KATHY ACKER & SPALDING GRAY — TALKER #5, Giles Bailey, London, 2018

Edited and published by Giles Bailey, London, 2018. Self-published as part of the TALKER interview-zine series. Staple-bound, risograph-printed wrappers and pages; pink and blue duotone throughout; 24 pages; 28 × 18 cm.

Condition: very good; light rubbing and minor handling wear to wrappers, with slight edge and corner softening. Internally clean.

TALKER publishes long-form conversations concerned with the processes and conditions of live practice. Issue #5 returns to an event held at the ICA, London, on 5 February 1987, where Kathy Acker introduced and interviewed Spalding Gray as part of the institution’s In Conversation series.

Gray had recently completed Jonathan Demme’s film adaptation of Swimming to Cambodia. The discussion moves between writing, theatre and autobiographical performance: how material is developed, how spoken language becomes form, and how a life is reorganised for an audience.

A live exchange enters the archive as transcript, then returns three decades later as a self-published edition. Acker appears not as the subject of the publication but as host, reader and interlocutor. Gray’s performance survives through her questions.

The fluorescent two-colour printing places institutional history inside the visual economy of the contemporary zine. Event becomes document. Conversation becomes issue.

Securely packed; tracked UK and international shipping available.