Pete and Repeat
Art Licks got our hands on the ARCADE gallery zine, Pete and Repeat a few months ago when their last issue was released. With the third issue launching on Saturday 6 March, we wanted to find out more about how it is put together.
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Pete and Repeat 3
Who are Pete and Repeat?
'Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence. Pete fell off; who was left? …
What first sparkled the impulse to create Pete and Repeat?
It was Summer 2009 and we wanted to celebrate the 18 months of Arcade's life, so we asked all the artists we had collaborated with in the gallery's young history to propose a multiple for a multiples fair, which would be called Pete and Repeat. While talking about this event, we had the idea that a zine would compliment it and widen its scope. So we asked artists to contribute an image or a text they were interested in, and the zine ended up being a picture of the community grown around the gallery since it opened. That's how the first issue happened, and we were so pleased with it we decided to make more.
The title—how did you decide on it?
The artist Anna Barham came up with the title. It's from "Clown Torture' by Bruce Nauman. We nearly called it 36 views of Mount Fuji!
How many issues have you had so far?
This is the 3rd.
How is it made/put together?
Pete and Repeat isa mix of newly commissioned and existing or previously published texts and images.
It follows and expands the gallery program. At the time of publishing the new content is commissioned in direct relation with the current and forthcoming exhibitions, and the re-published text and images prepare the ground for those exhibitions coming later, so the collection of materials follows closely the calendar of gallery activities. It expands on them, it creates a space where an in-depth look at a specific body of work can be proposed, or an image or text can bring an alternative, unexpected point of view on an artist's practice.
How do people contribute?
The artists are free to contribute anything (image or text either made, borrowed or stolen). Usually it ends up being something particularly current to their practice at that moment. The commissioned texts reflect the networked community of the gallery, one day a writer will express an interest or a curiosity for a particular artist's work and that's when we ask them to write something that draws on that 'spark'.
What do you see in a crystal ball?
We’ll keep it cheap to make, high in content, and circulate it free to broaden the gallery network and to give our exhibition program a more complex and longer life.
