Invitation

May 11, 2002


Dear Friend,

September 11th is my Birthday, but to celebrate it this year will be a double effort. So to mark and reclaim the date, I am publishing a tabloid newspaper and organizing a party.

Everyone I know is invited to contribute articles and images to this. Gavin Brown in New York and Cornelia Grassi in London are the publishers, and I am the editor, with the policy of printing ANYTHING you send me, in the manner of accepting a gift and to simply celebrate that we are around still working.

I am not looking for any rehash of what the media has produced and served us, but for stuff that fell through the cracks or took off on its own: The personal, the strange and the beautiful, changing, maybe not, our lives this past year.

Stories can come in any form, and on any subject you see fit, not to be addressed to me, but as in a real paper, to the world. Texts of 1–500 words, b/w drawings and photographs are welcome, everything to be arbitrarily combined and set in a tabloid newspaper format. Think: The Daily News with columns, notices, ads, local and international letters, gossip, classifieds (see categories in any newspaper), news and reviews, lots of pictures and with a headline that reads: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

An average newspaper of this size consists of about 250 items and I have asked 120 people to contribute, so you can send more things than one. The edition of the paper will be 1,000. All contributors will receive a copy and the reminder will be sold in the respective galleries to pay for production.

The release / birthday party will take place at Gavin Brown’s enterprise, NYC, on September 11, 8pm, by invitation only. This will be a potluck dinner with open mike, so we ask everyone to bring food, things to say and entertainment. Drinks are courtesy of the gallery. All contributors to the newspaper will be welcome.

It would be really great to receive something from you and to see you at the party if you are in town. All contributions should preferably come via e-mail: birthdaypaper11@hotmail.com, the earlier the better of course. The deadline is August 11.

Feel free to forward this mail.

Greetings!

Aleksandra Mir, Editor
Gavin Brown's enterprise, NYC & Greengrassi gallery, London, Publishers