Just Another Asshole #6

[Barbara Ess, Glenn Branca]

Just Another Asshole #6

New York City, USA: Primary Information, 2018

192 pp., 7 x 4”, softcover

Edition of 2000

My very first curatorial projects were exhibitions of artists’ magazines and artists’ records. Just Another Asshole was included in both.  

The periodical was a No Wave mixed-media publication started by Barbara Ess in her apartment in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, in 1978. It began life as a personal ‘zine of her collages, with the title scrawled in red nail polish on the cover. The third issue changed the format (to a tabloid newspaper) and each subsequent issue the format changed again. Number four was a four page spread in the 1980 issue of Artforum. Number five was a 12” LP: an anthology of seventy-seven very short tracks, by eighty-three artists. Co-published with White Columns, the album was co-edited by Glenn Branca and featured contributions from Jenny Holzer, Carla Liss,  Dan Graham, Barbara Kruger, Lee Ranaldo, Dara Birnbaum, Eric Bogosian, Thurston Moore, Amy Taubin and others. 

The sixth (and penultimate) issue was a paperback book. Again co-edited by Glenn Branca, this collection of writings included over sixty artists from the early 1980's downtown scene. It includes short stories, performance transcripts, plays, monologues, screenplays, and essays. 

Contributors include Kathy Acker,  Judith Barry, Buczak, Michael Gira (singer for the Swans), Jack Goldstein, Dan Graham, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Cookie Mueller, Peter Nadin, Richard Prince, Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), David Rosenbloom, Jane Sherry (who co-edited a previous issue of the publication), Kiki Smith, Michael Smith, Wharton Tiers, Lynne Tillman, Martha Wilson, David Wojnarowicz, and many others. 

Re-issued by Primary Information in November of 2018, the title is already out-of-print. 

Jack Goldstein | The Six Minute Drown

Jack Goldstein
The Six Minute Drown
New York City/Los Angeles, USA: Self-published, 1977
45 rpm, 7" single
Edition size unknown

The recent story of the Florida teens who saw a man drowning and instead of helping him, recorded his death on their phones, reminded me of the this 1977 artist's record by Jack Goldstein.

I've only heard it once and it was unclear whether it consisted of a sound effect library recording (like the better known suite of disks, below), or if the audio was something that Goldstein recorded himself. David Salle wrote in 1978 (in an essay published in conjunction with an exhibition at Hallwalls in Buffalo) that "Goldstein needs to make a phony record of a man drowning in order to avoid becoming a real one". The observation takes on a darker meaning after Goldstein's suicide in 2003.

Either way, the record plays on notions of cinema. Without a visual provided, the man's gasping and flailing, coupled with the turbulent sounds of the water, causes the viewer/listener to conjure up an image of their own, and given that few have witnessed an actual drowning, most will draw from cinematic memories.

As the piece continues (the six minutes of the title are spread out over both sides of the 45), the artifice of cinema becomes foregrounded. The listener begins to hear the man's cries as over-acted, and the sounds of water most likely a hand splashing around in a bathtub, either the artist's or one in a professional folio booth.

Jack Goldstein | The Murder

Jack Goldstein
The Murder
Los Angeles, USA: Self-published, 1977
10" vinyl EP, 33 rpm
Edition size unknown

The artists' third vinyl release is a twelve-minute long record which reportedly consists mostly of sound effects: breaking glass, pouring rain, thunder, etc .