Ari Marcopoulos | Zines
From Ari Marcopoulos: Zines (Aperture, 2023). © 2023 Ari Marcopoulos
Written by Michael Galati
Copy Edited by Kee’nan Haggen
Photo Edited by Olivia Castillo
In 2020, the world stopped, and the United States experienced consequential social, political, and cultural shifts, the effects of which will take years to grasp. However, what will help understand these indelible effects and resulting social changes is the art created during and in response to the times. One of those art objects will be Ari Marcopoulos: Zines, a diaristic, observant, and representative recollection of the plurality of the fullness of lives lived before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Zines combines two distinct groups of zines Marcopoulos made between 2015 and 2021. One group of zines was made between 2015 and 2019 as physical objects that he self-published or published alongside independent publishers. The other zines were constructed digitally during the pandemic and distributed as PDFs. In his newest collection, Marcopoulos organizes these zines roughly chronologically alongside each other and, in doing so, attempts to make sense of the disorder in time and in the events the images depict. Zines positions Marcopoulos as a witness to the time and an agent of ways of interpreting it.
From Ari Marcopoulos: Zines (Aperture, 2023). © 2023 Ari Marcopoulos
From Ari Marcopoulos: Zines (Aperture, 2023). © 2023 Ari Marcopoulos
What stuck out to me from the collection is the focus on perseverance through and after the pandemic. Marcopoulos captures joyous moments between family and friends, people playing basketball, others dancing, and kids graduating eighth grade, their faces intimately seeing and interacting with the camera, replacing the effect of person-to-person interaction at the time. As if a historical prophet, Marcopoulos also documents the Black Lives Matter movement that forced the country to confront its systemic racial injustice, capturing memorials of Breonna Taylor and newspaper articles covering the marches. Moments like these bring an immediacy of presence to the reading experience. We are there in the moment alongside Marcopoulos; we, too, are witnesses to history.
From Ari Marcopoulos: Zines (Aperture, 2023). © 2023 Ari Marcopoulos
As much as Marcopulous is able to capture specific events at the time, he is also able to take a wider view of the moment. In one two-page layout, he features a headline from The New York Times, “Rampage in Georgia Deepens Fears of Rising Anti-Asian Hate in U.S,” dated March 18, 2021. Juxtaposed against this headline are images from March 18 and 19 of a forest tree in bloom and waves calmly crashing on the sand, respectively. In moments like these, Marcopoulos flees the center and rises above the noise, zooming his camera lens out as if to tell you that the reader, the observer, can focus on the chaos and the bad, but you can also find peace and solace in the periphery.
Struck by these various juxtapositions, moments of joy against pain and moments of hate against peace, I asked Ari if he thought of solidarity as he was putting Zines together and if there was any intention in putting opposing images next to each other. Ari responded rather concisely by saying that solidarity was not a “consideration” and that, with this collection, “There [are] no intentions… The viewer and their interpretation complete the work. The photos are perhaps a guide for reflection.” And I think that perfectly distills the experience of reading this collection and perhaps a view of life in general: take from it what you will.
From Ari Marcopoulos: Zines (Aperture, 2023). © 2023 Ari Marcopoulos
Zines is a book about one man’s and multiple people’s perspectives. There are many eyes through which to see this almost epistolary compendium of first-, second-, and third-person experiences. And that gives it its beauty: you can choose what to see. You can choose to focus on the good or the bad, but ultimately, the background, the opposite of what you see, will always be there. It perfectly represents the time's social, political, and cultural transformation. With his casual, patient, general, and specific eye, Marcopoulos has auspiciously created a historical artifact from the pain, joy, and solidarity of an unprecedented moment in our lives. It’s a true marvel to witness.
