Proteotypes came into being as the publishing arm of Proteus Gowanus, a collaborative interdisciplinary gallery and reading room in the Gowanus district of Brooklyn. The gallery was dedicated to the assembling of apparently incongruous ideas and forms to construct surprising and meaningful compounds and dialogues. Proteotypes sought to give the gallery’s mission a kind of permanency with the creation of books, exploring the exhibitions’ ideas while evading the obvious genre of the exhibition catalogue.
Proteotypes’ original mission — to extend some of what happened at Proteus Gowanus — themed shows of artwork, satellite exhibits, archival material, events, and workshops — into the field of printed matter — had to evolve when the gallery closed in 2015. At about the same time personal circumstances made it necessary to put the press on hold. We look forward to returning to work in the future, although we cannot say exactly when.
Many of the books and pamphlets issued by Proteotypes were printed in house, as extensions of the Writhing Society, a salon for constrained writing practices. This salon still meets at intervals at the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library.
The original collaborators’ interests were very diverse; they included but were not limited to the literary. Instead they come about organically as collaborators bring in new ideas, and this has already happened several times. Proteotypes does not accept manuscript submissions as such, but if you have an idea for a collaboration and are willing to develop it for presentation through Proteotypes, please address those ideas to either Wendy Walker () or Tom La Farge ().