Sherborne House, Dorset The Reading Room 3rd April - 2nd May 2004 As part of the Timeline project, which has been running for a year at Sherborne House, this exhibition will include a specially made artist’s book created for Sherborne House by Kate Farley and Wes White. The artist’s book has a background steeped in the historical traditions of book making: illuminated manuscripts, Islamic books, Japanese and Chinese scroll books and hieroglyphics, are all based on using narrative and images as a means of conveying a message. 
 More recently, the artist’s book has emerged from the European fine press tradition of the French Livre d’Artiste style of publishing. These books took the format of beautifully produced editions for bibliophile collectors and matched famous artists and writers of the time. In the 1970’s the artist’s book became a revolutionary artwork as many artists began to print and publish their own editions, to escape the ‘high art commerce’ of gallery circuits. 
 The artists’ books on show in this reading room have all evolved from various strands of those historical precedents into a contemporary art form combining both traditional print and new media. They have been constructed as portable artworks, often containing images and/or text that work within a narrative structure. The artist’s book is now an established art form, encouraging the viewer to engage with the artwork on an individual basis. Presenting these works in a reading room situation will offer visitors an opportunity to pull up a chair and spend some time enjoying some examples of art in the guise of a book. Sherborne House Newland Sherborne Dorset DT9 3JG 01935 816426 www.sherbornehouse.org.uk |
School of Art, Media and Design, UWE Bristol:
2nd March – 4th April 2004
A selection of works from The 9th Wexford Artist’s Book Exhibition
A selection of artists’ books from the 9th Wexford Artist’s Book Exhibition, an eclectic gathering of artists’ books at Wexford Arts Centre, Eire. Organised each year by Andi McGarry (of Sun Moon and Stars Press) and Denis Collins as an open submission exhibition, the accent is on user-friendliness - so the books are handled by the public. The show usually tours to a range of venues and is alternatively an International and National exhibition to allow a bi-annual promotion of indigenous growth to take place.
The 9th Wexford Artist’s Book Exhibition (International) at Wexford Arts Centre is truly a who’s who of international artist’s book makers from 30 countries including over 70 Irish artists and very strong contingents from; Italy and the USA. Other countries represented include; Egypt, Japan, Australia, Finland, Israel, China, Canada, France, Spain, Denmark, Greece, Brazil, Poland, Switzerland, Germany, Russia, Turkey, Portugal, Sweden, Belgium, Bulgaria and Hungary. Each autumn they descend on Wexford in their hundreds - migrant starlings, ready for an eager public to descend upon them!
Purchases are made from the exhibition every year for the growing Wexford Artist’s Book Collection and used for further artist’s book: exhibitions, promotion and education. The Wexford Artist’s Book Collection now has more than 250 books selected by jury over the last ten years and all the books are available to be handled by the public. The Collection is used for exhibitions, tours, and general artist’s book promotions and has travelled to a variety of places including New Orleans, Paris, Uist and Poland.
Visit www.wexfordartscentre.ie for more information on the collection and exhibition series.
| Exhibition in the Artists' Books Study
Area at the Library School of Art, Media and Design, UWE Bristol: 25th January - 29th February 2004 Les Coleman Books, Pamphlets and Printed Ephemera With the overriding move to break with traditional, medium led art practice in the fifties and sixties, some artists saw publishing as a flexible and viable alternative for the exploration of ideas. At the same time it provided an opportunity to erode notions of the exclusive, individual artwork setting up a platform for work to reach a wider audience beyond the confines of the gallery system. Self-publishing in particular allowed artists to take full control of content, production and distribution. What started out as a loose political stance for Swiss artist Dieter Roth (1930-1998) with his handmade books, George Maciunas (1931-1978) and the printed ephemera of those artists associated with Fluxus and Dick Higgins (1938-1998), Something Else Press publications had a doubled edge objective. Both to broaden culture while simultaneously infiltrating a broader culture. Within the last thirty years this situation has changed considerably. As interest has increased in artists’ books so has the institutionalised setting up of specialist courses for their study creating a vogue, rather like public art, for practice rather than serving any real purpose. It is as if the initial raison d’ étre for the activity, which was essentially avant-garde, has been undermined through recognition and approval causing practice to become increasingly insignificant. 
 My own preference within publishing is the production of items, however ephemeral, where aesthetics are controlled by economics making content available at low cost. The printing and binding of lavish books in limited quantities and sold primarily to collectors and libraries is not a concern of mine. In many ways I see it as a disservice to publishing where exclusivity operates to deny my own wish to proliferate ideas. My first book 'The Jewish Banana' (Number Nineteen, 1973) is a collection of absurd drawings on the theme of male and female genitalia. In all respects it is a regular book with a content that would have offended most, if not all, mainstream publishers. At the time the term artists’ books was not part of my vocabulary. Since then I have published another fourteen books, numerous ephemeral items and contributed material to journals and magazines. Two titles 'Bookmark' (In House Publishing, 1988), with Charlie Holmes, and 'Glue' (In House Publishing, 2002) play self-consciously with the format of a book and their self-referential nature would, to my mind, classify them as artists’ books i.e. those ideas that are dependent of being realised as books. '180 grammes' (In House Publishing, 1989), a collection of notebook jottings, takes it title from the book’s physical weight. With 'My Right Hand' (White Lies Publications, 1982) is a series of drawings of small domestic items drawn with my right hand. I am left-handed and the drawings were produced in roughly one hour. The book, designed by Steve Wheatley closely mimics a Silverline school exercise book of the period, complete with a list of metric tables on the back cover. But in the main I use books as repositories for ideas often when there is a theme involved as with my collections of aphorisms 'Unthoughts' (Ink Sculptors, 1992), 'Unthinking' (Littlewood Arc, 1993) and 'Unthunk' (Errata, 2002). My association with Simon Cutts and Coracle Press began in 1977 and continues to the present. Coracle Press set up in 1975 was in a parade of shops on Camberwell New Road in South London. The small gallery had the appearance of being geographically misplaced but it was much more than a gallery once you entered. First and foremost Simon, who set up Coracle, was, and continues to be, an active poet and publisher. Coracle had its own press and guillotine with access to further printers and binding within the locality. This resulted in every exhibition having its own idiosyncratic invitation with most shows having an accompanying publication. On the occasion of ‘England v Italy’, my second show at Coracle Press, Simon published 'Kinds of Clouds' (Coracle Press, 1981). It was launched at the opening attached to helium filled balloons bearing details of the exhibition. Coracle Press was a meeting place, an open house to artists and the like-minded. If you visited you could easily find yourself collating books for the afternoon or stuffing envelopes with invitations and ending up staying for a meal in the evening. There was even a badge which stated ‘I collated a book at Coracle Press ’. It was through Simon that I got to know Brian Lane who earlier had run Gallery Number Ten in Blackheath. Brian, who lived in Wyndham Road round the corner from Coracle Press was always giving practical support to the activities of the gallery and its publishing programme. In 1986 Brian was responsible, with assistance from Simon and myself, for organising ‘The Artist Publisher’, an exhibition that went on at the Crafts Council Gallery in Waterloo Place, London SW1. The catalogue, which Brian edited, is an invaluable reference work examining the notion of artists’ publications in the widest possible sense while at the same time tracing the historical precedents that led to artists’ books. Brian died in 1999. A book commemorating his life and work 'The Printed Performance' (RGAP, 2000) gives an insight to his unique contribution to small-press publishing. Charlie Holmes and I set up In House Publishing in 1989 on the understanding that we would only publish our own work. Our assets amount to a few ISBN numbers. 2004 |
A Masterclass for Artists
presented by Dr Douglas Holleley, author of 'Digital Book Design and Publishing'
Monday 9th - Friday 13th February 2004
Contrary to futurists’ predictions that computer culture would mark the demise of the book, electronic technologies, by changing the way books are produced and distributed, are creating a renaissance in book culture. At least as significant to print publishing as Gutenberg’s moveable type in its time, electronic, or desktop, publishing has brought the tools of book production to anyone who owns or has access to a personal computer. Add a scanner and printer, page layout and image processing programs and you have, at your desktop, a means to work with typography, images and page design undreamed of fifteen years ago.
This Masterclass covers all the essentials of digital bookmaking for photographers, artists and designers who want to move beyond the manuscript to the page. Based on his years of work as a photographer, artist’s bookmaker and teacher, Douglas Holleley has developed a clear and considered approach to Digital Book Design and Publishing.
Douglas Holleley has run this masterclass at the Maine Photographic Workshop, Rockport, Maine, the International Center for Photography, New York, NY and the Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, New York, U.S.A.
For further information on Douglas Holleley, his recent publications, artists’ books and portfolios please see: www.clarellen.com
For more details of this Masterclass, see this item in full on the Book Arts Events Pages, or by clicking here.
To book a place on this Masterclass, please contact:
The Project Office
Faculty of Art, Media and design
UWE, Bristol
Kennel Lodge Road
Bristol
BS3 2JT
Payment for the full course fees must be received with the completed booking form. Cheques should be made payable to UWE, Bristol.
If the institution or organisation you work for is paying your course fees we can send them an invoice for the fees, we cannot invoice individuals. Payment must be received before the start of the course.
For further enquiries please contact The Project Office:
Tel 0117 32 84810
e-mail: amd.enquiries@uwe.ac.uk
Impact IV
The committee has now approved the joint bid from the Universität der Künste Berlin
and the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan to host Impact IV.
For more information on Impact IV please visit:
https://web.utk.edu/~imprint/
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