Archived Book Arts News: December 2014 – January 2015

29th Annual Miniature Print exhibition at Foyles, Bristol

On display until 28th February 2015

Our MA Multidisciplinary Printmaking students, and Print Centre staff have been producing editions of their work for the 29th Annual Miniature Print Exhibition at Foyles Bookshop in Cabot Circus, Bristol.

The show is now on until 28th February 2015, and features 30 prints ranging from screenprints to letterpress editions. All profits from sales of these prints (at just 18 GBP each) go towards the students’ degree show next year.

The show is supported by John Purcell Paper in London, who generously donate all the paper for the printed editions of 60, and Foyles who kindly host the show.

The image here is ‘Current Location’, a beautiful wood engraving by Ben Goodman. Please come along and see the prints in the event space, First floor, Foyles Bookshop, 6 Quakers Friars, Cabot Circus, Bristol, BS1 3BU. http://www.foyles.co.uk/bookstore-bristol

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RUKSSIAN Artists’ Books exhibition

Until 31st January 2015

The touring exhibition "RUKSSIAN Artists’ Books’ was put together to demonstrate the unique and common features of the artist’s book between the two countries. It presents works by artists from the UK and Russia united by national artistic traditions.

The image here is of Argo, by Vasily Vlasov.

This exhibition is the final part of the tour, which has visited Tsaritsyno State Historical, Architectural, Art and Landscape Museum Reserve, Moscow (March – May 2014, with a symposium in April) and the Pavel Kuznetsov Museum, Saratov (August – September 2014).

For more information, visit the exhibitions page FIX LINK.

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Erin K. Schmidt – Lost

Room OC4, UWE Bristol, Bower Ashton, Bristol, UK
Until 31st January 2015

We experience loss in different ways. Loss of expectation, loss of life, loss of love, loss of memory. We mourn loss, question loss and fear loss. We are formed by how loss touches our lives in its many fashions. Each of these books looks at a different idea of loss – how it resides within us, and how we process it.

The image here is of the book Telling Time.

For more information visit the exhibitions page. Monday – Friday 10am-4pm.

Please check before travelling, email: Sarah.Bodman@uwe.ac.uk

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Absence and Presence: A Printmaking Response to the Bombing of Al-Mutanabbi Street, is now on show at the San Francisco Center for the Book

Until 25th January 2015

The al-Mutanabbi Street print project, Absence and Presence, turns to printmakers to further the rallying call first made to letterpress broadside artists and then to book artists. San Francisco Poet and Bookseller Beau Beausoleil initiated these projects to support the people of Al Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad, where a car bomb tore through this ancient booksellers street.

Beau Beausoleil has worked with coordinators from across the US, the UK and Australia, who invited 260 participants. The number is significant as it is twice the number of those killed and injured in the attack of 2007.

The image here is of a drypoint for ‘Absence and Presence’ by Catherine Cartwright, the project’s UK coordinator.

Through this network of artists a widely diverse group of printmakers has been assembled from Europe, the US, the Middle East, Asia and Australia.

For more information visit the SFCB exhibition webpage.

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Save the date! Bristol Artist’s Book Event at Arnolfini

Saturday 11th April and Sunday 12th April 2015
11am – 6pm Saturday and 11am – 5pm Sunday

Arnolfini and The Centre for Fine Print Research at the University of the West of England, Bristol, are very pleased to announce the fifth Bristol Artist’s Book Event at Arnolfini! BABE will take place on Saturday 11th April and Sunday 12th April 2015 with stands over the galleries and auditorium space of Arnolfini.

There will also be workshops, tours of the event, ‘book surgeries’, exhibitions of books and events running over the weekend.

We really hope you can make it and look forward to seeing you!
Sarah, Tom, Phil, Holly and Helen

Arnolfini, 16 Narrow Quay, Bristol BS1 4QA
www.arnolfini.org.uk

#BABE2015

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Advance warning for World Book Night 2015

At last year’s World Book Night event, we somehow selected the book we wanted to make a tribute to the year after in 2015. 23/04/15 we will be making our annual World Book Night tribute to Stephen King’s magnificent horror novel The Shining.

If you would like to contribute to our annual artist’s book and (very) amateur video, please get reading as soon as possible. We invite you to read the book and then create a miniature model of anything from the book (i.e. not something you remember from the film, it has to be from the book) to send to us before the end of March 2015. We will use these models to photograph for an artist’s book and for our usual short video. All contributors will be acknowledged unless they wish to remain anonymous.

Dare you join in? Any questions email Sarah at Sarah.Bodman@uwe.ac.uk

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The Blue Notebook journal for artists’ books Vol 9 No 1

Articles in the new October issue:

• A Place Where Things Meet: Creative and Conceptual Blending by Emma Robertson (Australia)
• After midnight – The workings of the Two a.m. Press by Lisa Wigham (UK)
• Books about nothing by Amir Brito Cadôr (Brazil)
• Futura Has Always Been The Future by Antonio Claudio Carvalho (UK)
• Reading Cabinet by Amador Perez (Brazil)
• Research Residency in Artists’ Books at the Edinburgh College of Art Library by Julie Johnstone (UK)

Artists’ pages by:

Emily McVarish, Nathan Walker and more… Cover, badge and sticker design by Molly Lemon.

Subscribe to both issues in Volume 9 today! £10 GBP including UK or international postage, for Nos 1 and 2. Current issues and back issues information at: blue-notebook or, order directly from the online store.

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ABYB back issues half price!

As the new Artist’s Book Yearbook for 2014-2015 is now available, we are having a bit of a shelf clear out, and are offering all back issues of the Artist’s Book Yearbook that are still in print at half price. Each edition is now £7 or £8, including national or international delivery. Each edition, from 2001 onwards is packed with essays and articles, artists’ interventions and features, and listings of places to see, buy, sell, study and make artists’ books. Grab yourself a bargain and help us make some space!

All available on our online store.

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Bookmarks XII: Infiltrating the Library System 2014

The project is currently at 10 host venues in Australia, Canada, Norway, the UK and USA. Bookmarks XII includes 52 artists from: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, the UK, and the USA. Many thanks to our bookmarks intern Molly Lemon for all her hard work.

Visit the Bookmarks XII website to see the list of venues and to view all the bookmarks online. We hope you enjoy this year’s contributions!

The image here is of a bookmark by Claro Cosco, Canada.

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SketchLook

SketchLook is a collaborative, wide-ranging project between artists at Stephen F. Austin State University (SFA) and beyond. Artists create some of their best work in their sketchbooks, but few ever see them. This is an exhibition exclusively of sketchbooks to give people a chance to see into these private pages. SFA students have created unusual sketchbook forms (not traditional codices!) that open in unique ways, but the books are still entirely blank and ready for another artist to use. Participating artists will fill out the sketchbooks and add them to the growing collection.

This autumn, Sketchlook visits the Centre for Fine Print Research in Bristol, UK. Students and staff are invited to contribute to Sketchlook by completing one of the blank books provided by SFA students or creating their own design. Future stops for Sketchlook include Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls, Texas and Booklyn Gallery, Brooklyn, New York. We provide the books; you provide the looks!

You can view images and find out more about the project at: http://www.sketchlook.org

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Artist’s Book Yearbook 2014-2015 – Available now!

The ABYB is a biennial reference publication focusing on international activity in the field of book arts. It serves as a resource for artists, academics, students, collectors, librarians, dealers, publishers and researchers, in fact anyone interested in artists’ books!

The 2014-2015 issue has essays, interviews, contributions and features on / by: Field Study, Abigail Thomas, Reinhard Grüner, Barbara Tetenbaum, Tanya Peixoto, John Bently, David Jury, Women’s Studio Workshop, Hansjorg Mayer, Gustavo Grandal Montero, Eleanor Brown, Linda Newington, Angie Butler, Nathalia King, Barrie Tullett, Craig Atkinson, David Paton, Pete Kennedy, and more…

Artists’ pages by: Craig Atkinson, Pineapple Falls, Emily McVarish and Nathan Walker. Cover, badge and sticker design by Molly Lemon.

Reference listings include: collections, libraries, archives, bookshops, galleries, centres, design print & bind, publishers, dealers, presses, studios, competitions, fairs, festivals and exhibitions, journals, reference books, organisations, societies, projects, touring programmes and courses. 207 national and international artists have also listed their recent book works.

Published by Impact Press, UWE Bristol, Sept 2013, ISBN 978-1-906501-07-5 £15 (UK) or £16 (International)

Available to order from the online store

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An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street online gallery

The online gallery was launched to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the bombing of al-Mutanabbi Street on 5th March 2012, for which project partners around the world held commemorative readings and events. Since then it has grown as artists’ books created for the project have arrived, and the gallery pages show images and information for each of the 260 books completed for the project.

The project is touring internationally until 2018; it is on show currently at The Eliot D. Pratt Library, Goddard College, Vermont, USA until late October.

You can view a slideshow of the exhibits on show online. The project exhibition moves on to the Frank & Katrina Basile Gallery at the Herron School of Art and Design – The Herron Art Library of IUPUI University library – 31st October – 22nd November 2014.
The Arab British Centre in London hosted the project this year and made a video of the event with: oud playing by Taqasim Music School, poetry reading by Ghareeb Iskandar, a monologue by Hayat Kamille, a spoken word poem by Hala Ali and poetry readings by Ama Bolton and Beau Beausoleil. http://www.arabbritishcentre.org.uk/media/al-mutanabbi-street-starts-video/

The image shown here is from Al-Mutanabbi Street – a vicious circle by Mette-Sofie D. Ambeck, Denmark.

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