Collecting anything is a form of anxiety at work. An object is not an object unless you don’t obsess over what you desire. Once you have feelings for it, it becomes essential for your life. Your friends or family will not understand, but this is a relationship between you and a thing. I have been in houses where I see the art publication Artforum placed on a bookshelf and organized by issue number. The very design of its spine makes it easy to document which issue and number it is, and it is made for one to display or stack up in such an order. The author, César Aira, of this slim collection of connecting short stories, Artforum, understands this because the main character is obsessed with obtaining a foreign magazine, and the author/character is from Argentina, where it is not easy to locate Artforum Magazine.
Like Aira, I, too, am obsessed with foreign magazines; for me, they are music journals. Publications like Mojo and Uncut, and in the 1970s/1980s, I was determined to find new issues of The Face, Q Magazine, and others from the United Kingdom. I was impressed that the magazine I bought was touched by British hands, which makes them a fetish object for me. And like Artforum, it is a type of publication that leads to other avenues of interest, such as artists that one is not familiar with or a band that you never heard of. A magazine is an exploration of another world, and you, as the reader or a collector who lives a great distance from the source, want to obtain that landscape.
Aira writes about the nature of existence and the tools one needs to exist in such a manner to understand and perhaps even obtain that information for documentation or a piece of culture one can own. Artforum is only 82 pages long, but it is remarkable in its completeness. He writes a lot of novellas that must stand alone in their edition because there is a complexity of ideas that needs to stand alone as a volume. Absurdity is taking place, but to me, it makes perfect sense. I think anyone who collects objects, whether it’s books, records, or objects, must also capture the culture around that item that is equally important to the collector. Artforum is a remarkable read, and I strongly recommend reading it in a cafe in one sitting. The length, text, and Aira’s writing style almost command you to do so.
I didn’t think of my passion for archiving to be a form of anxiety but I believe you’re correct. I haven’t bought an Artforum in years. I read it in the library. But, I can still feel the need to collect books etc.
Oops. Just bought this.