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Latest Book Arts News: May 2013

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Current Book Arts Exhibition
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      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


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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


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Press & Release at Phoenix Brighton, UK

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.

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The Blue Notebook journal, Volume 7 No 2, April 2013

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/

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StreetView, by Anna Cox and Kerri Cushman, 2013

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.

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Evening CPD Classes

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

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Archived news
 

What’s Been Lost… What Remains by Annie Silverman, USA