Zug Magazine
Collecting
issue 1

József Mélyi: About the Spirit of Collecting

Everyone collects something. There are some people who collect frequent-flier miles, others collect stray single gloves. Even if you collect things just for the pleasure of it, the whole collection – just like its items – will always “come in handy” in some situation. For example, they can be turned into a movie or a piece of art like in the above-mentioned cases. However pointless or arbitrary the collection may seem at the first glance, there is always an underlying logic to it. Although Collections begin to take shape according to the collector’s ideas, they tend to gain complete control over the collector in the end. The act of collecting itself forms the basis for many theories and systems. A publication featuring collections also adds new items to these systems. Such a publication presents the reader/viewer with theories of collecting nested in each other, as well as the practice of collecting, primarily in the spirit of conceptual art’s approach. As with all kinds of collections, each photo in a conceptual collection creates a new context, and the combination of pictures generates new contents and associations. In this respect, the publication functions as a meaning-producing machinery that builds new systems from existing collection items and approaches with the purpose of developing a unique, concept-based visual perception.

Published in 2010
16.5 x 23.6 cm
60 pages
Softcover
Color Offset
Edition of 1000

Contributors
Nicole Bachmann, András Bányai, Petra Csizek, Tamás Füredi
András Gálik, Pál Gerber, Bálint Havas, Lobot, József Mélyi
László László Révész, Benjamin Sommerhalder
Miklós Sulyok, Lenke Szilágyi, Little Warsaw

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