Hot and Cold: The End Is Here

In early September 2009, local artists Griffin McPartland and Chris Duncan threw a party seven years in the making. Upon completion of their tenth Hot & Cold zine, they invited participating artists to show work at a gallery exhibition and final zine release party, Hot & Cold: The End is Here.

If any zine were to be part of a museum’s collection, it would be this one. And it is. Three inches thick, it’s a double-sided cornucopia spilling over with prints, stickers, music, secret treasure maps, and magic horseshoes! It is a massive, comprehensive, keepsake survey of young talent in Northern California over the greater part of the last decade. Each contributing artist has a special insert or several pages in the zine, which is better read than read about. But #1 is sold out, and my investment in the 6th out of 150 copies was well worth it. I’ll be poring over the plentiful pages for days. A small selection of my favorite pages so far is pictured below.

artist: Heidi Anderson

artist: Edie Fake

artist: Monica Canilao

artist: Jay Nelson

The exhibit at Baer Ridgeway Exhibitions was by no means an afterthought. Cream of the crop pieces surrounded a crowd of art stars at the opening, many of whom have achieved enormous success in the last few years. According to this extensive Fecal Face Dot Com interview (with more photos and a full list of participating artists), Hot & Cold began after some convincing from Duncan who wanted creative motivation in his post-art school years. He and McPartland set out to make their first edition with the help of 1984 Press, and their countering personalities and drawing styles led them to the title. They created editions counting down from ten simply because “10” looked better on the first cover design than “01.” I wonder if either artist expected that by the time they got down to the last, most substantial edition, that they’d both have become dads and would have their artwork included in The Museum of Modern Art’s collection. A photo of the kids they created is appropriately included in the zine alongside their artistic creations.

For lucky Hot & Cold #1 collectors, a secret fort was built in the Richmond Hills by artist David Wilson, and the zine included a hand-drawn map leading to the location where a party took place and an even bigger secret (Hot & Cold #0) was distributed to golden ticket holders. Just when I thought the Hot & Cold experience couldn’t get any cooler (or hotter), it did.

McPartland, Duncan, et al., might have chosen the tag line, “The End is Near,” but it is obvious that this group of artists is far from slowing their roll.

The Hot & Cold exhibit at Baer Ridgeway Exhibitions is on view through October 10, 2009.

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