Sincerity will get you everywhere
Feral boys, mythical critters, and baked industriousness get the spotlight at Yerba Buena Center's 'Zine Unbound.'

By Katie Kurtz

Remember when you were little and the big kids would get the merry-go-round spinning really fast and you would grab one of the bars and run around until you could finally scramble onboard, praying the whole time you wouldn't lose your cool or throw up? That's kind of what immersing yourself in Yerba Buena Center for the Arts' "The Zine Unbound: Kults, Werewolves and Sarcastic Hippies" is like. To borrow a question posed by Lisa Sussman in a drawing that appeared in issue 4 of Hot and Cold, one of the zines featured in the exhibition, "Who the hell's in charge of this totally fucked-up bake sale?" Sussman's drawing also includes an escaped shark, a confused fireman, a somewhat fierce-looking grizzly bear, and the disembodied head of a smiling kitty cat. It speaks to the overall aesthetic of the exhibition: disparate, animalistic, and just a bit off-kilter.

Curator Berin Golonu is the one in charge of this bake sale, and in a style similar to assembling a zine, she has gathered together a bunch of stuff from all over and presented it as is. Golonu has used the medium of a zine - one that's DIY and somewhat roughshod, with ragged edges, trailing threads, and incomplete thoughts - to inform the exhibition's layout in Yerba Buena Center's upstairs galleries. The installations are amplifications of the zines created by Oakland-based team Chris Duncan and Griffin McPartland (Hot and Cold), New York artist Scott Hug (K48), and Los Angeles artist and writer Trinie Dalton (Werewolf Express). Although it may seem intentional, the somewhat unifying theme of animals emerged coincidentally over the course of planning the show. This allows for an intriguing bleed-over from one installation to the next.

Forty-eight artists contributed to K48's installation, Troop 48 NYC. Notable contributions are Assume Astro Vivid Focus's custom Astroturf and Dominic McGill's pup tent covered with news headlines such as "Teenage Crimewave," "Satan Worshipper Kills 2 Students," and "Is Your Child Failing Life?" The tent serves as the installation's centerpiece, and a peek under its flap reveals an intimate view of boys' lives. Nearby, a black banner leans against the cyclone fence that encloses the installation. In foot-high white-stenciled lettering, the banner reads, "I CAN'T FIGURE IT OUT."

This could be the installation's anthem: I can't figure it out. But I keep staring. Chucked into the corner beside it are two life preservers with Christian crosses sloppily spray-painted on them, as if to say, "You cannot be saved from the phenomenon that is the teenage American boy."

While inside this demented den, I started thinking that maybe the Boy Scouts are a training ground for turning little boys into perverted monsters. Learning to tie fancy knots, building a fire using a twig and a magnifying glass, weaving fancy lanyards? The news of Scott Dyleski's alleged role in the murder of Pamela Vitale broke the day I went to take notes about the show, and the San Francisco Chronicle's headline was not unlike the ones culled by McGill: "Teen Held in Bizarre Slaying." The accompanying photos showed Dyleski's progression from clean-cut kid to scary goth guy, and the story led with the following description: "Scott Dyleski seemed like a typical suburban kid. He loved baseball. He was a Boy Scout. He earned excellent grades." From the puberty psychodrama that is the Troop 48 NYC installation, the show transitions to the idea of changelings as expressed in the Werewolf Express room. Naturally.

Werewolf Express continues Dalton's animal series - the last two were Rodentia (about rodents) and Touch of Class (about unicorns, of course). Since her zines are conceived from a literary point of view, the visual art is a secondary consideration whose quality often doesn't match that of the essays, stories, and other writing. No matter - it's a fine example of what happens when 40 people obsess over one topic, and the contributions range from poet Amy Gerstler's strange account of making out with her adopted stray dog (at least that's what I think is going on) to Kevin Killian's diary of finding something werewolfish every day for five days.

Perhaps Boy Scout skills lent themselves to the industriousness needed for Duncan and McPartland to assemble their mess kit/treasure trove. The title of Chris Duncan's mixed-media-on-board piece, The Overwhelming Vastness of Overwhelming, speaks to the intensive process of creating each issue and to the final product. Duncan and McPartland assemble a panoply of artwork including silk screens, photographs, compact discs featuring animation or music, stickers, and tiny booklets into a limited edition of 150 copies.

Hot and Cold is the one zine that is truly unbound, and parts from the current and past issues are wallpapered along a hallway. Also included is original artwork by contributors. Of note is Lori D.'s strange and wonderful animation Lord I: The Record's Keeper: Part I. Throughout, the female protagonist's (presumably the artist's) head is enclosed in a thought-cloud. Various objects and people appear and disappear within it, alluding to how the artist is constantly immersed in their work.

The eventual demise of Hot and Cold is built into its production. Duncan and McPartland started with issue number 10 and are working backward to 1, when the zine will be abandoned. After that, we will be left to seek out stray and precious copies. In the end, we will never be saved from the phenomenon that is the teenage American boy or from werewolves. Lock the doors. Make something.<\!s>v

'The Zine Unbound: Kults, Werewolves, and Sarcastic Hippies' is on display through Dec. 30, Tues.-<\d>Wed. and Fri.-<\d>Sun., noon-<\d>5 p.m.; Thurs., noon-<\d>8 p.m., Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF. $3-<\d>$6. (415) 978-ARTS.