 |
Book Arts |
Order your copy of the Artist’s Book Yearbook 2024-2025. 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 2024-2025 issue has 10 essays, articles, and lots of useful information on: Artist’s Book Publishers & Presses; Bookshops for artists’ books; Artist’s Book Dealers; Artist’s Book Galleries & Centres; Collections, Libraries & Archives; Artist’s Book Fairs and Events; Book Arts Courses and Workshops; Design, Print & Bind; Print Studios; Journals and Magazines; New Reference Publications; Organisations, People, Projects and Societies.
150+ national and international artists have also listed up to 3 of their recent book works.
Edited by Sarah Bodman. Published by Impact Press at The Centre for Print Research, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. Published January 2024. 296pp, 21 x 29.7 cm, black and white throughout.
Order your copy via our online store – prices include:
UK postage here.
International postage here. Thank you
Image – Detail of the AI cover design for the ABYB 2024-2025 requested by Tom Sowden.
Bower Ashton Library, UWE Bristol, UK, 4th September – 31st October 2024.
Sarah Bodman: For UWE’s Postgraduate Symposium Proof! 2024, I made a short video inviting students, staff and interested parties to join me in making small artworks for an exhibition EXERCISES FOR ALL at Bower Ashton Library, UWE Bristol this September. This was in response to Kurt Johannessen’s artist’s book EXERCISES and its subsequent iterations.
Tanya Peixoto introduced me to Kurt Johannessen’s artists’ books at bookartbookshop in London in 2002. Much of his work is instructional and I have used his seminal book EXERCISES many times as inspiration for my own work.
In 2010 I produced ‘An Exercise for Kurt Johannessen’ responding to one of his exercises: ‘write 100 stories and bury them in a forest’, which I did. The titles of the 100 short stories I wrote and buried for my exercise were taken up (in 2011 by BookArtObject an international book arts group founded by artist Sara Bowen. 100 artists each made a book in response to one of my short story titles, and these were completed and exhibited in 2012.
For the 10th anniversary of bookartbookshop in 2012, celebrations were based on theme of: x or what is to be done? I asked Kurt Johannessen if I could select a further 10 (x) exercises from his artist’s book to carry out. The result was ‘X Exercises for Kurt Johannessen’, published as a free download, DIY self-assembly book on 21.02.2012. The exercises can be identified through reading the texts in Kurt Johannessen’s EXERCISES.
Today I am still learning through EXERCISES, and Kurt Johannessen has produced more editions in the series that you can see on his website.
Contributors were invited to dip into one of Kurt’s Exercises and make a small creative response to it. We are exhibiting all the works here in the library over September – October 2024.
Image: Detail from X Exercises for Kurt Johannessen by Sarah Bodman.
WBN United Artists invite you to read The Overstory by Richard Powers and make a piece of work in response to the book for an exhibition and mail art swap.
What would you say to the trees? What are they saying to you? Is there a tree nearby that you want to send a message to or one you admire from afar?
You can make a text or image (or both) contribution, it can be anything that can be posted*, no larger than A5 size. It might be a postcard written to your favourite tree or a message that a tree has told you or a drawing of it. It could also be a print, painting, a little book, pamphlet, piece of writing, etc. It’s up to you. Your artwork will be shown in an exhibition at Bower Ashton Library, UWE Bristol, UK from April – June 2025, featured in an online gallery on Instagram and shared publicly.
All artworks will be swapped so you won’t get yours back – instead you will receive another artist’s work plus a special WBN keepsake letterpress printed by Rachel Marsh | Semple Press next year for WBN 2025.
Deadline: Weds 5th March 2025. Download the brief with full instructions and more suggested reading / listening here.
Find out more about our past World Book Nights in the video ‘What We Do in the Shadows: bringing book arts into World Book Night’ here.
Image: A quote from The Overstory, letterpress printed by Rachel Marsh, 2023.
For World Book Night 2024 – In Praise of Birds, WBN United Artists invited participation through reading and responding to a text or book about birds and sending us a postcard about it. 200+ artists responded to our call, with 250 postcards winging their way to UWE from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, UK and USA.
Now that the exhibition has ended at Bower Ashton Library the postcards and keepsakes by Stephen Fowler have been posted out to participants. Printout posters showing of all the 250 postcards will soon be on display at the Learning Resources Centre, Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI), 1st September – 31st October 2024. Many thanks to Jessica Ho for organising this exhibition at HKDI.
Image: Detail from two collaborative postcards by Tamar MacLellan & Philippa Wood influenced by two books: A Collection of Proverbs and Popular Sayings Relating to the Seasons, the Weather, and Agricultural Pursuits, M. A. Denham, published by The Percy Society, London, 1846. ‘Early Bird’ from Where the Sidewalk Ends, S. Silverstein, Particular Books, London, 2010.
5th – 11th September 2024
We very much hope you can join us for our MA Showcase 2024, a celebration of the work and achievements of graduating students from the following courses:
MA Design
MA Graphic Arts
MA Multidisciplinary Printmaking
MA Multdisciplinary Printmaking at UWE Bristol is best known for its experimental, forward-thinking approach to printmaking today and the future of the printed artefact. With a focus on making, students can explore and experiment with traditional and emerging fine art printmaking media and develop ideas through a range of 2D and 3D processes.
Our students come from diverse backgrounds to work in the studios of a professional, well-connected, research-active environment with support from highly regarded master printers, practicing artists and researchers.
Opening Evening – 5th Sept 2024 – 5pm to 8pm, degree show continues until 11th September. Come along and visit. Venue: UWE Fine Art Studio, Spike Island, Cumberland Road, Bristol, BS1 6UX.
Image: Detail from I feel like I’m watching a film of my own life (Etching, monotype and collagraph) bookwork by Brie Barnacle.
This touring exhibition is 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. The gallery pages show images and information for each of the 260 books completed for the project.
Exhibitions held 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; Rosenberg Library at the City College of San Francisco, USA; Konstlitografiska museet, Helliden, Sweden; Hatcher Library, University of Michigan, USA; UC Santa Barbara Library, California, USA.
The image shown here is a detail from Empty Shelf by Lucy Baxandall, UK. You can find out more about the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here project on the LAAF Festival website.
