White Fungus is an art magazine based in Taichung City, Taiwan. Founded by brothers Ron and Mark Hanson in Wellington, in 2004, as a quasi political manifesto, copies of the first issue were produced on a photocopier, wrapped in Christmas paper and hurled anonymously through the entrances of businesses throughout the city. The name of the publication comes from a can of “white fungus” the Hansons found in their local supermarket in the industrial zone of Taichung City, Taiwan in 2003. Each cover of White Fungus is derived from a scan of the can. Dispersed through the internet and inter-disciplinary art events, White Fungus is as much an experiment in distribution and dissemination as it is in art publishing.
The 12th issue of White Fungus is 162 pages of concentrated art. It includes an in-depth interview with Carolee Schneemann, accompanied by artworks spanning her career. It has interviews with the Taipei artist Yao Jui-chung, Beijing noise artist Yan Jun and New York composer Annea Lockwood, discussing her composition ‘In Our Name’, built around excerpts of poetry written by prisoners while incarcerated without trial at Guantanamo Bay.
The issue features a history article about nuclear testing in the Pacific leading up to the Rainbow Warrior bombing by the French Government. There are articles on the artists Chen Chieh-jen (Taipei), Simon Denny (Berlin) and Tao Wells (Nelson), and the New York composers Pauline Oliveros and David First, plus a history of Taiwanese electronic music by Jeph Lo.
There are paintings by Robin Williams, profiles of the Brooklyn artist-run space Cinders and the independent Taiwan gallery Z, and poems by Jumah al Dossari, Anne Fiero and Colin James. There is a review of Tiqqun’s This is Not a Program and Introduction to Civil War, recently republished by Semiotex(e), new commissioned comics by Tim Bollinger and Barry Linton, plus an article, ‘Anarchy and Art’, by Richard Livermore, which challenges evolutionary models of thinking and orthodox Marxist revolutionary thought.
Also it comes with a CD including live recordings of the New Zealand artists Our Love Will Destroy the World (Campbell Kneale) and David Watson with Sean Meehan from an event White Fungus held in 2010 in New York at the gallery P.P.O.W.
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