Commentarivm

Just dropped at COMMENTARIVM: 24h40 Zine!

What happens when two friends, separated by distance but united by creativity, come together? 24h40, a zine born from a month-long reunion in Biel, Switzerland.

Artists Melis Albayrak and Laura Marti never made the 24-hour drive from Biel to Istanbul, but their collaborative journey began nonetheless. Last August, Melis made the journey by plane, after which the two friends and former flatmates lived together again in Biel for a month. During this time, they created collages and several photo series – one featuring the textile artist Billie Bling –, which can now be seen in the first issue of their joint zine 24h40.

24h40 isn’t just a zine; it’s a bridge connecting emerging artists from Switzerland and Turkey, creating new conversations across borders. In upcoming issues, more artists from both countries will find a space to express and share their work.

Find this first issue exclusively at COMMENTARIVM before anywhere else.

Snaps from an epic pop-up where we connected with incredible people. Almost forgot to post these—we’ve been swamped lately, but couldn’t let this one slip by!

This one’s definitely for the books, etched right here. 🖤

NO GHOST JUST A SHELL
By Pierre Huyghe , Philippe Parreno

»No Ghost Just a Shell« was initiated by Philippe Parreno and Pierre Huyghe in 1999. They acquired the copyright for a figure called 'Annlee' and her original image from the Japanese agency »Kworks«, which develops figures (almost actors) for cartoons, comic strips, advertising and video games of the booming Japanese Manga industry. 'Annlee' was a cheap model: the price of a Manga figure relates to the complexity of its character traits and thus its ability to adapt to a story-line and 'survive' several episodes. 'Annlee' had no particular qualities, and so she would have disappeared from the scene very quickly. "True heroes are rare and extremely expensive …" (Parreno) Buying 'Annlee' rescued her from an industry that had condemned her to death.

The publication No Ghost Just a Shell is the first compilation of all artworks produced with and in relation to the virtual figure AnnLee between 1999 and 2003. It also constitutes the final object in the total series of twenty-six artworks. In addition to Hans Ulrich Obrist's conversation with the initiators of the project, Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno, contributions by nine writers are included in the publication.

The project culminated in late 2002 with fireworks that cast the shape of AnnLee’s face across the sky above Miami Beach. The artists then legally transferred the ownership of AnnLee’s image to AnnLee, the character itself, creating a closed circuit of production and distribution.

The publication contains the already legendary contract in which AnnLee herself becomes the owner of the copyright. For this reason, it will be impossible for AnnLee to be used for further artistic or economic purposes in the future. This publication is consequently the first and the last AnnLee book. 

Published by Walther König, Köln, 2003

Hey! Commentarivm is back from touring the west coast of Turkey 🏴‍☠️ We opened the store with lots of fantastic new stuff we picked from all around the world which you’ll freak out for :))

Also we have a new member of our family, be comrade and come sit with us under the small but mighty shade of our dear banana tree.

Super thrilled to finally meet the Vienna scene by becoming a part of the Fanzineist Vienna Art Book & Zine Fair!

Grand kudos to the third 6 of our 666, dear for hanging our flag there and spreading the word! 🏴

If you're in Vienna this weekend, please come and say hello! 🖤

Protectors of the avant-guard, diffusers of anti-main stream salutes the joy and love shared in İstanbul! Being on the road felt fantastic! Constantinople was fast & furious as always. Now it's time to gear up and head south!

We took a short break at our headquarters to refill our boxes. Tomorrow morning, we will stack a brand new selection of artistic guns and ammunition into our van and hit the road again. See y'all pirates of the Aegean soon along the shores of Bodrum! 🏴

Merve's birthday loot from our sunshine brother 🙌🖤🌞

Some shop romance from a good day to remember. 🏴

📸 Last photo - poloroid by

Kadir Çıtak blessed us with all hand made, limited edition, screen printed artists' books and prints this week.

We'll be presenting them all soon but first look at this fantastic sketchbook!

Edition of 50
Screen Printed
Handbound
22 pages



For more details about this gem and to get your copy direct link in the stories or go to www.commentarivm.com

We ship worldwide. Please dm, e-mail or call us for your collaboration inquiries. 🏴

Psychomachia
By Kirsty Allison

Published by Wrecking Ball Press, 2021

Psychomachia reads like an NA meeting with Donna Tartt, Joan Didion, DBC Pierre, James Frey, Angela Carter, Reinaldo Arenas, Virginia Despentes and JT Leroy battling their collective consciousness. Literature like this is usually presented through the male gaze, hence the fashion and rock n roll literati naming Kirsty Allison London’s finest.

She’s hilarious – she’s f*cked up. Scarlet Flagg is so wasted, she doesn’t know if she killed the arch patriarch of rock n roll, Malachi Wright of Wright States International Touring after he her at a festival at 14. Scarlet is the kinda girl you wanna help, f*ck, and leave. But is she dangerous? Did she murder Malachi or was it her boyfriend, Iggy Papershoes, frontman of Heroshima? Or perhaps her drug-dealing father? Scarlet doesn't remember – she hardly remembers her own name.

This is brutal female drug-lit at its finest. The first novel of the real nineties, Scarlet is an unreliable narrator of epic fin-de-millennia proportions floating in a Shoreditch-warehouse haze. Her fast moving chronicle of the secret drug-filled, love starved, s*x satiated-nightmare world of East End fashion, art and music afterparties is set in an era before MeToo, when stigmas meant keeping schtum, and getting in with the male-dominated in-crowd relied on copious amounts of class-As. Like Jean Genet in a prison cell, without camera phones, social media or mental health awareness, Scarlet searches for redemption in the pursuit of revenge through blurred lines in Ibiza, Paris, London and New York.

For more detail about this gem and to get your copy
- direct link in the stories or go to www.commentarivm.com -

We ship worldwide. Please dm, e-mail or call us for your collaboration inquiries. 🏴

Turks from Δράμα, dreaming big in Smyrna 🌞

Lot's of fresh project announcements coming up soon! 🏴

Beyaz Toros
By Göksu Baysal

Self published, Handcrafted, Printed in black risograph

Edition of 125 copies

In every modern society we find everyday things that have become symbols due to different circumstances. In particular, certain cars have a cult-like quality in various cultural areas. In Germany, for example, it is the VW Beetle, which in the 1950s represents the so-called economic miracle. In Turkey, it has been the Renault 12, which was produced there under license since the 1970s. Valued by many as an affordable vehicle, the model was later also feared as “Beyaz Toros” (White Toros).

This is what Turkish artist Göksu Baysal demonstrates in his conceptual group of works based on a historical-sociological investigation. The simple cars known as “White Toros,” specifically the Renault 12, which is also popular among the Anatolian rural population, are also considered a symbol for the numerous kidnappings of Kurds by JITEM (an informal secret service of the Turkish gendarmerie), Baysal reports.

For more detail about this gem and to get your copy
- direct link in the stories or go to www.commentarivm.com -

We ship worldwide. Please dm, e-mail or call us for your collaboration inquiries. 🏴

DIE SCUM: S*x & Drugs & Contemporary Art
By Jubal Brown

Published by Impulse [b]

The punk pulp love story by a post-post-modern dandy, boy-about-town, lost in the perverse underworld of s*x & drugs & culture wars. We follow our narrator, drug dealer to the art scene—a hipster libertine obsessed with old movies, happily-ever-afters, and ant invasions—on his paranoid deluge into alcoholic depression and unironic misanthropy. A true hymn to individuality laced with dark humour and suicidal self-help satire. Is he living the dream? Or is the nightmare eating him alive? And will he find his happily ever after?

Jubal Brown is a writer of autofiction, and producer and presenter of cultural events. Canadian Art magazine dubbed him “the dark prince of Toronto art.” DIE SCUM: S*x & Drugs & Contemporary Art is his first novel.

Get your copy from the direct link in the stories or go to www.commentarivm.com

We ship worldwide. Please dm, e-mail or call us for your collaboration inquiries. 🏴

HAPPY MAIL 💌
From our heads to yours 🏴

HARDCORE 80–85 VOL. 2 & VOL. 3 🏴
By

Our neighbor across the street is a Turkish barber shop, one day we were opening up and the barber said this came for you and gave us this box. We didn't order anything from Canada these days. What was that? Did you order this? Nope? 

Opened the box up and found two riso printed SOLD OUT issues of HARDCORE 80-85 with some stickers and a note from Ed saying it was a surprise box. They reached our adress from commentarivm.com and just sent it. We were following each other here but that was all. In these fantastic publications there was this web page PUTTING HC ON THE MAP and you should all check out, we did spent all day smiling and discovering this mind blowing web page and whole project: hcmap.net

Thank you Ed! Waiting to meet you in person next year here or sooner if we can make it to Vancouver. 🖤

These risograph publications are part of PUTTING HC ON THE MAP, an ongoing research project aimed to preserve the history of North American Hardcore through its venues.

HARDCORE 80–85  is a compilation of imagery from US & Canada Hardcore flyers(VOL. 2) and Hardcore zines(VOL. 3). 

Printed at Moniker Press, 2023 
Edition of 100 (each)

Lovely afternoon light in the shop. 🌅

It's been a great week, nothing like just getting lost in browsing. One day is never enough to spend at COMMENTARIVM, visit at least twice and take your time. We provide good music and free coffee. 🏴🖤

High School
By legend Michael Snow

Published by Impulse [b], 1979

Four copies left (2 signed, 2 not). Link in stories to get your copy of this gems limited first edition!

A faux-facsimile of the artist's high school note book, complete with doodles, drawings and short texts in the artist's handwriting.

“In the old days, I don’t know how far back now, I used to smoke dope occasionally. Before playing music, and also socially, it was pretty common. And for some reason – and with other people around – I would do these kinds of drawings and it seemed an interesting subject for a book.”

Go to www.commentarivm.com for more.
We ship worldwide. Please dm, e-mail or call us for your collaboration inquiries. 🏴

We decided to travel for a winter wonder land after looking at this fantastic photo from Bellevue by Purple Books. (Never snows here in İzmir) 🖤

Check out the stories for a link from our web page to reach more details about this rare gem.

Wow this was such a blast! We had the pleasure of hosting Michael Galinsky who had one of the greatest artist talks ever happened at COMMENTARIVM 🏴

Other than the talk, he brought original copies of previous publications and a big box of amazingly handmade B&W prints!

The talk was also accompanied with an exhibition of photo prints from Michael’s self published photoboook ‘The Decline of Mall Civilization’.

It was great to have you here Michael! You and Fiona are already missed!

The second installment of  photographer Joshua White’s curatorial project; WhiteBox.LA presents Curt LeMieux: HEROES, A group of minimal, puerile renditions of classic LP album cover art.

The works speak to LeMieux’s adolescent obsession with Rock & Roll imagery and his own blossoming teenage s*xuality as he came of age on the outskirts of the rust belt in the late 70’s. The album covers are sourced from diverse music genres. LeMieux’s subjects include artists ranging from Dusty Springfield and Frank Sinatra to Black Sabbath and Patti Smith.

A 30 page fully illustrated catalog with an essay by Ian Svenonius accompanies the exhibition.

OPENING: NOVEMBER 18th 6-9pm
CLOSING EVENT : NOVEMBER 29 12-6pm

THE DESMOND TOWER
5500 WILSHIRE BLVD, LOS ANGELES, CA 90036
la

Tasman Richardson was here! 🖤He flew all the way from Toronto, Canada; we’ve met in İstanbul and we road tripped to İzmir. Here we had the pleasure of listening about his amazing book “Objects In Mirror” and his practice in general. Lots of collaborations and partnerships for future projects emerged. Keep an eye on what’s to come as we nest for our new productions, announced to be soon. 🏴

MICHAEL GALINSKY EXHIBITION OPENING & BOOK LAUNCH 'THE DECLINE OF THE MALL CIVILIZATION' AT COMMENTARIVM HEADQUARTERS!!!

'Guns N' Roses were blowing up, and Nirvana was still an infant. George Bush was president and very few people had seen the internet'. Flashback photos of 1980s shopping malls, before online shopping killed off the iconic spaces. Photographer Michael Galinsky captured nostalgic snaps during the mall heyday in the 1980s. From zany hairdos to shuttered retailers, the images show how malls were the center of American social life. Galinsky traversed from coast to coast snapping the best images from the bustling hotspots.

No filmmaker/photographer has shoved the laparoscope of truth deeper into America's ugly ass than Michael Galinsky. These artful, surveillance-type pix say so little and yet say so much about the vacuous anti-culture we participate in, and take for normal. —
Richard Sandler, "The Eyes of the City"

November 16th

Free entrance, just come and join us! 🏴

🖤

This must be the place! Yes COMMENTARIVM is back with amazing shots one after another.

Firstly we’re super psyched to announce that we’re bringing the creators behind the books of the year for us. Starting with a spectacular artist all the way from Toronto-Canada, Tasman Richardson will be at COMMENTARIVM, reading bits from his book “Objects In Mirror” published by Impulse [b:], signing copies, accompanied with a surprise super limited exhibition of two freshly made riso prints, all numbered and signed by the artist.

Tasman Richardson is his memory of screens. Video from cathode ray to capacitive pixels shapes his language, directs his understanding, and ultimately borders his imagination. Building on McLuhan’s statement “We become what we behold”, Richardson shuttles through the history of tele-vision and tele-presence, postulating consciousness itself as Gysin-esque “cut-up” collage.

Fragmented, digressive, and occasionally manic, Objects In Mirror refracts autoethnography into a technicolour meditation on our mediated world. An intimate and humourous technical-mystical delving into a distrust of all things perceived both in life and art.

Save the date, and come join us at COMMENTARIVM on the 14th of November. We’ll start gathering around 18:00!

Our friends These Days LA is hosting Dave Markey on November 28th for a 'one day only' Scenes From Inside book signing and prints exhibition! Do not miss the last chance to grab the remaining few copies of the first edition of this gem of a book and have the chance to get it signed by the man himself!!

Original Dave Markey prints of the images from the book will also be available to purchase, all of them numbered and signed!

So save the date and if you haven't discovered the incredible These Days LA yet go visit them on this amazingly rare occasion, you'll thank us later!

We’ve been busy with shipments of our second publishing ‘Scenes From Inside’ by the one and only Dave Markey. Diffusing it all over the world means a lot to us, so thank you for overwhelming love and support. 🖤 🏴