White Fungus #18
150 x 230 mm, 240 pages
Taiwan
Annual
Published since 2004
Editor-in-chief: Ron Hanson
Art director and designer: Mark Hanson
Chief designer: Johnny Hu
First published in 2004 by brothers Mark and Ron Hanson in New Zealand (as a political zine protesting the construction of a motorway no less), White Fungus has since relocated and evolved into the curious collection of stories on art, cultural history, music and politics that you see today. Each cover features a scan of white fungus—a wild mushroom used in traditional Chinese medicine—sourced from the brothers’ local supermarket.
Issue #18 boasts an 80-page interview with American poet and writer Eileen Myles, a retrospective of Hilma af Klint with an eye to deciphering the occult roots of modern art, and a text on the Chinese conception of hell, accompanied by a photo essay by Yao Jui-Chung. All this alongside a tribute to Dino, a pioneer of Taiwan’s ‘90s noise scene, and an interview with Russian artist and founder of ‘psychedelic realism’ Pavel Pepperstein.