THE FEUILLETON: I WILL BEAR WITNESS
A project by Jo Melvin
83 min, color, sound
The strategic use of ‘piggy-backing’ within journals or magazines has a rich historical context. This is known as the ‘feuilleton’, popularised first by the symbolists and re-activated by so-called conceptual artists in the 1960s and 1970s.
Seth Siegelaub set a precedent for the exhibition’s existence as document only, in his 1970 magazine Studio International. The initial approach Siegelaub wanted to was to us the magazine as a vehicle to ‘piggy-back ’ via the insertion of a separate pamphlet. Typically, the Feuilleton proclaims political, social messages with a clear ideological position in unexpected places.
The Feuilleton: I Will Bear Witness is a project founded by Jo Melvin beginning in the Edicola Spoleto to create a platform for new radical interpretations of the palimpsest. The MACRO – Museum for Contemporary Art of Rome spaces provide an extended platform for performances, sounds, artists books, posters and other interventions made for the EDICOLA.