A Little Magazine Called Mak In the Periphery of the Revolution

The Danish avant-garde magazine Mak contained throughout its short life an extensive discussion on whether or not art could be used as a weapon in the struggle for the new society the counterculture was dreaming about in the late nineteen sixties. Mak was devoted to this question: How can art move from the (aesthetic) periphery to the centre of (political) influence? From 1969–1970 six issues of this little Danish magazine, Mak, were published. Let’s start off with the title of the magazine. What does “mak ” mean? The use of the word “mak ” is not actually explained in the magazine, but in Ordbog over det Danske Sprog (A Dictionary of the Danish Language) the word “mak”, which resembles the word “makværk”, which means “a mess”, is described in the following way: “A disorganized, confused mixture of incoherent things; miserable, bad work”.1 Thus, using the word “mak ” as a title for the magazine seems like quite an ironic gesture, but is in fact also utterly descriptive of the mess, confusion and internal disagreements that occurred between the editors. The word “mak”, however, also resembles the word “gak ” (“crazy”), which fits very well with the more carnivalesque tendencies of the late nineteen sixties, and in certain aspects regarding the layout, parts of the content, etc, Mak was certainly crazy.2 The editorial board of Mak was a mixture of authors and critics that include