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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.
Frankenstein Press in Bristol’s Summer 2024 exhibition focuses on the significant role of books in shaping culture and personal growth through storytelling. Books serve as timeless conduits for narratives, knowledge, and enlightenment, bridging past, present, and future.
The B for Book exhibition has been curated by Sarah Bodman and Cristian Zuzunage of Frankenstein Press. It shows a selection of artists’ books from Sarah’s archive at the Centre for Print Research, UWE Bristol. The 100+ bookworks on display have been created by national and international artists. Come along and discover works by Ioulia Akhmadeeva (Mexico), Craig Atkinson (UK) Boabooks (Switzerland), Jeremy Dixon (UK), Zenon Fajfer (Poland), Caren Florance (Australia), Gloria Glitzer (Germany), Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison (Australia), Imi Maufe (Norway), Lina Nordenström (Sweden), Otto (France), Sarah Nicholls (USA), Elisabeth Tonnard (the Netherlands), Barrie Tullett (UK), Corinne Welch (UK) and many more…
B for Book also launches the weekend of BABE – Bristol Artist’s Book Event. The exhibition is on from 28th June – 19th July. Private View Friday 28th June: 6pm – 8pm, all welcome. Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th: 10.30am – 5pm.
Frankenstein Press, 31 North Street, Bedminster, Bristol BS3 1EN, UK. For more info and all opening times visit the Frankenstein Press website.
Image: Detail from Cosmic Forces, Stephen Fowler, 2015.
Our World Book Night United Artists’ exhibition is on display at Bower Ashton Library until mid-July 2024.
We received 250+ postcards from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, UK and the USA.
All artworks are being shared publicly over the next few months with exhibitions in Bristol and Hong Kong, and featured on Linda Parr’s Instagram page. Students from HKDI are displaying postcards alongside the main show. Find out more about this year’s exhibition 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: Detail from WBN 2024 postcard by Sam Bryan.
Bristol Artist’s Book Event at Bower Ashton will take place over the weekend of 29th and 30th June 2024.
The first Bristol Artist’s Book Event (BABE) is an international event showcasing artists’ books to the public over a weekend every two years. We have free talks, displays, performances and workshops alongside 100+ exhibitor stands. Since its first outing, BABE has established a great reputation as a relaxed and friendly event to meet and talk to book artists about their work and buy works of art.
We have exhibitors showing works from all over the UK and Ireland, Belgium, France, Germany, Japan, Sweden and the USA and books arriving from Australia, Poland and the USA.
We have a full programme of talks and workshops. Free event. 11am – 5pm each day.
More information including travel and downloadable talks programme can be found here. We hope you can come along!
Image: Detail from ‘Everything is true (po vyšniomis*)’ by Egidija Ciricaite, 2024, a diptych of unscrolled scrolls typewritten on the lightest ino shi paper. *po vyšniomis (Lithuanian) = under the cherry trees.
The theme for this year’s ABC meetings has literally been ‘ABC’. The group has been celebrating letterforms and typographic history in exciting ways, all of which inspired contributions to this collaborative book project. Each participant was given a letter at random to respond to in order to create ABC’s Abecedarium. The book was designed by Ben Jenner and risograph printed at Bricks by Csilla Bíro. ABC held a contributors’ launch party at the library last month where the individual works made for the project are currently on display. The book will be on the ABC table over the weekend of Bristol Artist’s Book Event, 29th-30th June.
Image: Detail from ABC’s Abecedarium printing in progress by Csilla Bíro.
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 What is a Book? Poems for Al-Mutanabbi Street by Ama Bolton, UK. You can find out more about the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here project on the LAAF Festival website.
