Modern Matter #22
Three individual sections, bound by elastic band:
105 x 190mm, 52 pages
200 x 270mm, 130 pages
300 x 575mm (folded to 145 x 300mm), 16 pages
London, UK
Creative director: Olu Michael Odukoya
‘Does size matter?’
The latest issue of Olu Michael Odukoya’s experimental publication uses three parts—titled Small, Medium and Large—to examine the nature of scale and size.
The first booklet, Small, asks 19 artists, writers and designers for a binary yes/no answer to the issue’s question; the second item, Medium, uses a more traditional glossy magazine format to explore ideas of scale, space and size in more detail. T-shirt sizes, oversized art installations and concepts such as Less is More appear across the pages; and then the Large section unfolds into a mock newspaper titled ‘The Jeff Wall Street Journal’, in which work by the eponymous artist is featured alongside articles with scale-focused headlines: ‘Crypto Rules Grow…’, ‘Changes Reshape…’
The three pieces demonstrate the relevance and meaning of size. At its most simple, the Small booklet feels notebook-like and fleeting, while the Large newspaper expresses authority.
Modern Matters is always fascinating, if sometimes frustrating; it can be difficult to parse precise meaning, but with its abstract outlook on magazine-making it remains a vital and exciting voice in independent publishing, reminding us that a magazine need not be a simple A4 piece of print.
Note: the three items appear slightly different to the image shown)