Book Launch Encyclopedia Destructica: The Flying Destructicate: Secret Pockets

Book Launch Encyclopedia Destructica
The Flying Destructicate: Secret Pockets


(Pittsburgh, PA) – Encyclopedia Destructica announces the book release The Flying Destructicate: Secret Pockets

The Flying Destructicate is an annual award and book series by Encyclopedia Destructica. This series highlights the work of an outstanding Pittsburgh artist and provides him/her with a unique set of opportunities: A several month "residency" at Encyclopedia Destructica studios, where the Flying Destructicate can use the studios to work in or program events; and a book presenting the work of the Flying Destructicate and whomever s/he would like to include or curate into the project.

The third annual Flying Destructicate has been awarded to Mary Mack Tremonte. Tremonte has hosted several zine and print events as artist-in-residence at the Destructica studio over the past year including displaying her zine collection for public viewing, a Justseeds Collective print show and sale and a zine release and handmade wallpaper show. Tremonte’s Flying Destructicate book is titled Secret Pockets and addresses her long-running concern with secret pockets---transforming spaces, making dens of subculture, vibrancy and true reality that are invisible to the untrained eye. Tremonte says “This interest has grown from my love of punk and zines since my teenage years, tempered by exposure to the autonomous social centers of Germany in my early twenties, through the teens I teach and crucial danceparties I organize now. Particularly, Operation Sappho, a long-running queer lady danceparty that usually takes place in "straight" bars, creating a TQZ (temporary queer zone) for a few hours. It shapes how I organize semi-public secret brunches and house restaurants and speakeasys. It encompasses zines and street art and hanky codes and radio and so many other ways to send a signal in search of like-minded souls, to battle isolation and disconnection.”

Tremonte invited several artists to contribute to the book with a prompt to think about how they shape spaces to make the world they need to live in. Artists featured in Secret Pockets are Jen Cooney, Sarah Evans, Vincent Klopfenstein, Caldwell Linker, Ally Reeves, Shaun Slifer, Leslie Stem, Meredith Stern, Hannah Thompson, Mary Mack Tremonte, Heidi Tucker, Jude Vachon, and Bec Young.

The release event will be held at Space Gallery in Pittsburgh on August 20, 2010 from 6– 9 pm. The event will feature DJ’s Amor Secreto, & D.H.; Mary Mack’s Zine Collection for browsing; performance by Pop Through the Ages Wizards of Sound; a photobooth by Caldwell, and tamales by Heidi & Caleb.

Admission to the release event is free and open to the public. On exhibit at Space Gallery will be “Paper Politics: An International Exhibition of Socially Engaged Printmaking”, a traveling exhibition curated by Josh Macphee and locally coordinated by Mary Mack Tremonte.



Mary is an artist-educator-DJ. She is a member of Justseeds Artists' Cooperative, a decentralized community of artsist who have banded together to both sell their work online and to collaborate with and support each other and social movements. She has recently completed residencies in Providence, RI and Halifax, NS. Mary is a Youth Programs Coordinator at the Andy Warhol Museum and volunteers at Artists Image Resource. She is consumed with printmaking, totally teens, collaboration, communication and the politics of social space, especially the danceparty.

Encyclopedia Destructica is an art-zine inspired from the need to explore and export contemporary arts/culture in a way that’s accessible and easy to engage. These hand-bound issues provide a forum for a primordial dialogue between artists, harvesting themes from sketchbooks and journals. Encyclopedia Destructica hopes to create a community wide awareness of developing work by local artist and writers through the public forum of a zine and the intimate experience of a book. Created and distributed in a DIY fashion, Encyclopedia Destructica promotes this attitude as well as providing support and resources for local artists to create their own book/zine projects.

The Flying Destructicate: Secret Pockets will retail for $20. The publication will be available at www.encyclopediadestructica.com and will be carried at various local bookstores and shops.

For additional information, please contact Jasdeep Khaira and Christopher Kardambikis, Co-Directors and Publishers, at 724-971-7264 or at zine@encyclopediadestructica.com.


...The Pittsburgh Art Blog

The Pittsburgh Art Blog features selected pittsburgh artists and upcoming exhibits with photos from the artists and galleries. since the major press outlets do not go beyond a directory listing of exhibits, blogs are needed to promote pittsburgh artists and their work. the blog also calls attention to the inferiority complex of pittsburgh art and how it's perpetuated by the major players in town. Started on August 20, 2007.pittsburgh area galleries and art venues are listed at the sister site www.PghGalleries.com.the blog and website are volunteer projects from fine art photographer and pittsburgh art advocate rick byerly, www.RickByerly.com.