Since 1993, Chain has been publishing a yearly issue of work gathered loosely around a topic. The topic allows us to switch the editorial question that we ask each piece of work submitted from "is this a great piece of art" to "does this piece of art tell us something about the topic that we didn't already know." This makes Chain a little rougher around the edges, a little less aesthetically predictable. Within the frame of the topic, we tend to privilege mixed media and collaborative work and work by emerging or younger artists. This issue focuses on letters: Epistolary exchanges, alphabets, symbols, orthographies, archival finds, typographies, correspondences, lettrist hypergraphies, the letter of the law, fonts, emblems, handwriting, inscriptions, glyphs, gossip, notes, rebuses, phonetics, mesostics, acrostics, graphemes, anagrams, hypograms, scarlet, purloined, valentines, letters from camp, letters from the front, and more.

Chain 6: letters

Juliana Spahr

Jena Osman

A A Arts

How can you be alone if you have a “thought” with you? —Ignatz Mouse 
It’s wot’s behind me that I am. . . . —Krazy Kat 
We see—as in this—one frame at a time. —Leslie Scalapino 
Over 300 pages of wanton seriality...comic strips, graphic novels, frameworks, comedies of errors, thought balloons, sequential narratives, political cartoons, funnies, social satires, caricature, seriality, text &amp; image, captions, comic relief. Included in this issue is work by an eccentric mix of artists, scholars, and poets such as David Choe, Rey Chow, Thalia Field, Phoebe Gloeckner, Ron Padgett, Raymond Pettibon, Kevin Quigley, Gary Sullivan, and Mack White. 
Chain emphasizes work by new or emerging artists and collaborative and mixed genre work.

Chain 8: Comics

SPAHR, Juliana

Osman, Jena

From Publishers Weekly Born in Saigon, raised in Washington, D.C., and now living in Austin, Tex., Hoa Nguyen tongue-in-cheekily channels Your Ancient See Through, making time and space "numb where the knowledge knife is gifted/ and owl nimble-necked blinks at me." Nguyen, half of Skanky Possum magazine's editorial team and its related press, offers nearly 80 short poems in six sections (matched with line drawings by Philip Trusell) that refuse to accept experience as currently processed for consumption, and apply a steely whimsicality to its refiguration: "Bring specific flowers I will not know the names of/ Slowly pump your arms as you walk by." The results are immediate and unique: "the center is/ light green... the tender part/ is the newest part." Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Your Ancient See Through

Literature & Fiction

Nguyen, Hoa

Poetry

A collection of work around the topic of dialogues. Features a series of commissioned dialogues with writers and artists who do not normally talk with each other, such as language poet Bruce Andrews speaking with Hawaiian nationalist playwright Alani Apio, English artist Craigie Horsfield speaking with Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña, Scots language poet Rob Mackenzie speaking with Hawai‘i Creole/Pidgin poet Lee Tonouchi. Includes work from Joe Amato Bruce Andrews &amp; Alani Apio Ademir Assunção &amp; Kaká Werá Jecupé Guy Beining Shelly Berc Rachel Bers &amp; E. Tracy Grinnell Robert Bles Wendy Call &amp; Sasha Su-Ling Welland Robert Quillen Camp Peter Conrad Tom Devaney &amp; Edwin Torres Rachel Blau DuPlessis Patrick F. Durgin &amp; Jen Hofer Craig Dworkin &amp; Alessandra Santos Christine Evans &amp; Dijana Milosevic Drew Gardner Peter Gizzi &amp; Elizabeth Willis John Havelda &amp; João Nunes Craigie Horsfield &amp; Cecilia Vicuña Michael Ives Lisa Jarnot Reynaldo Jiménez &amp; Jussara Salazar M. Kasper John Kinsella &amp; McKenzie Wark Tom La Farge Rob MacKenzie &amp; Lee A. Tonouchi Mark McMorris Ruth Margraff with Sa’di Al-Hadithi, Ayad Rahim, &amp; Kanan Makiya Sean Meehan Sean Meehan &amp; Michelle Spencer Mette Moestrup Carlos Navarrete Bob Perelman &amp; Francie Shaw José Pérez de Arce Jane Philbrick Nick Piombino &amp; Barrett Watten Aishah Rahman Ellen Redbird Tim Rollins &amp; K.O.S. Mark Rudman Simone Sandy James Sherry Tenderloin Opera Company Cecilia Vicuña Mac Wellman Aleksandar Zograf

Chain 9: Dialogue

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the A A Arts publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by A A Arts

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the A A Arts publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Chain 6: letters

Chain 8: Comics

Your Ancient See Through

Chain 9: Dialogue