Public Collectors is founded upon the concern that there are many types of cultural artifacts that public libraries, museums and other institutions and archives either do not collect or do not make freely accessible. Public Collectors asks individuals that have had the luxury to amass, organize, and inventory these materials to help reverse this lack by making their collections public.
This page consists of sample findings and excerpts. It is also an account of the contents of my home and digital files from my camera. If you have suggestions, have a collection you want to share, or are in Chicago and would like to see something in person, please contact me. This blog is intended as a casual, more personal supplement to the main Public Collectors website.
Public Collectors is maintained by Marc Fischer.
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Common tags: Book Cover Design • Chicago • Drawing • Flea Market • Flyers • Illustration • Prison • Records • Religious Tracts • Signage • Zines
I’m still trying to catch up on my Tumblr posting following the trip to Denmark and I’m in the midst of a ton of fresh new work that is limiting my online time. Here is the first post in a set of scans from a pile of cheap 45’s that I picked up at a flea market in Copenhagen. A copy of “Jungle Fever” by the Tornados on Decca Records with a handmade sleeve.
I can haz a book in a thrift store? A book devoted to the bigger varieties of cats, spotted this afternoon in a thrift store in Copenhagen.
A paperback book, Ud Af Satans Gred, by Doreen Irvine, spotted in a Copenhagen thrift store this afternoon.
A homemade folio created for storing 7” records. Spotted this afternoon at a thrift store in Copenhagen.
Spotted yesterday at Accord Records in Copenhagen. Despite the teddy bear’s smile, there is nothing happy looking about this record.
A giant, bright yellow, wooden hand of sex, photographed outside of a shop in Copenhagen earlier today. See also this.
The waxy looking hands belonging to a creepy animatronic sculpture of Robert Wadlow, the world’s tallest man, from the lobby of Copenhagen’s Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum (I didn’t bother paying to go inside).
One of the consequences of being in Copenhagen this week and some of next is that I will miss the Chicago protests against the NATO Summit and the expected displays of endless police power and surveillance. Nonetheless, there is plenty of surveillance in Copenhagen and no shortage of signs announcing that the cameras are always watching. I often photograph the camera alert signs when I travel and see you can see this collection, along with many new photos from Copenhagen and Tingbjerg, here. When observed as a collection, you can see a lot of ideas - some very outdated - about what a video surveillance camera should look like.
I’ll be continuing to post from Denmark this week. Here’s a street poster for the upcoming K-Town Hardcore Fest in Copenhagen. Wish I could still be here for this - Terveet Kädet!
Combination of items not purchased at the flea market in Copenhagen this morning: bouncy-looking baby seat with crash helmet.
I’m in Copenhagen this week because the group I’m a member of, Temporary Services, is doing a project titled MUSIC MOUNTAIN nearby in Tingbjerg. You can check out the details of that here. This morning before meeting up with Brett from Temporary Services for brunch, I checked out a pretty dingy flea market and spotted this - the twin towers of old computers. The only thing I scored at the market were two pretty sweet early 1970s Danish versions of American superhero comics. I’ll post some scans when I return to Chicago.
