Fontainebleau
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9.5cm x 11.5cm
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I bought this little lovely on my big ol’ Sticky Institute distro last year. It was a zine that forced me to face my attraction to pretty things, my uncontrollable judgment-by-cover nature, and my unbridled, passtionate affection for 3D glasses.
Yep. That happened. And I even took a selfie. Ugh. I am thoroughly disgusted.
But enough about me.
Fontainebleau – if you hadn’t already guessed – is French. Beyond that, I’m not sure. I took one semester of French when I was a teen, and I can only remember enough to be able to say “My name is Nyx” and “You petite cabbage”.
But, as seems to be my custom with zines I enjoy, I don’t care! I don’t care about not knowing the words because the novelty and experience of the zine is so much fun.
Fontainbleau is printed on lovely glossy paper – something I wholeheartedly approve of for art zines. Its size is odd, but that is no deterrent, as it’s packaged with an A6 piece of thicker board to protect it. The zine, the glasses, and the board are all packaged together in a clear cellophane bag. I felt a bit like a child opening it and looking forward to my ‘toy’ 3D glasses that came with the ‘main’.
Perhaps stretching a metaphor thin, but I’ll move along.
I won’t lie; art is often like poetry to me in that I can appreciate it but am often left with the feeling that it is saying something that I’m not understanding. The pleasantly strange images are a curiosity to the normal gaze. That surrealism (not using the art term, just picking the word) takes on a whole new level when you slip the red and blue glasses.
There’s a quote in the beginning that starts with the line ‘Under the water’. Those words repeated in my mind as I looked at the pictures with the glasses on. Everything seemed suspended in a strange world…
If you don’t like art zines, then not even the novelty of 3D glasses is going to make this any more appealing. If you do, however, why not take it a bit further and make some popcorn as well.
**If you know anything more about this zine, feel free to contact me. I’ve done sweet little research with my swamped schedule, if I’m to be honest, and I would appreciate any factual tidbits.