No Mark Will Shine

01/02/08

No Mark Will Shine
By Mark Borthwick
Published by the journal and
bagged with their issue #21.
64 pages, full color, soft cover.
$15

the journal, a Brooklyn-based quarterly art magazine, includes some kind of art object with each issue. Their most recent is bagged with a beautiful book and poster by artist/Brooklyn resident/hippy Mark Borthwick. Our friend LVS was so taken with the book that she asked to write a guest post. Below are her thoughts on Mark Borthwick's No Mark Will Shine. Before we get there, I'd like to mention that this issue of the journal also has a selection of zines in the back. They're not so much reviewed as displayed, but if you're looking for some new little mags to buy check there. Also, on behalf of Print Fetish, I'd like to wish you all a happy new year! Back to the review:

Lately I return home from vacations with a couple rocks. Yesterday I came back from a vacation in Colorado with two white quartz stones shot through with red seams. These stones are more exciting to me than the pepper grinder or fancy sweatshirt I received as christmas presents.There are certain things that are simply beautiful—gold, sunsets, flowers, and stones to name a few. Looking at Mark Borthwick's book No Mark Will Shine, I am sure he is a kindred spirit. Inside are photocopies of his collections of feathers and dried flowers as well as photographs and words. Among the photographs are images of a little child with messy long hair building a teepee out of sticks, a exalting woman with flowers on her head, and a group of people (including Borthwick) wearing wreathes and capes. The scenarios are child's play or drug induced psychedelic joy. Pastoral scenes of friendly donkeys and running horses are interspersed with intimate portraits of a young naked woman. Each figure is repeated many times and in different forms. We see the donkey in color, as a stencil, as a close up with a hand, then as a word and an ink drawing. Typed and handwritten words, photos, paint, scans, photocopies and music (the book comes with an audio cd) seem interchangeable. The images fade in and out of reality taking on the semblance of memory or a drug haze. They become symbols of joyfulness like constant reminders that beauty is always present and natural. Throughout the book images and words are crossed out or obscured by paint, other words images or what looks like burn marks. This obstruction can take the form of decoration, obscuring, or highlighting. By collecting beautiful objects and memories and re-envisioning negativity, Borthwick constructs his own joyful world.

Where to buy: the journal website, or various cool newsstands.