Lecture: The Alternative Press, in converstaion with Ken Mikolowski & Rebecca Kosick
6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
DATE: April 3, 6-8PM
LOCATION: Schaver Music Recital Hall, Wayne State University
Coinciding with the exhibition Origins at the Elaine L. Jacob Gallery, a lecture by Rebecca Kosick and Alternative Press co-founder Ken Mikolowski will be held on Thursday, April 3, from 6-8PM in Schaver Music Recital Hall, Wayne State University.
The Alternative Press exhibition is curated by Jakira Ahmed, the Susanne Feld Hilberry Curatorial Fellow, and this event is supported by the Ruth F. Rattner Endowed Support Fund for the University Art Collection.
-
Ken Mikolowski is a poet, editor and co-counder of The Alternative Press.
Rebecca Kosick is an Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Bristol Poetry Institute at the University of Bristol, England. Her current research examines the intermedia aesthetics of The Alternative Press and will be published in a book through Wayne State University Press in June 2025.
-
-
The Alternative Press, a letterpress publication founded by Ann and Ken Mikolowski in Detroit 1969, emerged amidst a turbulent political, social and cultural climate—the ‘67 Detroit Uprisings, the Vietnam antiwar protests, civil and women’s rights liberation, environmental activism—where an overarching resistance to the establishment flourished. The roots of the press were heavily intertwined to those of the Detroit Artists Workshop—one of the first communities in Detroit where counterculture, revolutionary thought and the avant-garde arts proliferated. In a similar vein, the press was associated with the Cass Corridor art movement as well, whose art, though considered apolitical, reflected the tumultuous spirit of the era. The Alternative Press became the nucleus for this community of young artists, poets, musicians, and revolutionaries, harnessing and amplifying their collective agency through experimentation and collaboration.
As a technology, the letterpress is widely considered to be a tool of democracy, disseminating information to the masses for centuries. An iconic facet of the press, the Mikolowski’s commitment to letterpress printing created distinctive and individualistic work in a way that large-scale, capitalist production could not mimic. Their functional and accessible qualities challenged traditional notions of the consumption and exchange of art. The distribution of the material—at first for free and later through subscription mailings akin to the Mail Art movement of the 1960s—reflects their populist and radical approach. Each mailed out issue contained unique small scale artworks and handwriten, one-of-a-kind poems that further defied the conventions of mass media.
Experimentation, community and resistance formed the nexus of The Alternative Press. Through establishing local, national and global networks of creative exchange, The Alternative Press represents an enduring legacy of the power that artists and poets have in transforming society. (text by Jakira Ahmend)
Contact
Laura Makar
er5333@wayne.edu