Daryl Haney and Anna Karina 1980
Delancey Street Press (DSP) is a publishing house that concentrates on works of discerning, contemplative dissent that have depth, durability and exceptionality. It is maverick in its approach and is committed to giving voice to contemporary writers, artists and photographers whose work has not entered the mainstream. The principal owners and editors are Mok Wai Wan, who is an architect and a gallery owner; George Porcari, who is a photographer, artist and critic; and D.R. Haney, who has worked in the film industry for over thirty years and has published a novel and a book of essays.
While the press will concentrate on non-fiction and the visual arts, it will remain open to publishing fiction and poetry, especially now when the distinctions between these categories have been slowly eroding over the years, and are, at this point, in a healthy state of haphazard entanglement. Since we are, by design and/or default, “outsiders” we will inevitably be classified as an “outsider” or “renegade” press.
Nevertheless, we don’t wish to provoke for the sake of being provocateurs, in the ingrained fine art tradition, that seeks to establish a “transgressive” identity. We see DSP as nonconformist, toward both the establishment and the radical press – in a sense two sides of the same coin.
Delancey Street is, of course, a street on the Lower East Side of New York City that leads to the Williamsburg Bridge, while the press itself is based in the heart of Los Angeles. In effect the name is a surrogate, a pseudonym, an out-of-frame narrator, a conspirator and a transplanted sign. DSP will hope to engage in a similar sense of play but one that can engage, entertain, and provoke with words and images that are both timely and timeless.