Jackson Mac Low

Jackson Mac Low died on this day, 21 years ago. 

Aspen Magazine – Art/Information/Science (#8)

Dan Graham (editor)

Aspen Magazine – Art/Information/Science (#8)

New York City, USA: Aspen Communications Inc., 1970

28.5 x 28.5 cm

Edition size unknown

Aspen magazine was a multimedia periodical published by Phyllis Johnson, who described it as "the first three-dimensional magazine.” 

Contained in a customized cardboard box or folder, an issue of Aspen may have included booklets, posters, postcards, flexidisc records or films on Super8 reels. 

Aspen #8 is often referred to as “The Fluxus Issue”, presumably because George Maciunas was responsible for the design. However, other than Maciunas, the only artists involved with the publication who were active in Fluxus were Jackson MacLow and La Monte Young, who contributed the recordings on the flexi-disc. MacLow’s Young Turtle Assymetries, chance-generated poems for five simultaneous readers, was the A-side, backed with Young’s Drift Study 31 1 69.

The folder also included a poster version of Ed Ruscha’s Thirty-four Parking Lots, a text by Robert Smithson, and scores by Eleanor & David Antin, Philip Glass and Steve Reich. Other featured artists included Dennis Oppenheim, Richard Serra, Robert Morris, and Yvonne Rainer.

"This issue where artists have conceived and (in part) designed their contributions as pieces and part of a larger schema may aid in redefining the magazine's place in (and as) art in (and as participant in), the larger world. It suggests further scope and proposals.”

- Aspen #8 Editorial Note

Jackson Mac Low

Jackson Mac Low was born on this day in 1922. 

Jackson Mac Low | 22 Light Poems

Jackson Mac Low

22 Light Poems

Los Angeles, USA: Black Sparrow Press, 1968

84 pp., 23.5 x 16 cm., softcover

Edition of 750 

Mac Low began the Light Poems series in early June of 1962, as a chart listing 280 names of kinds of light. Publication of the volume was troubled by the poet's roof caving in and the subsequent misplacing of the light chart. 

Another setback followed: 

"Then Sunday morning – I know you won’t believe it but the painting rack over the bed fell on us at 7 AM & we both nearly got killed. I got a terrible hitna head from the heavy shelf that had overhung the bed or from one of the stretchers – dunno which – & several bad bruises & cuts on my arms and legs. Iris got away with a cut elbow. So I wasn’t in any shape to do proofreading until about the middle of the week."

The book was eventually released in October of 1968, by the Black Sparrow Press in Los Angeles. In addition to the 22 poems, the volume contains six pages of notes on the artist's methodology. 

The Light Poems continued over the ensuing years, written intermittently, with the final being the “60th Light Poem: In Memoriam Robert Duncan, 8–9 October 1988.” A collection of the complete series was published by Granary Books in 2015. 

In addition to the 750 copies of the 'trade' issue, there were also 125 signed cloth copies of the book released, and four 'presentation copies' (see below).

Jackson Mac Low | Phone. A Poem & 10 Variations 1978-1979

Jackson Mac Low

Phone. A Poem & 10 Variations 1978-1979

New York, USA/Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Printed Editions/ Kontexts Publications, 1978

[unpaginated], 22 x 14.5 cm., staple-bound

Edition size unknown

Poems based on an illustrations by Ray Johnson, made for the title. 

Mac Low also performed the work live on January 26, 1978 for Public Access Poetry, and a year later at The Kitchen in New York City, for a Fluxconcert.