ISSUE#2
O1 magazine is named after a visa classification for foreign workers, granted by the United States to “individuals with an extraordinary ability in the arts.” The second issue of O1 magazine takes the form of a catalog for an exhibition titled “ISSUE#2” that was open to the public for two weeks at a Chinese mall beneath the Manhattan Bridge in the Two Bridges district of New York City.
This issue of O1 magazine serves as a record of those who travel along so many perpetually shifting spaces and circumstances—some with the O1 visa, some applying for it, some using or seeking alternate methods to stay and make work in the United States.
The design of this issue takes after the proportions of the exhibition space and the color of its walls, and mimics the booming of trains that ran directly above the physical site of the exhibition. This issue also borrows heavily from the classic American typeface Franklin Gothic. From this quintessentially American starting point, two new typefaces were created: “Franklin Gothic Heavy Compressed” and “Franklin Gothic Two Bridges.”
While this issue contains a basic assemblage of titles and descriptions of works in the exhibition, it neither attempts to reproduce these works, nor tries to document the brief event of the exhibition. Laser printed and quickly collated, this issue serves not as a precious end-product, but as a prompt and a preface.
ISSUE#2 features AGWF [KR], Shahrzad Changalvaee [IR], Teto Elsiddique [CA], Moonsick Gang [KR], Suckzoo Han [KR], Del Hardin Hoyle [UK], Qiong Li [CN], Iman Raad [IR], Superficial (Belinda Chen [AU] and Andrew Kupresanin [AU]), and Jayeon Yi [KR].