Girls Like Us #2 — Issue 2

A secret can be a private space for self-creation – or a shared site of pleasure.

We explore secrets in a plethora of forms and contexts. From layered accounts of mediaeval ecstasy to the unexplored sensory experience of smell. From camouflaged play to queer readings of astrological charts and the hidden history of house music. From a very analog point of view to the outskirts of the internet.

Goswell Road presents Fous Moi La Paix a book of drawings by multidisciplinary artist Vava Dudu. Vava made 37 exclusive drawings for the publication, which launched at Paris Ass Book Fair 2024 at Palais de Tokyo. The drawings are offset with her texts, poems and several images of her iconic clothing and accessories.

"The multidisciplinary artist Vava Dudu refuses to follow convention: she draws and writes poetry, makes clothes and accessories, and builds furniture and guitars. She asserts her position as an outsider in contemporary art by stating that she “prefers extremes to the middle ground.” Her work as an independent stylist goes hand in hand with her activity as a singer in La Chatte, an electro-zouk punk new wave band founded in 2013 with Stéphane Argillet and Nicolas Jorio, aka “Nikolu.” Her underground artistic world, which joyously combines text and image, is expressed through various media.

Vava Dudu was born in 1970 in Paris, where she lives and works."

Text from Lafayette Anticipations website

This publication comprises a series of interviews with contemporary artists, musicians, and writers who are in dialogue with Beirut and Cairo. While not purporting to be an overview of the art scenes in these cities, this book begins to draw a picture of how artists think about what it means to be active in the contexts of these cities. It offers insight into the circumstances that structured these artists’ stories, and the often accidental influences that have shaped how their practices have developed.

Dolce Stil Criollo’s fifth issue, "Extraordinarily Apotropaic," aims to rethink reality in its current ordinary form by discovering and creating charms and rituals for changing it into one where there is less harm. The issue features poems in multiple languages; a map of dreams; a video game-turned-manga; a section that functions as a kineograph; a collaboration with the Huni Kuin people; and more. We also curated a collective project, “Cinema of Hope,” which brings together 11 moving image artists in search of the apotropaic moment, caught on film. 

The cover of our fifth issue features one of five “santinho” inserts. Designed like prayer cards, they contain a collaged portrait of a musical artist (Pivaratu, Pivete Nobre, Iya, Swatch, Devil Gremory) on the recto and the rap lyrics they wrote in response to our theme on the verso.

Contributors include Andrés-Monzón Aguirre, Aykan Safoğlu, Azul Caballero Adams, Belinda Zhawi, Daniel Machado, Daniel Moura, Devil Gremory, Enorê, Esvin Alarcón Lam, Gabriel Massan, Hick Duarte, Itamar Alves, Iya, Jennifer Pérez, Jesse Cohen, Johan Mijail, Juan Pablo Villegas, Kasra Jallilipour, Kent Chan, Keratuma (Mileidy Domicó), Laura Huertas Millán, Lucía Melií, Lucía Reissig & Bernardo Zabalaga, Maria Thereza Alves, Masha Godovannaya, Mayada Ibrahim, Najlaa Eltom, NIna Djekić, Ophelia S. Chan, Pivaratu, Pivete Nobre, Ricardo Pinheiro (Ganso), Roberto Tejada, Sofía Córdova, Sofía Gallisá Muriente, Swatch, Thales Pessoa, and Thiago Martins de Melo.

Languages: Spanish, 
Portuguese, English, Japanese and Arabic

The My Comrade Anthology collects pages from past issues of My Comrade selected by Linda Simpson, printed in a substantial 256-page volume on newsprint.

My Comrade was an underground gay culture zine that set itself apart from the deluge of Xeroxed zines popping up in New York in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Through parody of both mainstream tabloid magazines and the self-serious gay press, a campy and ironic sensibility, and radical left sympathies and sloganeering, My Comrade captured the zeitgeist of the gay downtown scene. Publishing 11 issues between 1987 and 1994, and three issues since, My Comrade documents the last years of underground gay culture before marriage equality and representation at elite levels of American society became the primary drivers of gay politics and aesthetic production. My Comrade was briefly revived from 2004 to 2006, and again on the occasion of the exhibition “My Comrade Magazine: Happy 35th Gay Anniversary” at Howl! in 2022.

Typeface by Bea Schlingelhoff, from the Project "Women against Hitler"

Eric Bell & Kristoffer Frick: Rainbow Rope, 2017 1, Crystal Table (II), 2017 2, 63, Platonic Solid, 2018 64, Kolumne 3, Sara MacKillop: WC2N 4, 10, 15, 24, California Cannabis Legalization 9, Letzte Ausgabe der Spartakusbriefe, Oktober 1918 11, Delia Gonzales 16-21, Cordula Daus 22, Christina Irrgang 25, Eric Ellingsen 26, Hugo Canoilas: L’ô 29, 30, 35-38, Sadie Plant 31, Markus Krottendorfer: aus der Serie TERMINAL, 2017 32, Kate Rich: Feral Trade 39, Julia Knass 44, Walter Hetzer: World Trade Center 1972 46, Lidl, Wiedner Hauptstraße 15, Wien (ehemals Generali Foundation, gebaut 1993-95, Architektur Jabornegg & Pálffy) 50, One Hour and a Half in the Life of Ztscrpt 62-52

A collection of photographs from the archives of the icon of underground and alternative Parisian nights Dora Diamant.

A self-taught photographer, Dora Diamant has left thousands of photos. The Dora Diamant Association, custodian of this archive, and Éditions L'Amazone have joined forces to bring them to life by devoting a series of publications to them. Each volume of the Dora Diamant Archive was created by a different person and is the result of a subjective selection and arrangement specific to its author.

Figurehead of the Parisian underground and queer nights, photographer, DJ, multimedia and polymorphic artist, Dora Diamant was the daughter of Pascal Doury.

Selected by Clara Pacotte and Esmé Planchon.

Following an open call, this is—the very last issue—a collectively-compiled "Erratum", or addendum [if you will] to the twenty-three issues from 2007 until now.

Edited with Paul Abbott, After 8, Alma Sarif, Phil Baber, Daniel Blumberg, Thomas Boutoux, Kristien Van den Brande, Chloe Chignell, Martina Copley, Anthony Elms, Chris Evans, Carolina Festa, Kasper Feyrer, Richard Finlay Fletcher, Ben Green, Mariëtte Groot, Krist Gruijthuijsen, Léa Guillon, Sarah Handley, Gloria Hasnay, Loes Jacobs, Michel Khleifi, Willis Kingery, gerlach en koop, James Goggin, Keira Greene, Léa Guillon, Jacob Lindgren, Kobe Matthijs, Martino Morandi, Zen Nguyen, Alice Notley, Robert M. Ochshorn, Oscar the dog, Willem Oorebeek, David Reinfurt, Scott Rogers, Andrés de Santiago Areizaga, Rosa Sarholz, Clara Schulmann, Andrea di Serego Alighieri, Sabrina Tarasoff, Kristy Trinier, Seymour Wright and Unknown.

F.R.DAVID is a typographical journal, dealing with the organization of reading and writing in contemporary art practices. It was published by de Appel in Amsterdam (2007–2016) and is currently co-published by KW with uh books.