David Reinfurt and Stuart Bailey joined together to create Dexter Sinister, which from Heraldry, literally means right hand side (dexter) and left hand side (sinister). The platform for their lecture was very simple. Reinfurt and Bailey sat at the front with two laptops and showed pictures while reading from a book they had compiled. The book was separated into individual "texts," each of which was discussed in detail. They would usually begin with a passage and then discuss the foundation of their ideas for each of the chapters.
Dexter Sinister is most notable for their magazine, Dot Dot Dot. They have a small basement book shop in the lower East Side of New York City. The main motivation for establishing a bookstore was so that they could have hands on control of distributing their magazine (Dot Dot Dot). At the time, the bookstore only contained issues of Dot Dot Dot and other publications by either Bailey or Reinfurt. Not long after the store opened, the duo realized that the revenue from their in-store sales covered the rent of the space (which was not expected). As a result, they expanded their inventory to include books that closely correlated with their work and books from artists that they may have worked with in the past.
In all of their work, whether it was the texts or the magazine, they had some sort of thread that stitched each project together. This idea was stressed throughout the lecture.
I thought one of the more interesting things that they discussed was about how words preceded graphic forms. This led into a discussion about the Moholy Paintings, which were a set of enamel paintings supposedly created from a conversation over the telephone between Moholy (the artist) and an employee at a sign factory in Berlin.
Other topics included things like Heraldic color coding, the Mickey Mouse Protection Act and Ben Franklin's publishing company. As you can see, most of the topics had some theme about typography or publishing.
The lecture was somewhat abstract. I was confused as to what they were ultimately trying to promote. It was a little bit boring, but they were both very interesting people that have been successful creating their work in a very unique way.
I too was interested in the ways for them words preceded their graphic forms. After taking about 10 or so studio classes at USC, I've come to realize how important it is to have a concept and a specific idea behind the work you want to make before you start making it. But this also could be because I feel like in all the classes I take that I'm expected to have high concepts behind my work. Maybe I'm brainwashed.
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