Christopher Wilde
American, b.1972, BS 1995
Lives and works in Los Angeles, California
Text and illustrations by Jordan Zinovich, page design by Christopher Wilde and Jordan Zinovich
Letterpress and linocut
Artichoke Yink Press & Alley Publications, Brooklyn, New York
Printed at Booklyn Artists Alliance
Edition of 130
Wilde is proprietor of Artichoke Yink Press. In 1999, Wilde joined with Mark Wagner and Marshall Weber to found Booklyn Artists’ Alliance in Brooklyn, New York. Booklyn is an artist-run, nonprofit organization that supports artists and bookmakers, and is committed to environmental and social justice. It is a publishing imprint as well as a vendor of artists’ books and artwork, distributing to educational and cultural institutions worldwide.
The son of college professors, Christopher Wilde grew up on the west side of Madison, Wisconsin. When he started his art studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he was primarily interested in painting but also excited about making zines, an offshoot of underground punk culture. He shared his zines with fellow student Mark Wagner, who suggested Wilde take book arts courses with Walter Hamady. The do-it-yourself movement and politics of the 1990s mixed with traditional book arts methods created a hybrid art form of book arts and zines that Wilde embraced. His early books under the Artichoke Yink Press imprint were less polished and more urgent and included elements of collage. After graduating with a BS in 1995, Wilde moved to New York City and began selling his artists’ books, as well as those by other artists with a UW connection, to institutions including the New York Public Library and MOMA. This business morphed into Booklyn Artists Alliance, which he co-founded as a nonprofit dedicated to promoting artists’ books and helping artists who make them. Today Wilde is known for his refined, colorful collages that feature currency from his travels. Of collage, he says, “It’s disparate elements that are brought into some sort of strange new harmony.”
