Zineland has always been about one thing: space. Whether we’re looking at a photo fanzine or an artist’s monograph, our focus is always how the publisher or author has used a limited visual space and given it meaning.
This week’s subject is a retrospective looking back at twenty years of the work of M/M (Paris), the graphic design duo Michaël Amzalag and Mathias Augustyniak. Since 1992, these two French artists have explored printing, drawing, photography and typography with an unrelenting energy, moving back and forth between the most elitist subjects and media to the most mainstream. Having worked with figures as diverse as Kanye West and Benjamin Biolay, fashion brands like Balenciaga and Marc Jacobs, but also with magazines and cultural institutions, they have given new life to images and objects through collages, double exposures and voluntary omission. Materials and signs are hidden to be better revealed, becoming visual worlds in themselves. All of this is achieved in an energetic and profound dynamic that is almost cinematic, and despite the richness of the photographs, the result is outwardly straightforward.
Looking through the M/M collection, we are reminded of Robert Delpire, who has always strived to find the perfect medium to match his images. Long live the formal wizards !
Antoine Soubrier
M//M (Paris) de M à M – Emily King
26 x 35 cm, 528 pages
broché cousu, sous jaquette plastique
65 €
