Latest Book Arts News:
May 2013
|
|
| Current
Headlines: |
|
| • |
Lost Highway 41: Revisited Blues |
• |
Evening CPD Classes and Summer Institute 2013 |
|
|
| • |
Press & Release at Phoenix Brighton, UK |
• |
An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street online gallery |
|
|
| • |
The Blue Notebookl, Volume 7 No 2, April 2013 |
|
|
|
|
| • |
An Inventory of al-Mutanabbi Street - John Rylands Library, Manchester |
|
|
|
|
Lost Highway 41: Revisited Blues
Street Road gallery, Cochranville, PA, USA
Tom is currently exhibiting in a 4-person show, 'Lost Highway 41 Revisited Blues' at Street Road gallery, Cochranville, including the Ed Ruscha inspired bookwork, Some of the Buildings on the Sunset Strip . The exhibition is on until 10th September.
Taking the local Pennsylvania Route 41 as a starting point, this show investigates that most iconic of American icons, the road, presenting interpretations of it from home and abroad.
Artists include: Gerry Harris (Toughkenamon, PA), Tom Sowden (Bristol, UK), Danny Aldred (Winchester, UK), and Egidija Ciricaite (London and Lithuania).
 www.streetroad.org/exhibition-3-lost-highway-41-revisited-blues.html
|
|
|
Press & Release
at Phoenix Brighton, UK
Until 9th June 2013
Sarah has put together a selection of artists’ books
called Bodman’s Dark Humours, as one of the featured
displays in Press & Release. Press & Release is an
oasis for the bleary-eyed, screen-scorched reader. It celebrates
the thriving culture of artists’ books, with a focus
on hand-made and limited editions, and some boundary-breaking
permutations. Ranging from screenprinted, collaged and hand-painted
books to poetry, text and zines, the exhibition offers a glimpse
into the many and varied worlds of book artists.
The centrepiece of the exhibition is a specially designed
installation which invites viewers to engage with the books
and escape the constraints of time. It beckons to our imaginations
and tactile curiosities, and once we are drawn into its labyrinthine
depths we won’t want to leave.
Press & Release is curated by Karin Mori, and exhibition
design is by Ben Thomson. There are events, workshops and
performances going on now until June as part of the exhibition.
Further
information
|
|
|
The
Blue Notebook journal for artists’ books is out this
April! Volume 7 No 2, April 2013
Essays:
A history of alternative publishing
reflecting the evolution of print. An edited extract
from Chapter 2 of a new book by Alessandro
Ludovico, offers an analysis of the strategic use of
print, by avant-garde artistic movements throughout the 20th
century, as well as in the context of the underground press
from the 1950s through the 1980s, and finally in light of
the most recent developments in underground publishing (such
as the production of technically perfect ‘fakes’
made possible through digital technology).
Beth
Williamson in conversation with Helen
Douglas, explores Douglas’s Traquair
House, a bookwork commissioned in 2012 as part of Reflective
Histories: Contemporary Art Interventions at Traquair House.
Responding to the oldest inhabited house in Scotland, and
its contents, this manuscript book echoes the small devotional
books in the library at Traquair. In its dialogue with both
house and reader, this contemporary manuscript calls forth
the histories of the house and the book in a fashion that
reclaims their importance for the twenty-first century.
Emma Powell explores the development
of we love your books - a book arts collaboration that held
its first exhibition in 2005. The article charts the eight
exhibitions that have been held: Meeting in
the Middle; Full Circle / Random Journey; ABC; re: closure;
(e)motive; Crop and minute. This is integrated with
a discussion of the work of twelve book artists who have exhibited
with we love your books. The book-work of Melanie
Bush and Emma Powell, co-founders
of we love your books, is then explored and the article concludes
with a summary and a Call For Entries.
Jim
Butler explores printmaking and the artist's book.
While the rise to prominence of printed multiples opens up
new possibilities, it presents particular problems for the
printmaker, especially those working with non-digital media.
This is due in no small measure to the economics of the artist’s
book. The development of the concept of an original limited
edition print in the late 19th century established an artistic
and economic framework for artist printmakers which is still
largely valid today. The article considers how this framework
might apply to artist printmakers working in book form.
Artists’ pages by: Ellen Golla,
Alexander Mouton, Benedict
Phillips, Aymee Smith and
Daniel Speight.
Cover design by Tom Sowden
Subscribe today!
The journal is published in two formats: an electronic colour
version to be accessed at any time online, and a paper, black
and white version. Subscription covers both formats at £10
GBP per annum including UK or international postage.
|
|
|
An
Inventory of al-Mutanabbi Street
The John Rylands Library, Manchester,
UK
Until 29th July 2013
Book artists from around the world were asked to produce
works which reflected both the strength and fragility of books,
but also showed the endurance of the ideas within them, in
response to the attack on the heart and soul of the Baghdad
literary and intellectual community.
“The project
is both a lament and a commemoration of the singular power
of words. We hope that these books will make visible the literary
bridge that connects us, made of words and images that move
back and forth between the readers in Iraq and ourselves”
- The al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition.
The image here is of StreetView, by
Anna Cox and Kerri
Cushman, 2013
Sarah Bodman,
Angie Butler and Pauline
Lamont-Fisher led a walking tour and readings to commemorate
the 6th anniversary of the bombing of Al-Mutanabbi Street,
on Tuesday 5 March. Artists from the project including Ama
Bolton and Mike Nicholson
also talked about the books they had made for the project.
Martin Wainwright published a review
in The Guardian on the anniversary.
The poet and artist Ama Bolton has
also written about the day on
her blog.
Catherine Cartwright
of Double Elephant Print Workshop,
kindly led a one-day book and rubber stamp workshop in March,
inspired by the works on display in the exhibition.
Build-a-book - Friday
26 April 13.00-16.00 FREE
In this workshop, led by Guy Begbie
of Begbiebook, you will discover how
to make an ingenious concertina-style hardback book which
opens out to display larger pages. This workshop is most suitable
for adults and older teenagers (16+).
The John Rylands Library
150 Deansgate
Manchester
M3 3EH
UK
www.library.manchester.ac.uk/deansgate/
|
|
|
Evening CPD Classes
and Summer Institute 2013
Evening classes are now in full swing and our Summer Institute
classes are open for bookings!
Making Books: Binding, Pages, Covers
and Cuts, led by Angie
Butler runs from 29th April 2013
- 27th May 2013.
This evening course offers an introduction to bookmaking:
by looking at hard copy examples and following step by step
demonstrations covering different techniques - such as simple
pamphlet stitch and Japanese stab bound books, a cut-page
book, making a sculpted case bound cover, to a hard back binding.
Perfect for those who have little or no experience in bookbinding
and artists’ books, or just need a refresher. The course
fee covers all basic materials, tea and coffees. Bookbinding
tools will be provided for use, and are also available to
buy for future work.
The Summer Institute classes are now open for booking - bookbinding,
letterpress, laser cutting, rubber stamps, experimenting,
meeting and discussing. Build your skills with the team and
meet some new friends… more details on the Continuing
Professional Development page.
|
|
|
|
An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi
Street online gallery
As artists’ books produced for the project arrive, we are adding
them to the online archive of gallery pages. The last lot of books
will be handed in at the end of April. The first shows in the tour
of An Inventory Of Al- Mutanabbi Street
are on now: until 29th July 2013, at the John Rylands Library, Manchester,
UK; until 1st May 2013, at the San Francisco Center for the Book,
USA; until 21st June 2013, at Cambridge Arts Council, Cambridge, Massachusetts;
until 30th March 2013, at The Santa Fe University of Art and Design,
Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Center for Book Arts in New York will exhibit
An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street, from 10th July 10 to 14th September
2013.
We have 188 of
the books archived already online.
The book on the right is What’s Been
Lost… What Remains by Annie
Silverman, USA, completed February 2013.
View the books received to
date
For a complete list of exhibitions in the tour to date:
http://www.al-mutanabbistreetstartshere-boston.com/
exhibitions.html
|
|
|
|
