Audio of a conversation between Luca Antonucci @colpapress and @mattborruso discussing David King's work at the recent LA Art Book Fair is now up on YouTube.
Recorded on 5/17/2025 at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena.
David King Publications 1977-2019 at Printed Matter
David King Publications 1977-2019, a conversation with Luca Antonucci and Matt Borruso as part of Printed Matter's LA Art Book Fair
David King Publications 1977-2019 at The San Francisco Center for the Book
Lot's of great press for 'David King Publications 1977-2019' at The San Francisco Center for the Book:
The David King Estate will be at The 2024 SF Art Book Fair, come say hi!
Return of Secret Origins of the Crass Symbol at And Pens
Before it Becomes Words at Et al.
"Luca Antonucci (Colpa Press) and Matt Borruso (Visible Publications) present a short slideshow and discuss David King; the artist, graphic designer, and musician
best known for designing the Crass symbol. This talk coincides with the release of David King Publications 1977-2019, which surveys King's small press publications,
zines, ephemera, and early design projects. Published by Colpa Press and San Francisco Center for the Book (SFCB), the book accompanies an exhibition of the same name
that was on view at SFCB in late 2024 which will travel to Printed Matter in June 2025. Presented by Colpa Press."
Printed Matter is pleased to present David King Publications 1977-2019, the first New York survey show of small press publications, zines, ephemera, paste-ups and
early design projects by English artist, graphic designer and musician David King (1948-2019). The exhibition brings together four decades of the artist's print output,
tracing King's involvement with the no wave and post-punk music scene, his energetic approach to zine making, and later experiments in self-publishing. The exhibition
is curated by Luca Antonucci and Matt Borruso.
On view June 5-August 24, 2025
Opening June 5, 6-8 pm
Discussion June 6, 5:30-7:30 pm - Curators Luca Antonucci and Matt Borruso in conversation with Sukhdev Sandhu
Printed Matter
231 11th Ave, NYC
Hours: Tue-Sat: 11am-7pm, Sun: 11am-6pm
Free and open to the public
Perhaps best known as the creator of the Crass symbol, the iconic cross and two-headed serpent motif he created in 1977, David King was also a core member of the
New York band Arsenal, and later on, the San Francisco-based bands Sleeping Dogs and Brain Rust. His connection to the wider underground music scene was a driving
force for much of his creative work between 1977-1988 as King generated hundreds of show flyers, and created logos, brand identities, and posters for New York and
San Francisco nightclubs. King's work also encompassed a mix of drawing, photography, sculpture, film, video, and radio plays, with his practice moving freely between
these interests and mediums.
The exhibition includes dozens of photocopied and offset zines alongside numerous original paste-ups that King began making after he relocated to San Francisco in 1980.
He produced these cheaply-made zines as a way to move through his graphic design concepts-stapling together a few letter-sized pages with minimal text and juxtaposed
images that he drew from mainstream periodicals like National Geographic and the San Francisco Chronicle. This practice evolved into a robust yet obscure publishing
output that varied widely in subject matter and approach, featuring dystopian science fiction zines indebted to J.G. Ballard (Suburbs of Hell), collaborative works made
using mail art practices (Too Many Zombies; No. One), and projects that reflected the politics and anarcho punk aesthetics of his bands (Sleeping Dogs #1 and #2).
Also on view are a selection of King's self-published idiosyncratic books, which he began to produce in the early 2000s through online print-on-demand services. Published
under his imprint MoST Books (Museum of Small Things), King issued dozens of brief volumes in editions of only a couple copies each, a series of wide-ranging explorations
on topics that included rock formations in early Western films, masked film characters, and comic book heroes. The works drew on his sprawling collections of peculiar objects
and printed materials that he diligently accumulated and photographed, as well as the cut-and-paste scrapbooks that he created over decades. Toward the end of his life, King
grew more involved in small DIY publishing communities, bringing about a wave of book projects that assembled the work he had been creating for decades, but that was far less
known than the Crass symbol. Several publications on his graphic design and photography released through Colpa Press, &Pens, Goteblud, and Gingko Press/ Kill Yr Idols are
included in the exhibition and available for purchase.
Saturday May 17th, 1-2 PM
The Classroom, 950 S. Raymond Ave. Pasadena
Luca Antonucci (Colpa Press) and Matt Borruso (Visible Publications) present a short slideshow and discuss David King; the artist, graphic designer, and musician best known for designing the Crass symbol. This talk coincides with the release
of David King Publications 1977-2019, which surveys King's small press publications, zines, ephemera, and early design projects. Published by Colpa Press and San Francisco Center for the Book (SFCB), the book accompanies an exhibition of the
same name that was on view at SFCB in late 2024 which will travel to Printed Matter in June 2025. Presented by Colpa Press.
LA Art Book Fair
May 15-18, 2025
ArtCenter College of Design
950 S. Raymond Ave
Pasadena CA 91105
San Francisco Center for the Book presents the first-ever survey of artist and graphic designer David King's small press publications, zines, ephemera, and early design projects.
Exhibition dates: Oct. 25-Dec. 22, 2024
Opening reception: Friday, October 25, 2024: 6-8 pm
Curators: Luca Antonucci and Matt Borruso
San Francisco Center for the Book
375 Rhode Island Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
Hours: Wednesdays-Sundays 10 am-5 pm
Free and open to the public
DAVID KING (1948-2019) was an English artist, graphic designer, and musician best known for designing the Crass symbol. His many varied projects encompassed drawing, photography, sculpture, film, video, radio plays, and more. King was a core member of the New York no wave band Arsenal, and later the San Francisco post-punk bands Sleeping Dogs and Brain Rust. He generated hundreds of flyers for these bands and others during the
period of 1977-1988, as well as creating logos, brand identities, and posters for nightclubs like Danceteria, Pravda, and the Peppermint Lounge in New York and the I-Beam in San Francisco.
In the 1980s King made dozens of photocopied and offset zines that often accompanied his music projects. In the early 2000s he began self-publishing highly idiosyncratic short-run books with subjects ranging from his photographs of J.G. Ballard's home to rock formations seen in early Western films. In the later 2000s several books on his graphic design and photography were released through Colpa Press, &Pens, and Gingko Press.
This exhibition and the accompanying book, David King Publications 1977-2019 (co-published by Colpa Press and San Francisco Center for the Book), are supported in part by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
'Crass Artist's Subversive Zine Work Takes Over San Francisco Center for the Book' by Rae Alexandra at KQED
'David King: Publications 1977-2019' by Mark Taylor at SF/ARTS
'David King's Small Press Publications and Zines Celebrated in New Exhibition' at Fine Books and Collections
The 2024 SF Art Book Fair
Presented by Minnesota Street Project Foundation
July 18 - 21, 2024
1150 25th St. / 1275 Minnesota St. / 1201 Minnesota St.
San Francisco, CA 94107
Public Hours:
Preview: Thursday, July 18: 6:00-10:00 pm
Friday, July 19: 11:00 am-6:00 pm
Saturday, July 20: 11:00 am-6:00 pm
Sunday, July 21: 11:00 am-5:00 pm
Opening reception Friday August 11, 2023 from 7:30-9:30 PM
with musical performance by Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe
"In 1977, David King designed this logo for his friend's zine cover and later that same friend's band in Essex, England.
This book playfully explores this iconic symbol and the mind of the man that created it." - from Secret Origins of the Crass Symbol, published in 2013 by & Pens Press.
In the mid 2000s there was a brief controversy over the ownership and origins of the Crass symbol when a London fashion brand used it as part of a clothing line and then
unsuccessfully tried to copyright it. David King (1948 - 2019) knew that over the years the symbol he designed had come to stand not only for the band Crass, but also for
anarchy, peace, freedom, autonomy, DIY ethics, a rejection of church and state, a rejection of the system and, for some, a way of life. It was a symbol that could never be
owned by anyone. It was designed to be easily reproduced, as evidenced by its proliferation on clothing, walls, badges, jewelry, human skin, the bottom of empty swimming pools,
and almost any other surface that would take ink or spray paint. When faced with the suggestion of someone copyrighting or claiming ownership of his design, King decided to
"free the symbol" with humor and color- qualities not always associated with anarcho-punk. His Secret Origins book and related projects expanded the notion of what the symbol
could contain- including, but not limited to, wedges of cheese, extended serpents, the Batman logo, tea and coffee pots, smiley faces, the CND logo and more. Today reinterpretations
and homages have appeared incorporating killer whales, rainbows and air dancers, to name a few. We know King would have loved these variations, and through them his idea continues
to live on.
Return of Secret Origins of the Crass Symbol is an exhibition of King's process. Alongside the hand-lettered ink drawing for the original book's cover, there are five scalpel-cut
stencils thick with layers of spray paint. These stencils were used not only by King, but also by visitors to 2011's Spray Day at San Francisco's Goteblud gallery, where anyone
could apply the designs to clothing, skateboards, toilet seats and anything else they could carry in. Many were later photographed for the book David King Stencils, published by
Gingko Press in 2019. These stencils are the literal origins for many reproductions of the Crass symbol, and they offer a simple diagram for how it all began.
Liam Everett, Laura Figa, Mona Hatoum, David Ireland, David King, Lauren McKeon, Ben Peterson, Leland Rice, Barbara Stauffacher Solomon
Reception: Thursday, March 23, 5 - 8 pm
March 23 - April 22, 2023
1599fdT is super jazzed to announce the opening of Before it Becomes Words, a group exhibition hosted by Et al. Gallery in their Chinatown location as part of their guest
exhibition series called (tentatively) Et al. +. True to the itinerant spirit of 1599fdT, we are very excited to occupy Et al.'s legendary Chinatown space by exhibiting the
works of such an amazing group of artists, fostering emergent intergenerational conversations. The exhibition will also coincide with the 10th anniversary of the funding of
Et al. Chinatown by 1599fdT's founder Facundo Arganaraz alongside Jackie Im and Aaron Harbour back in March of 2013.