Yusuf Hassan developed Ebonics 2023 - work in progress out of a document of compiled printer error messages. As Hassan collected these pages and pages of errors—and although he didn’t understand completely the mechanics of what was taking place—he began to read them as poetry. The artwork is self-reflexive in that it references the limits imposed by its own medium, creating a conceptual depth mirrored by the physical depth of its blank space and raised inks. Ebonics 2023 - work in progress is an exercise in recontextualization through composition, of poetic emergence within enclosure.
This edition was produced on the occasion of the East Village Zine Fair in support of both Printed Matter / St Marks and 8-Ball Community. Printed by Du-Good Press in Brooklyn, NY.
Yusuf Hassan (b.1987, New York) is the founder of BlackMass Publishing. Hassan’s work explores the idea of the book; his reductive technique and meditative approach challenge the physical and poetic boundaries of his materials. canceling the idea of restrictions within his work allows him to analyze it with no limitations, using printed matter as a physical way of expression. Much of Hassan’s success is attributed to his unique ability to express dramatic and emotional content through publications and printmaking. Hassan holds publications in the permanent collection of The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The Langston Hughes Library, The Center for Book Arts , New York Public Library,Thomas J. Watson Library, Queens College (New York) The Houghton Library, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Library Tate Modern (UK), Oxford University, Wellcome Collection (London) and The Whitney Museum Library.
Hassan’s recent exhibitions include Greater New York at MoMA PS1 (2021), Center for Book Arts (2022), and Printed Matter, Inc. (2022). He has held residencies at Center For Book Arts and the Berkeley Carroll School, and spoken as a lecturer and panelist at Columbia University for “Quotidien Acts of Minimalism” (2021), Oxford University(2023), and The New School (2023).
