Global Track is our weekly street art column by Rhiannon Platt.
Already sold out, New York-Based Carnage recently partnered with Cash4 and Smells on an edition of forty-three zines, with each copy a unique variant. Run by Ray Mock, the pairing brings raw aesthetic of writing with the seamless high production value associate with Carnage. Inside, hand silkscreens, original notebook pages, stickers, and photos touch on every medium that the writers enact in the streets. The documents from the artist’s studio makes each copy original and worth well more than the fifteen dollars charged by Carnage. For those who missed out on the Cash4/Smells collaboration with Carnage, Mock has recently released some equally entrancing publications, including Grilled III, featuring over one hundred doors, and Carnage Issue 7, focusing on the New York and New Jersey scrawls of Mayhem crew.
Cash4 and Smells / Image via Carnage
Cash4 and Smells / Image via Rhiannon Platt
Much like the zine’s creators, the outer surface is gritty and rough, made of sandpaper, but nevertheless entrancing. For each edition, unique variants were created through the use of handmade blackbook pages, stickers, and other ephemera. This article speaks only to what was presented in my edition (but readers feel free to share your pages in the comments). As with the sandpaper, tactility plays an integral role with lined notebook pages interspersed between the matte feel of digitally printed photographs. By combining modes of display ranging from documentation to original works, Cash Four Smells Handmade Zine #2 acts as a scrapbook, giving viewers a glimpse into the people behind the personas. One particularly insightful image shows an anonymous friend standing at a pulpit, plastic cup of beer in hand instead of ceremonial wine, and wearing priestly garb.
Cash4 and Smells / Image via Rhiannon Platt
Prior to seeing the potential of zines as demonstrated through fellow writer EKG as well as Mock, Cash was doubtful of the medium. Laced with his typical blunt cynicism, Cash explains, “Zines were always low functioning in my book, inefficient and hoarder friendly. This zine is a portrait of my obsession with writing and the creative impulse that dictates my life. blah blah bla” Each page shows the obsessive impulse to scrawl on surfaces; pages of writing are piled together as phrases cover the neatly line pages. Readers can watch as different fonts are tested, ostensibly to be later incorporated into his multi-layered paintings. “Tired of a transient life,” “kidney failure,” “americant,” are placed alongside original characters. Bubble letters, cursive, and gridded text all rambled across the pages showing the experimentation that comes from repeated artistic explorations.
Cash4 and Smells / Image via Rhiannon Platt
Through intimate photos paired alongside the trail and error seen in sketchbook pages, Cash4 and Smells release with Carnage zines provides a look into the lives of writers often only afforded to their friends. In a scene that, for obvious legal reasons, is founded on the secrecy of identities, the limited run and variations in Cash Four Smells Handmade Zine #2 preserves this ideology. The photographs allow all readers to experience some of the antics behind two of New York’s most notorious names. Busted hands, blasphemy, progress shots, and photocopied pages outlines the path followed by the duo and their friends to claim desired spots. By accompanying these digital prints with hand-drawn ephemera, the publication develops every facet of their illusive personas. For a few of those who grabbed a copy, the crew encourages readers to fill blank pages with their own experiences, allowing them to become a part of the adventure.
Cash4 and Smells / Image via Rhiannon Platt
Cash4 and Smells / Image via Carnage
