressione nell’installazione "Fashion archives 1995-2009", in cui la coppia creativa tenta di restituire la complessità che sta dietro la costruzione dell’immagine di moda, oltre alla polifonia di voci e alla molteplicità di autorialità e professionalità che concorrono alla sua realizzazione.

Transforming Magazines: Rethinking the Medium in the Digital Age, 2022

The article aims to discuss the functioning of niche fashion magazines, those positioned outside ... more The article aims to discuss the functioning of niche fashion magazines, those positioned outside the commercia! circuit and widely distributed. In doing so, it focuses on two French case studies, Purple and Self Service, founded in the first half of the nineties and stili active today. These magazines are models of the responses and impulses provided to the editoria! panorama through the questioning of established practices of production, distribution and fruition as well as the construction of an alternative to the officia! circuit. They are different from popular periodicals as they were self-initiated, i.e. not supported by a publisher, and are characterized by a high leve! of experimentation and research, a slow periodicity, the attention to hidden worlds, a horizontal business vision.
The article dwells on the importance of niche fashion magazines not as means of mediati on or communication but as "places" in which people can act, recognize and establish relations with one another. These publications may be understood as "micro societies" and they construct communities that are shaped by their founders, their readers and all those who in one way or another contribute to their evolution. The longevity of Purple and Self Service seems to support this position, since in spite of having changed over time, often putting themselves on a sounder footing and establishing a dialogue with the fashion system, they stil! cultivate the collaborative dimension today, handling relations and the publishing project in the independent manner oftheir origins.

Parse Journal, 2021

In April 2019, on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the six-monthly fashion magazin... more In April 2019, on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the six-monthly fashion magazine Self Service, Ezra Petronio, its co-founder and current editor-in-chief and creative director, designed and curated an exhibition in Dallas’s Design District, staged in the spaces of the Dallas Contemporary art museum. The title, “Self Service: Twenty-Five Years of Fashion, People and Ideas Reconsidered”, makes Petronio’s intentions clear from the start: re-examining the history of Self Service through an exhibition, bringing back into circulation the contents and authors—photographers, stylists and fashion designers like Mark Borthwick, Jane How and Helmut Lang—that have contributed to the definition and consolidation of the magazine from the second half of the 1990s to the present day. Here the printed material, which often constitutes the endpoint of an exhibition project, was the starting point and the exhibition was seen as a place in which to think in three dimensions about the making of the magazine and about the editorial process conducted up until that moment. The curator formulated a multi-voiced discourse, one that brought many perspectives and languages together and played on a sensibility developed in the field of publishing, deploying means and modalities typical of the production of a magazine.Starting out from this experience, and introducing other examples, the essay investigates the slippages between the two-dimensional space of the page and the three-dimensional space of the museum, and the ways in which editorial practices and propensities can help mould practices and propensities in exhibition-making.

Fare mostre. Italia, 1920-2020: colpi di scena e messinscena, 2020

La progettazione e la curatela di una mostra integrano e sostanziano la strumentazione metodologi... more La progettazione e la curatela di una mostra integrano e sostanziano la strumentazione metodologica di una tesi di dottorato sull’orizzonte editoriale contemporaneo. Più precisamente, la tesi si focalizza su riviste , non sostenute da un editore o da un gruppo editoriale, caratterizzate da una periodicità lenta – due numeri all’anno – e posizionate, soprattutto in una fase iniziale, all’esterno del circuito di larga diffusione.
Nel corso del triennio di dottorato l’osservazione delle peculiarità di riviste self-initiated, oggetto di studio della tesi, suggerisce la necessità di riflettere sia sulle loro potenzialità materiali che immateriali. La mostra, allestita da maggio a giugno 2017 negli ambienti della biblioteca dell’Università Iuav di Venezia e promossa dal Sistema bibliotecario e documentale di ateneo, è intitolata “Fiamme: cinquanta riviste contemporanee d’arte, moda, design e architettura” e si configura come un dispositivo per costruire dei ragionamenti tridimensionali.

Progetto grafico, 2019

The focus on the language of photography, materiality and graphics architecture led Rei Kawakubo,... more The focus on the language of photography, materiality and graphics architecture led Rei Kawakubo, founder and designer of the Comme des Garçons label, to design the magazine "Six" in the second half of the 1980s. A real cult object today, it is as hard to find in the book world as in public and private collections. Impossible to pigeonhole, conceived as an editorial experience midway between a concept magazine and a company catalog, "Six" was intended for a targeted audience – the trade press and customers. Eight issues were published over the course of four years, from 1988 to 1991, at a time when fashion brands were increasing their experimentation in catalog, lookbook and invitation design.

Carnets: Architecture is Just a Pretext, 2019

As timid powers, the magazines are responses to the wish for independence, they can end up in any... more As timid powers, the magazines are responses to the wish for independence, they can end up in anyone’s hands and be actual tools for awareness and change.

La ricerca che cambia, 2017

La rivista Visionaire, fondata nel 1991 da Stephen Gan, Cecilia Dean e James Kaliardos e tutt’ogg... more La rivista Visionaire, fondata nel 1991 da Stephen Gan, Cecilia Dean e James Kaliardos e tutt’oggi attiva, è osservata attraverso le relazioni tessute con la propria città, New York. L’osservazione tenta di restituire una sinergia tra le due parti, che ricoprono un ruolo dinamico e si alimentano vicendevolmente.

Italiana. Italy Through the Lens of Fashion 1971-2001, 2018

The independent press is an agitated and seductive field which gives rise to a number of cultural... more The independent press is an agitated and seductive field which gives rise to a number of cultural attitudes and aesthetic features. Magazines are often collective objects and projects, but personal and intimate in the reading experience. This essay reviews some of the publishing stories that drove the cultural and artistic scene in Italy from the 1960s until the threshold of the new millennium. These were more or less ephemeral, more or less wacky adventures. Some, which seemed to have no future and were produced in domestic or unofficial spaces, lasted for a decade; others flared up, kindling the souls and the scene only briefly, but endure in the collective imagination. This essay outlines a rich yet discontinuous scene and offers a rendering of it by fragments, each of which, in chronological order, illuminates one or more exemplary magazines in terms of the responses and impulses given to the cultural conditions of their very existence. The common thread running through all of the publications observed here is the questioning of the institutionalized practices of production, distribution and consumption and the urgency of creating an alternative to the official circuit.

Fare ricerca in design, 2016

Il testo è articolato in due parti, tenute distinte. La prima è un’introduzione alla ricerca, ad ... more Il testo è articolato in due parti, tenute distinte. La prima è un’introduzione alla ricerca, ad alcuni temi e qualità che caratterizzano l'editoria di nicchia. La seconda, attraverso il caso studio A Magazine Curated By, chiarisce l’approccio e la direzione privilegiata.

Moda, città e immaginari, 2016

The essay explores the editorial experience of Visionaire focusing on the relation with its city,... more The essay explores the editorial experience of Visionaire focusing on the relation with its city, New York, a place permeated by fashion imageries – through advertising, newspapers, the presence of image-makers – where cultural and commercial dimensions are deeply intertwined. A city that, since the beginning of the twentieth century, has put side by side its industrial cultural identity.
Visionaire is a shimmering publication – each issue is characterized by a different format and packaging – and its sponsorship comes from relevant fashion firms. As many others niche magazines, the situation of economic balance of Visionaire is due to the advertising support of only a few brands linked to the luxury sector. While rejecting traditional advertising and positioning itself outside of the mainstream publishing, the fashion magazine is not isolated but closely tied up with fashion industry. Since 1996, year in which Louis Vuitton created a special packaging for issue n. 18, the magazine has established virtuous agreements with the main actors of the system.

Design e immaginario. Oggetti, immagini e visioni fra rappresentazione e progetto, 2016

The essay points out ways and strategies that lead Antwerp to established itself, internationally... more The essay points out ways and strategies that lead Antwerp to established itself, internationally as one of the most important fashion capital.
The first part is dedicated to Mode 2001 Landed-Geland, a festival and a cultural and strategic operation organised in a number of formats and exhibitions that anticipates the establishment of ModeNatie and the birth of the MoMu.
The second part is focused on A Magazine Curated By, a fashion publication developed as part of the initiative and conceived as a continuous communication tool. In particular, the focus is on the first five issues, each curated by a different fashion designer. These first five issues remain a delimited experience that strengthens Flemish fashion’s voice internationally thanks to the complexity of the festival Mode 2001 Landed-Geland and later it emphasises the editorial experience of A Magazine Curated By, still active and well-established in a commercial perspective as well.

I Castelli di Yale, 2016

The article examines and explores how a magazine can be a device of the imagery in the practice a... more The article examines and explores how a magazine can be a device of the imagery in the practice and production of a visual artist. In order to do so, it looks at the relationship between two magazines – «Permanent Food» and «Toilet Paper» – run by Maurizio Cattelan since the mid-90s by dedicating special attention to the elements of continuity and discontinuity between them as well as their relationship with the contemporary publishing scene.

Desire and Discipline. Designing Fashion at Iuav, 2016

Going through the archive with a special lens permits a reexamination of things and of history th... more Going through the archive with a special lens permits a reexamination of things and of history that is incomplete but more concentrated and profound. Here the archive contains ten years of the activity and projects of the BA and MA degree courses in Fashion Design at Iuav University of Venice and the lens is a key word: “body”. If “designing and making clothing amounts to tack-ling the architectural theme closest to the body” (Lupano 2014, 13), the archive of a fashion school, it goes without saying, is crammed with pertinent materials. So the choice is to accompany the key word by an adjective that can restrict its scope and illuminate certain salient passages and actions.