The latest issue of BFR is an explosion of colour
Founded in Amsterdam, 2008 by Barbara Frankie Ryan in her teenage bedroom, BFR still has the same motivation: it’s an excuse to bring together work by her friends, and celebrate the things they talk about, in print. The theme for this issue is colour, and the work is presented with a lovely un-stuffiness. A collage of red cars, by Josef Murphy, for example, is accompanied by text that reads less like a caption than an anecdote: “Last year [Josef] found the strangest note on a sun washed Canta that was now a pinky white. The note just said (in Dutch) ‘the sun stole your colour’”.
Interviews are similarly informal. Fred Butler, whose art practise revolves around bleaching her own hair, explains how it started growing up in Essex when her mum introduced her to Nice ‘n’ Easy. Colour is, of course, emotive (red for anger; yellow for openness) and so its a theme that lends itself to an unusually conversational tone.
Every page is a different shade, giving the edges of the paper the look of a particularly bright flp-book. Another design quirk is a pair of golden stickers. It’s a little cutesy, but somehow, no matter how old you are, the urge to peel off a sticker remains strangely irresistible.
