WET

Ongoing set of 30 issues missing only no 17 (from the total of 34 published) of this amazing California lifestyle magazine. Edited by Leonard Koren, the central topic was WATER and the art and delights of bathing: amazing colourful covers, abundant photographic illustrations and numerous advertisements made of this periodical a unique trendy/glossy/erotic publication: "Gourmet Bathing is a means for enjoying the world...It's a parody of all other enthusiasms...Then again, Gourmet Bathing is the willingness to be silly." (Charlie Haas). Wet broadened the definition of bathing to include other water-related phenomena such as hot tubs, drinking water ("bathing from the inside"), and waterbeds. Gradually the magazine grew to encompass "gourmet bathing" in a metaphorical sense: an eclectic lifestyle grounded in the boundless appreciation of absurdity. Always around the central topic 'gourmet bathing' the content is of a highly varied nature, with features and contributions on and by: Mud Mama. Interview with Rabyn Blake; Athena Tacha (The process of Aging & several other contribs.); Jack Nicholson; Ed Ruscha;Jane Gaskill (Bathroom Bondage); Bob & Bob; Henry Miller (On turning eighty); Priscilala Presley; Mick Jagger;Anthony Friedkin; Brian Hagiwara; Cheryl Lester; Linda Burnham; Timothy Leary; Candice Berger; Leonard Cohen; Iggy Pop; William Burroughs; Captain Beefheart; Brian Eno; Dennis Cooper (John Kennedy jr. Poems); David Hockney; Elvis Costello, etc.etc.; Contributing photographers included Eric Blum, Moshe Brakha, Guy Fery, Jim Ganzer, Brian Hagiwara, Brian Leatart, Jacques-Henri Latrigue, Dana Levy, Claude Mougin, Beverly Parker, Lisa Powers, Herb Ritts, Matthew Rolston, Raul Vega, Guy Webster, and Penny Wolin. Fine set of this highly desirable magazine, of which without doubt not many survived. (see: Gwen Allen -Artists’Magazines. An alternative space for art, p. 310; Koren: Making Water 2012)