Traveling Magazine Table Archives

The Traveling Magazine Table was initiated as the Magazine Table in 2001 by Nomads & Residents, a loose collective of international New York-based artists, during the first Lecture Lounge at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York. The project was reactivated in 2003 as the Traveling Magazine Table and subsequently developed by artists Bik Van der Pol and Cesare Pietroiusti , with the added stipulation that approximately twice a year, this continuously growing collection of magazines and publications should be hosted by different venues all around the world. Beginning with an initial collection of artists’ publications the TMT traveled to various hosting venues where an open call would be disseminated inviting local audiences to expand the collection through the submission of artists’ publications and other non-commercial forms of printed matter.

Installed as a library or reading room where the public could come and engage with the collection, the project also served as an alternative distribution network, providing users with access to obscure and regionally specific publications from locales across the globe that they may not have had access to through any other means. The collection was also activated through public programs, lectures and workshops on self-publishing, or as the inspiration for an investigation of architectural spaces designed to promote solitary reading or collective learning and engagement, or as an exploration of systems of arrangement and classification.

The TMT has been exhibited internationally at venues including: CAC, Vilnius (2003); Art in General, New York (2004); M.I.T., Boston (2005); IASPIS, Stockholm (2006); Kulturezone06, Frankfurt (2006); INSA Art Space, Seoul (2006); and the Design Academy/ Van AbbeMuseum, Eindhoven (2007) , and the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson (2011). The culmination of the project is The Traveling Magazine Table Archives which was generously donated to the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College in 2011 by Bik Van der Pol on behalf of Nomads & Residents. Bik Van der Pol's artist residency in Spring 2011 at CCS Bard, a collaboration between Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture (FBKVB) and CCS Bard, also resulted in the creation of a website documenting the project, which can be seen at http://travelingmagazinetable.net/.