About Yuck ’n Yum
Arguably one of Dundee’s most internationally recognised art zines, Yuck ‘n Yum was created in the bedroom of Andrew MacLean in 2007 to showcase the art of his friends. Andrew was later joined by a collective of other artists and zine enthusiasts, including Alexandra Ross, Ben Robinson and Alex Tobin.
In order that the fledgling zine might carve out its own identity, the team decided to invite contributors whose output was of a consistently high quality to have a crack at being cover artist for a whole year. From 2010 to 2013, zine stalwarts Paul Milne, Ross Hamilton Frew, Helen Flanagan and Cos Ahmet each designed four covers, lending that year’s editions their own distinctive style.
The free zine featured collage, photography, poetry, recipes, drawings, reviews, interviews and anything else the contributing artists could dream up. Yuck ’n Yum became a quarterly fixture of the Dundee art calendar and each issue was launched with performances by artists, DJs and musicians, and staged at various venues across Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh.
There has been a vibrant energy to Yuck ’n Yum since its inception. From the start, it was filled with an urge to create, and to amplify others who were creating unconventional work. The very name Yuck ‘n Yum encompasses the dualities they have searched for in their various projects. None of this would exist without the artists – close friends and mysterious strangers alike – to whom they owe the greatest of thanks. If there’s a lesson to be learned here, it must only be to go ahead and force the hand of chance.
The following are the various projects that Cos Ahmet contributed to, with his output to the zine spanning from 2010 to 2013, encompassing his cover artists residency, various artists features, exhibitions and projects, starting with the most recent - Compendium (2008 - 2013) The Complete Works.
Compendium (2008 - 2013)
The long awaited ‘Compendium’, was edited by Morgan Cahn, Ben Robinson and Alex Tobin, and supported by GENERATORprojects, Hannah MacLure Centre, University of Abertay, Dundee, and SOIL Gallery, in Seattle, US. In 2018, on Yuck 'n Yum’s 10th anniversary, ‘Compendium’ celebrated the magazine’s various contributors and cover artists, launching its exhibition and publication launch simultaneously at SOIL Gallery in Seattle, WA (US) and GENERATORprojects in Dundee, Scotland (UK) via a live stream.
Described as Scotland’s soi-disant premier art zines, Yuck ‘n Yum, was published quarterly from 2008 to 2013, and prided itself for championing established and emerging artists through its pages. For the first time ever, every issue has been collected and compiled into one 600+ page volume.
The complete zine is faithfully presented in its original A5 paperback format. Also included are some extras, in the form of the very first lo-fi issues of the zine, some special editions, and some new words from the people we have worked with over the years. Within ‘Compendium’, there is every high, the every low, and every part of Yuck and Yum of those halcyon days, in glorious high-definition black and white.
Yuck ‘n Yum was faithfully nurtured and produced by the excellent YnY Collective in the shape of: Andrew Maclean, Gayle Meikle, Ben Robinson, Alexandra Ross, Alex Tobin, Becca Clark & Morgan Cahn.
Cover Artist Residency
The cover artist of 2013, and for what was to be the final four issues of Yuck ʻn Yum, was the ‘then’ London-based, now Liverpool-based artist, Cos Ahmet. The four covers created by Cos were all collaged treatments of the figure, each cut up, manipulated and sutured in a variety of media, each disarming and all ravishingly beautiful.
Consistent throughout these covers was a treatment of the body as raw material to be built upon and rearranged into new configurations every time, a process described by Cos as ‘mending and re-imagining the unknown through figure, form and self’. Whether the body was scrambled into geometric abstraction, as on the Spring 2013 cover, or dissolved into multiple identities in the amorphous cluster of Winter 2013, the covers all seemed to communicate a desire to overcome separation and communicate across obstructions.
For anyone familiar with his practice, the four covers had a strong consistency that made each one instantly recognisable as a Cos Ahmet artwork. He described his task to me as follows: ‘It seemed apparent to me, that I needed to treat this like a ‘final gathering’ of zines, presented with a visual continuity, generating a cohesive end’.
Also present in these cover images was an intriguing use of materials. Each one seemed variously made up of photographs, computer graphics or fragments of sculpture: The four covers varied, but had an ʻever-presenceʼ of the appropriated or found image, printed and collaged assembled papers, with one issue adorning a hand fabricated treatment, worn like a mask. This variety of textures, when applied to Cosʼs fixation on the human form, resulted in a ʻbox setʼ of covers in a state of perpetual visual flux.
Cos Ahmet’s works not only graced the covers of the final four issues, but were also produced into large posters for one of the zine’s launches, creating an exhibition called ‘Cover Versions’ at The Arches in Glasgow. The images included in the exhibition was made up of the other cover designs that Cos submitted for the Yuck ’n Yum team to consider for the Summer 2013 issue cover. Feeling conflicted, the team decided that for the launch, an exhibition would be staged to showcase all the designs that they liked, along with the cover design they felt fit the mood of that Summer and the issue.
Artists’ Books at DCA
In celebration of Book Week Scotland the Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA) presented a display of books, published ephemera and zines all made by artists. The display drew upon works from a number of sources including work from the Centre for Artists’ Books which is based in the Visual Research Centre in the building. This collection has been built up over many years and comprises books made by artists as part of their practice, rather than books about artists.
Alongside these works the display included rare examples of the landmark ‘multimedia magazine in a box' Aspen featuring work by Andy Warhol, Marshall McLuhan and Dan Graham kindly lent to Dundee Contemporary Arts by Heart Fine Art, Edinburgh. There was also a focus on the Dundee quarterly art zine Yuck’n Yum and the unveiling of new books from DCA’s recent exhibitions programme by Ruth Ewan and Torsten Lauschmann.
Constructing a room installation including a wall collage and a vitrine of their zines to date, the exhibition became a component of Yuck 'n Yum's broader efforts to promote artists' books as a medium for artistic expression beyond the traditional book format. Staying true to the monochrome aesthetic, the magazine was included in Artists’ Books: Book Week Scotland at Dundee Contemporary Arts, where the collective curated a room to include a selection of their contributors, including Cos Ahmet’s various artist features made between 2010 - 2012, before being appointed as their final Cover Artist in Residence the following year.
Yuck ‘n Yum’s zines accompanied other stellar publications and artists including, Andy Warhol, Thomas Hirschhorn, David Shrigley, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Marshall McLuhan, Edwin Morgan, Don Graham, Raymond Pettibon, Pavel Buchler, Phyllis Johnson, as well as fanzines and other smaller zine publications by Cake, Chicks On Speed and Fucked-Up & Photocopied, showcasing the instant art and anarchic, anti-graphic design of punk, concrete poetry, and social commentary of contemporary work from private presses, served up with a pinch of irony, with a side helping of self-deprecation.
Roofraiser - Special Edition Zine
Various events were hosted by the Yuck ’n Yum team – as well as producing a quarterly art zine in a strict monochrome aesthetic – their other projects included special editions such as Cabin:Codex, Inards, and Roofraiser.
Roofraiser was produced in conjunction with Ten Tracks Record X Forest, selecting the work of ten artists to promote the Roofraiser set of concerts and music events. Ten specially curated works of art were printed and posted around the city of Edinburgh.
For Roofraiser’s month of live music, with additional gigs in The Caves and The Store in Edinburgh, the artists selected works were made into posters, flyers, even used on Ten Tracks business cards, as well as providing downloadable cards that served as vouchers to access the 120 tracks of music available from Ten Tracks. At the events, the artists works each had the spot light, being projected at every Roofraiser event and venue. For the artists’ themselves, they each received their very own copies of the special limited edition zines that Yuck ’n Yum produced for the music event, producing 500 in total.
Roofraiser Selected Artists:
Cos Ahmet / Chris Alto Dobson / Steven Fraser / Mike Inglis / Fraser MacDonald / Julie Mailley / Ewan Manson / Paul Milne / Jinny Reading / Sarah Wilmott.
About Forest X Ten Tracks
Forest is one of Edinburgh’s last remaining independent art centres, and became an award-winning Fringe venue - notably for The Forest Fringe. The volunteer-run charity operated their art gallery space ‘Total Kunst’, a theatre, performance and rehearsal spaces, a darkroom, a publishing house, a swap shop, a record label, a hairdresser, and a thriving vegetarian cafe.
Ten Tracks is a unique and innovative record label for the marketing and retail of music, which responds to online music listening culture in a way that has not been achieved by the major music industries back in the mid 2010s, and offered a platform for emerging artists in the thriving music community of Scotland’s central belt.