Flipping through Assembling: a one-of-a-kind art and literature magazine and its added value in library collections

This lightning talk is dedicated to the study of the underground art and literature American magazine Assembling, compiled between 1970 and 1982. Its principle was simple: any manuscript could become part of it, as long as it was presumed to be otherwise unpublishable and submitted in 1000 copies. The main idea was to create an area preserved from all sorts of censorship or editorial alterations. Even the instigators of the project, two young writers, Richard Kostelanetz and Henry James Korn, had no control whatsoever over the content. During the presentation, I will highlight the spontaneous genesis of the publication, its unfamiliar appearance, the desire to create an alternative network, its subversive impact and its deeply elusive and fleeting identity. Its hybrid nature explains why this publication belongs to the holdings of different types of library collections. However, this is often in fine art libraries that Assembling found a good home. I will use specific examples taken from the publication to demonstrate how it can be used in many ways during instruction sessions and programming events, and to engage different types of audiences around the notions of art publications, self-publication, dissemination of information, and creative network, but also critical thinking and the desire to create and broadly disseminate art outside of a pre-established system. I will invite attendants to reflect on comparable materials they might have in their own collections of alternative publications and incite them to think about how these types of unusual materials are still fully relevant today and kept all their abilities to fascinate and stimulate all kinds of readers.