Showpaper Benefit Today
If you made it out to any Todd P shows in the last year or so, you've most likely been asked if you would like a copy of Showpaper-- a combination of music/arts listings, missed connections and some pretty interesting illustrations. I must admit that it's been a huge resource for finding out about the better avant-garde/DIY shows in Brooklyn, and I'm a little addicted to reading the missed connections.
Anyway, today Showpaper is holding a benefit show at Danbro Studios Warehouse. I was lucky enough to speak with one of the organizers Joseph Ahearn to discuss Showpaper’s contribution to the Brooklyn arts scene and its future plans for expansion.
How was the Showpaper idea formulated? Could you give some background on yourself and everyone involved?
I wasn't the one who came up with the idea of Showpaper. When I first began volunteering for Todd P, back in 2006, he was already talking about the idea, how silly it was that there were so many fractured different all ages communities throughout the tri-state area, and how there wasn't one integral place in which all the shows could be found. How much he loved the newsprint format, and how it was too bad that the current scene the same 'zine and self-publishing enthusiasm as previous music communities he'd been part of.
More after the jump.
It was still almost a full year until the first issue came out, but it was definitely being talked about even then. I wasn't even part of the first few months either, besides helping with distribution whenever possible. Maggie Matela has been designing the layout since day one, and many of the other kids from that first incarnation are still on board, like Alaina Stamatis (who runs a booking agency now, called The Secret Agency) and Julian Bennett-Holmes, who's in this awesome band called Fiasco. Around the end of the first summer a bunch of the initial kid's who were volunteering had to head back out to school, work, etc, and a new wave started helping out, including myself and Edan (who books shows in Brooklyn with his friend Dave as Entertainment4Every1).
What's Showpaper's role in the arts community currently?
We try and take relatively unknown artists and expose them to the show-throwing and music-enthused community throughout the Tri-State, and take relatively well-known artists, and make their work accessible in a way it isn't, typically, to that same group. The art world can seem frightening when only viewed in white boxes, so I like to consider Showpaper as almost like a gallery that people get to fold up in their pockets.
Do you feel it’s important to have outlets like yours to support the arts community?
It's necessary. I understand the function and system of the art world in New York, but I also go to the house shows and see this overwhelming out-pouring of energy currently in the music community and want to help, in whatever capacity, see some of that energy transferred into visual work. One of the biggest reasons why I think there are so many new "alternative" performance spaces right now is that a certain critical mass was reached within the last year where anyone with the desire to organize music events stumbled into someone's living room and went, "Really? I can do just... do this?" and then they went home and started calling their friends and setting it up. I want those same kids to see the artwork and go, "Wow! I can do that, too!"
How do you plan to expand Showpaper's reach?
Like I started saying above, I'd like more "DIY" art shows. There are already a great group of artists and spaces in Bushwick right now, and I'd like the opportunity to explore more of people are doing visual with their personal spaces throughout the rest of the Tri-State Area. I'd like Showpaper to begin organize more art events, and a few are already in the works which I'm pretty excited about. We just finished out first open call for submissions (which we had never previously done, publicly), and we were swamped in so much exciting work that we're going to have a group show of a bunch of our favorites, along with James Moore, who's work will be on the cover of the next issue of the paper.
Has funding been mostly DIY? How does the benefit help Showpaper expand its mission?
The funding has been entirely community-based at this point, which is incredibly difficult and exciting at the same time. Mostly we try and raise money through organizing benefit shows, but we ask for donations at shows when we're down to the wire for an issue, or do things like sell ice pops at shows over the summer. Essentially, we're supported by the same community that reads the paper, which is a really great feeling.
Comments
Showpaper lists very obscure events, like events in people's houses. By hiding them in a wrapper of colorful unmarked art, which doubles as a reusable poster and a way to promote great young artists, it's possible to list all the cheap, all ages, independent events in one place.
On the internet, a similar comprehensive listing would run the risk of the events being too easy to be intercepted by authorities and shut down. And it's not even whether or not that would actually happen, it's actually just the anxiety on the part of people throwing shows in unsanctioned places that's important. Showpaper has to be respectful of those anxieties or else the houses and other underground spots would ask to have their listings not included.
Also, the internet has actually made it harder to sort out the real underground from all the promotional events and commercial concerts that try to use viral marketing techniques to pretend to be underground events. They tend to win at getting the word out versus the genuine underground, because marketing schemes are usually well funded. By taking the listings off the internet and into an advertising free setting, underground happenings have a chance to shine on their own, with no spam clutter to get in the way.
Showpaper is simply more practical and useful off the internet.
Posted by: Showpaper | November 17, 2008 09:21 PM
Is it so wrong of me to think that Showpaper should also exist as an e-mail list / site / rss feed I can subscribe to? It would be the environmentally friendly thing to do.
Posted by: question asker | November 13, 2008 05:50 PM