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Book Arts |
This event is one of many 10th Anniversary Readings for al-Mutanabbi Street taking place internationally over 4th and 5th March 2017, from Australia to Iraq, Paris to Quebec.
On March 5th 2007, a car bomb was exploded on al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. Al-Mutanabbi Street is in a mixed Shia-Sunni area. More than 30 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded. Al-Mutanabbi Street, the historic centre of Baghdad bookselling, holds bookstores and outdoor bookstalls, cafes, stationery shops, and even tea and tobacco shops. It has been the heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community. Beau Beausoleil, poet and bookseller – founder of The Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition, has been working since that day in order to establish a dialogue in solidarity with al-Mutanabbi Street.
Our event in Bristol will have readings by Ama Bolton, Angie Butler and others.
A selection of artists’ books and broadsides produced for the project will also be on display. The event will run from 12.30-1.30pm, with a half-hour programme of readings and discussion from 12.45pm – 1.15pm to mark the 10th anniversary of al-Mutanabbi Street.
This event is free, all welcome.
Gallery space (Entrance from Bridewell Street, 1st Floor) The Island, Nelson Street, Bristol, BS1 2LE, UK. We regret that the 1st floor space areas are not accessible to wheelchair users. http://theislandbristol.com/spaces/gallery-space/
Any questions, contact Sarah Bodman:
Download the event poster here.
The image here is of John Bently’s artist’s book made for An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street. More information on the project
Tom is taking up a new full-time position as Head of Design at Bath Spa University from 13th February. Tom will continue to collaborate with bookarts on the biennial BABE event at Arnolfini and remains Art Editor of the Artist’s Book Yearbook and the Blue Notebook. Good luck in your new job Tom!
Save the date: Arnolfini and The Centre for Fine Print Research at the University of the West of England, Bristol, are very pleased to announce the 6th Bristol Artist’s Book Event at Arnolfini, come and celebrate our 10-year anniversary with us!
BABE will take place on Saturday 1st April and Sunday 2nd April 2017 with stands over the ground and first floor galleries and auditorium space of Arnolfini. We are full for exhibitor stand bookings, please do come and visit BABE, we will have a programme of talks, workshops and tours over the weekend!
Wherever you are, World Book Night United Artists invite you to contribute to our World Book Night project for 2017: BOOK ISH NESS. To do so, please read a book about the Loch Ness Monster; it can be of any title your choosing. Once you have read the book and know a little more about the history of the monster, please either:
Of course you are very welcome to do both if you wish. Please send your contributions by wetransfer or similar to and please email Sarah to let her know you are sending them. Deadline: 8th March 2017
We – the World Book Night United Artists – will be heading to Scotland on an expedition in early March 2017. Our search party – led by artist Stephen Fowler will conduct a survey of Loch Ness and record our findings in order to publish a small pamphlet book on our return. Alongside our published ‘research’ we will illustrate the book with photographs of actual sightings sent in by contributors, and compile a visual bibliography of books about the Loch Ness Monster from the fictional book covers.
Our previous ventures for World Book Night have included themed project tributes to Margaret Atwood (Serena Joy), Charles Bukowski (Post Office), Raymond Carver (Some Small, Good Things), Douglas Coupland (Toast: A Night on Weevil Lake), Patricia Highsmith (Dinner and A Rose), Stephen King (Shine On) and Donna Tartt (The Secrets of Metahemeralism). All of these are archived on the exhibitions and events page of our website: http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/exhibitions.html
For 2017, out tribute is to all the weird and wonderful, scientific and practical, believing and sceptical endeavours recorded in publications about the Loch Ness Monster – hence the apt title of BOOK ISH NESS created by Linda Williams.
Stephen Fowler has compiled a list of recommended titles, download it here.
Some links of interest:
http://www.si.edu/encyclopedia_si/nmnh/lochness.htm
http://lochnessmystery.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/books-on-loch-ness-monster_13.htmlAll contributors will receive a copy of the artist’s book and a BOOK ISH NESS badge.
Image credit: The Hugh Gray Photograph (1933) Revisited
We are currently putting the new Autumn-Winter issue together, featuring a plethora of artists’ books articles plus artists’ contributions from Greece, Switzerland and the UK. Volume 11 No 1, will be available from late September. Cover, badge and sticker design BOOK ISH NESS by Linda Williams. For full details and to order, please visit our online store
Bookmarks XIV has contributions by 31 artists from: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, the UK, and the USA. Many thanks to all the artists who have participated this year, and to Ben Scragg for all his help stamping and collating the sets. The bookmarks are out at libraries and galleries in Canada, Cuba, Iceland, the UK and USA until the end of this month. At Bedford Library, you can collect a blank bookmark to decorate and embellish, then hand it in to library staff to swap for an original, limited edition bookmark created by one of the artists. See the bookmarks website for all venue info.
268 pages of artist’s book goodness.
Contents include:
bookartbookshop, Tanya Peixoto celebrates Magnus Irvin; A Parliament of Children by John Bently, asks if now might be the time to establish a publishing house – run by and for children; The material folio by Tim Mosely looks at the material in relation to haptic in artists’ books; Making Space: London Centre for Book Arts reports on all the wonderful developments at LCBA since it launched in 2012, written by its founders Simon Goode and Ira Yonemura; in Fragile Metaphors, John Mulloy considers the complexities of artists’ books by Sioban Piercy; looking back over 39 years of his life ‘with books, among books, for books’, Radosław Nowakowski makes the numbers add up in his essay 3-6-9; it is with sadness that we publish the essay Systems for the page in the work of Maria Lucia Cattani by Paulo Silveira, who writes about the work of his colleague and friend Maria Lucia Cattani (1958-2015), reflecting on her contribution to the field of artists’ books; Collective Investigations – Egidija Čiricaitė, George Cullen and Chris Gibson – have produced a special feature for this edition of the ABYB reflecting on their performative, interactive work in Reading the Book as an Object; Susan Johanknecht & Katharine Meynell have written up a version of their dinner speech presentation from the PAGES Leeds | 18th International Contemporary Artist Book Fair in March 2015. Johanknecht & Meynell’s essay on their collaborative project Poetry of Unknown Words is a particularly absorbing feminising response to Iliadz’s Poesie de mots inconnus; Gustavo Grandal Montero’s extended interview with Stephen Bann – From Cambridge to Brighton: Concrete poetry in Britain, discusses some seminal moments in the history of Concrete poetry in the UK and abroad from 1964, and Bann’s role within it as an organiser, practitioner, critic and editor.
Artists’ pages by: Ian Andrews, Mireille Fauchon, Martha Hellion, Candace Hicks, Danqing Huang, Paul Laidler, Sophie Loss, Angie Waller and Mark Wingrave.
An ever-growing listings section of artists’ books activity, collections, courses, dealers, publishers, galleries, centres, bookshops, libraries, artist-led projects and print studios, fairs, festivals and competitions.
In the Artists’ Books Listings section you can also find 537 examples of new artists’ books, with information about their work sent in by 182 artists in the following countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Norway, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands, the UK and the USA.
Artist’s Book Yearbook 2016-2017. Published by Impact Press at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UWE Bristol, UK. 20th September 2015. 21 x 29.7 cm, 268 pp, b&w litho print throughout, colour cover. Cover design: Tom Sowden.
Next summer we will be moving to a new room on campus. Help us clear our shelves by filling yours up! We have made two bundles available: Two randomly selected back issues of the Artist’s Book Yearbook for a bargain £10 and five randomly selected back issues of The Blue Notebook journal for artists’ books for a bargain £10! Both available on the online store.
This exhibition is on tour as part of the ongoing al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition projects. The online Inventory 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 the Inventory has grown as artists’ books created for the project have arrived. The gallery pages show images and information for each of the 260 books completed for the project.
Exhibitions since the launch of the tour include:
The Westminster Reference Library, Westminster, UK; The Powell Library Rotunda, UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA; Salt & Cedar Letterpress Studio, Detroit, Michigan, USA; The Cambridge Arts Council, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA; The Santa Fe University of Art and Design, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA; The John Rylands Library, Manchester, UK; The San Francisco Center for the Book, San Francisco, California, USA; Gallery Route One, Point Reyes, California USA; the Center for Book Arts, New York in association with Alwan for the Arts, Columbia University Libraries Butler Library, International Print Center New, Poets House, New York, USA; Literary & Philosophical Society Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK; Collins Memorial Library, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington, USA; Curry College, Milton, Massachusetts, USA; American University in Cairo, Egypt; Arab – British Centre, London, UK; The Mosaic Rooms, London, UK; Kate Chappell ’83 Center for Book Arts at the University Of Southern Maine, USA; The Hague Public Library, The Netherlands; Queen Elizabeth II Library, Memorial University, St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada; Jaffe Center for Books Arts, Florida Atlantic University, USA; Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County, Rochester, New York, USA; Goddard College, Vermont, USA; Arab American National Museum, Dearborn/Detroit, Michigan, USA; Idaho Center for the Book in partnership with The Arts and Humanities Institute at Boise State University, USA; George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA; Herron School of Art and Design, The Herron Art Library of IUPUI University library, USA; Keats House and the Iraqi Cultural Centre, London; the Arab American National Museum, Dearborn, USA;
Idaho Center for the Book in partnership with The Arts and Humanities Institute at Boise State University; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here DC 2016 a partnership between George Mason University’s School of Art and George Mason University Libraries, Split This Rock, Smith Center for Healing and the Arts, McLean Project for the Arts, Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at The George Washington University, Busboys and Poets, Georgetown University, Cultural DC, Smithsonian Libraries, Brentwood Arts Exchange, Smithsonian American Art Museum, National Portrait Gallery, Northern Virginia Community College, George Mason University Student Media and Fourth Estate Newspaper.
Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here: Transcendent Hope an exhibition organised by Art Hazelwood and Katherine Connell of the Rosenberg Library is on show until 13th April 2017 at the Madeleine Haas Russell Gallery, Rosenberg Library, City College of San Francisco, USA.
