[11/03/26] Maziar, Paul: Junebug

Understory Books, paperback

Publication Date: November 3, 2026

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Junebug situates Paul Maziar’s latest acts of listening and attending, transmission and transcription. He’s built a modular space suggestive of both the theatre and the gallery, performance and (inter)play. The aphoristic title sequence hones sharp accessibilities — we find words available to us, for our limbs and limbics to hold, hurrumph, to slap our knees and share. A mysterious dramatis personae pervades Junebug’s expanse across the mental maps Maziar graphs as he organizes streets of words and questions what their design might reference. We encounter, among others, Toulouse-Lautrec, Agnes Martin, Eve Hesse, Jack Whitten, Colette, Robert Walser. Who are all these characters in Maziar’s parade? Maybe there’s some insight in the final serial sequence, “Hives,” which states that “The real thing is inside of what everything appears as.” The real in Junebug asks us to admire the distance between the surface and the subject. We already have the right tools. When asked for eight words to describe Junebug, Maziar channeled Agent Cooper: “Everyday, once a day, give yourself a present.” But did he mean the present? Either way, Junebug is a gift.