Two artists: one in LA, one in New York. ANKL creators and friends Nicky Lesser and Ann Greene Kelly collaborated on this zine with three thousand miles between them. By sending a blank template back and forth across the country, the two produced something intimate and distinctly handmade—a rarity in our digital age. OC friend Ryan McGinley then lent Nicky and Ann his studio to assemble the final product. Take a look at their process below to get a feel for the artwork in the original zine, reproduced for sale here. With Nicky on speaker phone, I sat down with Ann in her West Village studio and joined the conversation.
Michael Joerres:Tell me a bit about your backgrounds as artists. How did you two meet?
Ann Greene Kelly: I grew up in New York and ended up going to MICA in Baltimore. My freshman year I saw this group show at the Hirshhorn; it featured Franz West, Rachel Harrison, Sarah Sze, and Isa Genzken. The show really sparked my interest in making objects and the power that they have. I always liked Brancuzi and I met Ryan McGinley when I was in high school—that’s how Nicky and I met, we went on a road trip together. I started using found objects in my sculptures, but have been working with stone, concrete, wood, and other art materials. For work, I assist the artist Matt Keegan.
Nicky Lesser: I’m from Los Angeles, where I am right now. I got into photography when I was in high school; I really fell in love with Francesca Woodman. I moved to New York and started working for Ryan McGinley when I was a freshman at Parsons. I was learning more from him than I was at school! Having his work in my face every day definitely influenced me. I went on to work for Ryan, first as his assistant and then as his editor.
Tell me about the start of ANKL, how did the idea for the zine come about?
NL: We wanted to make something together. Even before the zine, we would send playful stuff back and forth to each other through the mail.
I’m curious about the name…
AK: It stands for Ann Nicky Kelly Lesser. We struggled a lot with titling the zine—it took forever! We liked how it looked and that it was mixing us together.
The two of you work in different mediums.What about your approaches or inspirations allow for this convergence in the zine?
AK: I think we both deal with the female perspective in our work. It was so fun to communicate with your friend—it gave it this real sense of freedom. I don’t feel like there was a lot of finickyness or worrying. The zine is part of our friendship.
NL: We like and respect each other’s work and trusted that we would like the outcome. A lot of the same elements run through the core of our work, even if we go about it in really different ways. For example, the body is prevalent in both my photographs and Ann's sculptures.
Let’s talk more about the content of the zine. What was the conversation you two were having?
AK: There’s definitely not a topic, it was more of a correspondence of images. Receiving the template with whatever the other one had done in it set the tone for the next thing we would add to the book.
NL: Texture is an important aspect of the zine, because of the fact that it is a physical object. Everything was manually added, not printed, so each time we would receive the zine in a package it would be heavier
Michael Joerres:Tell me a bit about your backgrounds as artists. How did you two meet?
Ann Greene Kelly: I grew up in New York and ended up going to MICA in Baltimore. My freshman year I saw this group show at the Hirshhorn; it featured Franz West, Rachel Harrison, Sarah Sze, and Isa Genzken. The show really sparked my interest in making objects and the power that they have. I always liked Brancuzi and I met Ryan McGinley when I was in high school—that’s how Nicky and I met, we went on a road trip together. I started using found objects in my sculptures, but have been working with stone, concrete, wood, and other art materials. For work, I assist the artist Matt Keegan.
Nicky Lesser: I’m from Los Angeles, where I am right now. I got into photography when I was in high school; I really fell in love with Francesca Woodman. I moved to New York and started working for Ryan McGinley when I was a freshman at Parsons. I was learning more from him than I was at school! Having his work in my face every day definitely influenced me. I went on to work for Ryan, first as his assistant and then as his editor.
Tell me about the start of ANKL, how did the idea for the zine come about?
NL: We wanted to make something together. Even before the zine, we would send playful stuff back and forth to each other through the mail.
I’m curious about the name…
AK: It stands for Ann Nicky Kelly Lesser. We struggled a lot with titling the zine—it took forever! We liked how it looked and that it was mixing us together.
The two of you work in different mediums.What about your approaches or inspirations allow for this convergence in the zine?
AK: I think we both deal with the female perspective in our work. It was so fun to communicate with your friend—it gave it this real sense of freedom. I don’t feel like there was a lot of finickyness or worrying. The zine is part of our friendship.
NL: We like and respect each other’s work and trusted that we would like the outcome. A lot of the same elements run through the core of our work, even if we go about it in really different ways. For example, the body is prevalent in both my photographs and Ann's sculptures.
Let’s talk more about the content of the zine. What was the conversation you two were having?
AK: There’s definitely not a topic, it was more of a correspondence of images. Receiving the template with whatever the other one had done in it set the tone for the next thing we would add to the book.
NL: Texture is an important aspect of the zine, because of the fact that it is a physical object. Everything was manually added, not printed, so each time we would receive the zine in a package it would be heavier