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Book Arts |
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 next issue for 2018-2019 will be published in Autumn 2017. You can list your books or organisation etc. free of charge until 30th May 2017 by downloading and returning the listings form here.
The biennial publication includes essays and information on many aspects of the book arts, artists’ listings, information on book arts galleries, archives and collections, book arts courses, events, journals, bibliographies and reference publications, studios and websites, with book arts contributors from around the world.
For 2017, our tribute was 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 Parr.
In March 2017 our research party met at Fort Augustus, Scotland, after a myriad of monster sightings in lakes, rivers and seas from Denmark and Sweden, to Germany and even as far away as New York and Minnesota, USA.
The ’BOOKISHNESS’ publication is now available and our video launched on World Book Night, 23/04/17. Read more about the project and watch the video.
This year’s degree show will launch new artists’ books by some of our MA Multidisciplinary Printmaking students. Come along and see the show, it is free and open to the public. The MA Printmaking show will be at Bower Ashton Studios 2nd – 8th June 2017. Opening times and dates can be found here. Image: Uccello’s Formula, Siena (III), 2016, Kate Bernstein.
Sarah will be talking in June as part of this series organised by Books at Bristol. Come along in your lunch hour to hear independent Bristol-based publishers, book artists, and letterpress printers discuss their experiences of book making, and join in the conversation about what books mean to you. Free entry and no booking required.
Wednesday 17th May – Richard Jones from Tangent Books at Bristol Central Library, College Green, Bristol BS1 5TL, 1-2pm
Wednesday 24th May – Greet Pauwelijn from Book Island at Bristol Central Library, College Green, Bristol BS1 5TL, 1-2pm
Friday 16th June – Sarah Bodman, Senior Research Fellow for Artists’ Books, Centre for Fine Print Research, UWE at The Bristol Folk House, 40a Park Street, Bristol BS1 5JG, 1-2pm
Friday 23rd June – Nick and Ellen from The Letterpress Collective at The Bristol Folk House, 40a Park Street, Bristol BS1 5JG, 1-2pm
This is a project run by Books at Bristol, a group of researchers at the University of Bristol who study books and book culture from different historical and linguistic perspectives. For further details visit: www.booksatbristol.wordpress.com
An invitation to come and celebrate the generous gift of artists’ books donated to UWE Library by Rosemary Simmons – Honorary Member of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers and founding editor of Printmaking Today. The collection includes artists who worked with Simmons at The Curwen Press / Curwen Gallery in the 70s and 80s, from Ron King & Roy Fisher (Circle Press) to Jim Dine, Ian Tyson (Tetrad Press), and other national and international artists. An afternoon viewing and tea, from 3pm – 4.30pm on Thursday 15th June 2017. Free event. Please email by Friday 9th June so we know numbers for catering: Sarah.Bodman@uwe.ac.uk
Volume 11, No.2, Spring – Summer 2017, essays and articles include: In ‘Damp-in-Ditchwater: A satirical staged narrative revealed through an artist’s book’ Dr Jackie Batey, explores the balance of text and image in a multi-layered exploration of the absurdity of everyday life, and posits an alternative to the crude polemic in making criticisms of the role that industry plays in the life of the community. Damp in Ditchwater seeks to create an editorial strategy that takes its position on the cusp between an overt polemic, and the often ephemeral nature of much visual humour. Omiros Panayides introduces us to contemporary artists’ publishing practice in Cyprus, through curating contributions from four local independent artists/publishers working with independently printed and published forms of speech and image.
In ‘Unconventional narratives’, Otto presents his personal alternatives to conventional narratives, as explored in his practice as book artist and illustrator, from his first book ‘Helping you back to work’ to recent experiments with format and content. Nancy Campbell interviews book artist Ken Campbell, discussing his new publication, ‘You all know the words’, and the signal works created during 40 years of artistic activity. Campbell recalls his wartime childhood in the East End of London and its influence on his way of seeing, and describes how his early books emerged in the punk culture of the 1970s as a synthesis of his interests in graphic design, fine art and poetry. Noëlle Griffiths reflects on her part in the RE-TAKE/RE-INVENT project featuring fifteen artists responding to the art collection at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff. Each artist interpreted their chosen artwork from the critical standpoint of their current studio practice. Noëlle Griffiths selected a painting by John Hoyland to examine her own creative process making a series of paintings and related artists’ books.
Artists’ pages by: Marian Crawford, Daniel Lehan, Ton Martens, Philippa Wood.
Cover design: Tom Sowden.
Available to order online here.
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, Rosenberg Library at the City College of San Francisco, USA.
Congratulations to all of our MAMDP graduates this year for splendid degree shows. Special mentions go to Kate Bernstein for Perspectives, a boxed folio of screenprints inspired by Uccello’s ‘The Battle of San Romano’. For her work, Kate has been awarded The Clifford Moss Prize. And to Linda Parr, whose work with books, data, text and image resulted in her being awarded the 2017 Agassi Prize by the Centre for Fine Print Research. Well done all!
