Dispatches from Berlin - WET Magazine at Udolpho

In 1976, a bizarre, even absurd magazine was born in Los Angeles that would improbably go on to influence an entire generation of designers, artists, filmmakers and more. The magazine was called WET and the theme was gourmet bathing. Leonard Koren was an avant garde artist who focused on bath art, that is photographing people in baths doing weird or interesting things. As a thank you to his subjects, he would throw a party at a Russian-Jewish bathhouse in LA. The idea for WET grew out of these parties and he didn’t even really know what gourmet bathing was, but just knew he wanted an absurdist magazine. He carried this ethos through all 34 issues which ran from 1976-1981. If you wanted to know how to cook fish in bath water or dress for the apocalypse, this was the magazine for you. There was a “serious” side to the magazine however, and Koren worked with countless underground artists of the time and even wound up making household names out of people like David Lynch. Koren maintained complete creative control and his art design of WET has now become a thing of legend. It was so amazingly California new wave that it can never be duplicated. Koren would go on to release a “Making of WET”, which gave some great insight into the magazine’s creation. Berlin bookstore, Udolpho, brilliantly curated a show on WET and I am lucky enough to be in the city during its limited run. I visited the small gallery space near the Tiergarten district and was blown away by all the various issues on display. They are even better in person and I loved all of the local ads of the time too. A true time capsule of art and design and I wish I owned every issue. Will see you on the internet trying to find some to buy! -JRS