The new editorial project of E IL TOPO will be presented the 17th of november in New York City at Printed Matter Inc.
E Il Topo launches the publication of the first issue of its “Red Letter” series, in parallel with the ongoing releases of the magazine. This new initiative will involve artists who utilize writing as a complementary part of their work, but also as an intimate, private mode of expression. Stories printed in red that make the writing itself into an image, to rediscover the place where images often originate. The first issue features stories by two members of the historic band The Lounge Lizards: Steve Piccolo and (special guest) John Lurie.
The new issue will be launched the 17th of november in New York city at Printed Matter
Statement by Steve Piccolo
Today writing is becoming an essential part of the practice of many artists of different kinds. Not so much critical or theoretical writing as a kind of storytelling that moves in parallel with other media, sometimes as a hidden subtext, sometimes as a crutch for the too-inscrutable, sometimes as a sort of embroidered pattern, a filigree that lurks in a narrative space, connecting works together in a bigger mental resonating chamber. I’ve always written diaries or stories that were basically places to jot down ideas for works. I started to develop them more when I was commissioned to do several sound pieces that seemed to require a fictional background, an invented context. I polished up some stories and people seemed to like them, or at least they kept writing to me and asking for copies. Then the stories began to find their way into music, not as spoken narratives, but as little books that go together with recorded sounds, a device that helps me to get over my ennui regarding “records” as a medium. Combinations of sound and texts are somehow more satisfying. I think it helps people to listen in an enhanced way, too, because sitting down to listen to a story, like we did when we were kids, is perhaps the most vivid paradigm of open-eared-ness. When I found out my old friend and Lounge Lizards colleague John Lurie was doing something similar, we swapped a few stories. I realized we were both hashing out some of the same remembered experiences, atmospheres and situations, though in different ways. Hence the idea of combining stories in a single publication.
Printed Matter Inc.