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Book Arts |
Organised by Linda Parr: Artists from twenty-two countries responded to the call to create these Two Hundred and Forty-three Postcards in Real Colour. A slideshow video was presented at BABE for The Lost Weekend and a catalogue is forthcoming.
‘The exhibition launched its tour at Bower Ashton Library in the summer, read more about the project here. The postcards are now on display at Winchester School of Art Library from 14th September to 12th November 2021.
Georges Perec parodied these postcard messages in ‘Two Hundred and Forty-three Postcards in Real Colour’, dedicated to his fellow writer and friend Italo Calvino. The imaginary missives are now a reality, postal postmodernists on a Grand Tour via Perec’s Postcards.’ See them all on Instagram. Image here by Rachel Marsh (UK), ‘A brief greeting from Ouistreham.’
The theme for our 2022 WBN United Artists project is Ghosts in the Machine. The call to artists/writers/readers around the world officially launches on 31st October 2021.
If you would like to join in (and we hope that you will), please get reading and thinking about making an A4 ‘print’ of a ghost in a machine. That could be for example, a photocopy/riso of a blank page, a ghostly sighting or a response to the ghost in your chosen book, a print of ectoplasm in the ether, static, automatic writing, or a broken Kindle screen etc. Deadline 1st March 2022. More information in the pdf download here.
Image: Ghost print on a till roll receipt – found by Ben Jenner.
The Artist’s Book Yearbook 2022-2023 is currently in production. 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 2022-2023 issue has essays and articles by: Imi Maufe; David Solo; S. Pringly Binder; Maria White; Jeff Thomas, Jennie Hinchcliff & Chad Johnson; Moritz Küng & John McDowall; Robert Bolick; Tanya Peixoto; Susan Hartigan; Stephen Clarke; Amir Brito Cadôr; Dino Alfier; Rob van Leijsen; Zine Without a Crown.
It also contains 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.
There are also listings of 300+ new artists’ books that have been made recently, or will be made in 2022-2023, sent in by artists around the world.
Publication date: January 2022. If you would like to support the publication of the ABYB by pre-ordering a copy, please visit our online store here.
We held a one-day symposium at Arnolfini, Bristol as part of the Printed Poetry Week, organised by Angie Butler. Presenters (online and in person over the week) will include: Nancy Campbell, Oli Bently and Anthony Dunn (Spilt / The People Powered Press), Johanna Darque (Small Press Books), SJ Fowler, Leonard McDermid (Stichill Marigold Press), Andrew Morrison and Maria Stadnicka, Pat Randle (Nomad Letterpress), Ndukwe Onuoha, Barrie Tullett (The Caseroom Press).
On the day we heard from poets, visited the Letterpress Collective and launched a new letterpress printed publication by SJ Fowler. The symposium goody bags included:
Printed Poetry Badges by Derek Beaulieu (Canada), Julie Johnstone (UK), Matthew Robertson (UK), Sara Elgerot (Sweden), Josephine Corcoran (UK), Jim Young (UK). A bag screenprinted with a poem by SJ Fowler and a response by artist Sarah Bradicich; a poetry pencil by Jeremy Dixon; a notebook printed with a visual poem by Lina Nordenström; a risograph print ‘Babble’, by Ben Jenner.
Alongside the symposium we are hosting two exhibitions at Bower Ashton library: ‘Poetry Without Words’, an exhibition of student work from the Poem Brut course at Bristol Wellbeing College, facilitated by poet Paul Hawkins; Printed Poetry, an exhibition of poetic artists’ books from the archives of the Centre for Fine Print Research plus special guests. On Tuesday 12th October there was a free lunchtime event at Bower Ashton library: Poetry Without Words (in conversation) as part of a drop in day for students.
Image here: SJ Fowler, work in progress at Whittington Press.
Talks recorded for the Printed Poetry Week can be viewed on the CFPR YouTube playlist here.
Volume 16 No.1 Autumn – Winter 2021 is the second of two issues dedicated to The Arts Libraries Society Australia and New Zealand (Arlis/ANZ) & abbe 2020 conference presentations on artists’ books practices. In this issue: Dr Tim Mosely introduces the Arlis/ANZ abbe 2020 collaboration: reimagining the material: artists’ books, printed matter, digital transformation, engagement.
Darren Bryant works within the field of printmaking and artists’ books. His article aims to share insights into his current studio research and to initiate discussion around contemporary manifestations of printmaking and the merging of old and new print technologies.
Annique Goldenberg presents a life story about the composition and material environments of a book, its conception, genetic make-up, birth, ongoing evolution, and descendants. It proposes the idea that an artist book is more than just its title, its physical appearance, and conceptual underpinning. It argues that an artist book has the capacity to materially contain and emanate/engender a complete physical environment that is embodied and adaptively changed through successive stages in its development.
Clyde McGill – Space occurs as a flux in three ways for me as an artist: as imaginings, as material, as creative. Libraries are an enveloping example of this space. This essay explores four related artists’ books and their use of how I consider conventional library space; how I approach a sacred site of aboriginal art as a witness to degradation by mining; thirdly, a geographic and temporal border of Broadway as a passage through New York City over a one year transit to draw, photograph and perform along the way; and lastly, library methods of organisation subverted to visual.
In ‘texturing artist’s book discourse’, Tim Mosely reaffirms the critical roles that artist’s book practice and haptic aesthetics play in advancing artist’s book discourse to the level of a critical field.
Michael Phillips discusses his thoughts and some recent works regarding the role of the autographic and materiality in prints. He examines how the micro haptics of the (post-digital) print may re-balance and contribute to an understanding of what Laura Marks identifies as ‘a cultural dissatisfaction with the limits of [optical] visuality’.
Cover, badge and sticker design: GS. Artists’ pages: Ben Jenner and Sarah Hemings
Subscribe to Vol 16 for £10 including worldwide postage here.
Small Press Artists Books; The Global Book; Materials, Materiality and Process. The first of a 3-day series of events presenting research on small press publications, raising questions for contemporary and future publication through returning to early histories of word and image.
Curated by Leila Kassir and Tansy Barton, Modern and Special Collections, Senate House Library and Clare Lees, SAS; chaired by Gustavo Grandal Montero.
Sarah is giving a short talk at this event on how we interact with books through: non-linear reading, appropriated texts from books repurposed as 3D artefacts, collaborative and participatory projects that explore books, reading and memory. Examples include artists’ books such as Katie Herzog’s ‘Literaturewurst’, works by Paolo Carraro, David Dellafiora’s ‘KART’ project and Mary V. Marsh’s ‘Between Here & Now’ and her participatory project ‘Read Here Now’.
Friday 12th November 2021, 10:00 – 17:00 GMT. Free event, book via eventbrite here.
Image: a detail from Hod & Netzach, Paolo Carraro, Fibonacci Press, 1998.
Sarah Bodman and Nancy Campbell have created a new edition of Dinner and a Rose, an artist’s book in homage to the novel The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. Originally produced in 2010 in an edition of 20 as part of the University of Dundee’s AHRC funded project, Poetry Beyond Text: Vision, Text and Cognition.
Sarah and Nancy were commissioned to create the work for the University of Dundee, to investigate how readers respond to visual aspects of poetry. Highsmith charts her murderous hero Tom Ripley’s greed for the good life using culinary themes. Ripley’s character is defined by what he chooses to eat and drink, from devil-may-care martinis in Mongibello to penitential hot milk in Rome. Sarah and Nancy decided to focus on Highsmith’s menus in the commissioned work. Inspired by Poetry Beyond Text‘s interest in experiment, they recreated Ripley’s meals in a live performance.
Sarah prepared a delicious, if sinister, dinner, for twelve guests, with a thirteenth place set for the absent Tom Ripley. Every food mentioned by Highsmith was served, from cold chicken in aspic to sole Veronique, and every drink mixed (even Dubonnet!). The dinner lasted over twelve hours. All the night’s conversations were recorded and Nancy used the transcriptions as collage material, creating a series of 18 poems. Sarah photographed Ripley’s setting for each course; images and poems partner each other in the finished work.
Sarah and Nancy were delighted with the project’s success and continued the ‘novel dinner’ the following year working with The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland. The events grew and emerged as an annual participatory event for World Book Night, now coordinated by Sarah, Nancy and Linda Parr.
This new edition has been created to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the last Ripley novel’s publication. Printed by Axminster Printing Company in an edition of 500. Text: Nancy Campbell, Image: Sarah Bodman. 21 x 14.8 cm, 40 pages. Digital print with silver detail on Nautilus Classic 135gsm recycled paper. £10 including P&P worldwide.
To purchase please email: Sarah.Bodman@uwe.ac.uk
We are delighted to announce that UWE bookarts has received an award from the Nordic Culture Point to run a new project until 2022. This is in collaboration with Megan Adie (Aviary Press, Denmark), Sarah Bodman (CFPR, UWE Bristol) Angie Butler, (CFPR, UWE Bristol) Imi Maufe (Codex Polaris, Norway), Lina Nordenström (Grafikverkstan Godsmagasinet, Sweden) Joakim Norling (Timglaset Editions, Malmö Sweden), Morwenna Peters (Bower Ashton Library, UWE Bristol), Tom Sowden (School of Art & Design, UWE, Bristol) and Maria White (Independent curator, UK).
We will be hosting a free online seminar event (pre-recorded talks on 2nd Dec 2021, and live discussions on Friday 3rd Dec 2021) in collaboration with our project partners in Bergen. We invite library related participants from the Nordic / Scandinavian regions to join us in thinking about what artists’ books are and what role they can play within a library and an educational environment. If you would like to register your interest in participating, please email Sarah.
Our project will facilitate knowledge exchange between librarians, artists and the public that will expand understanding of arts practice, and work towards a more sustainable, innovative and culturally successful discipline. It will change attitudes towards and the perception of artists’ books. You can read a little more info about our plans here. The featured image here is of Imi Maufe’s, Norway in a Bookshelf, collection of artists’ books.
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 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.
Selections from the related Shadow and Light project are currently on show online at UC Santa Barbara Library, California, USA. View them online here.
We’ll be hosting a live event for the anniversary of al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here , at UWE, Bristol. Special guests include Ama Bolton, Catherine Cartwright and Andrew Morrison. This will be held in the Print Publishing Space, OC2 at Bower Ashton, Thursday 3rd March 2022, readings, print activity, displays of books and broadsides, 11am-2pm.
The image shown here is a detail from My Poem Becomes Theirs by Helga Butzer Felleisen. You can read more about the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here project at the LAAF Festival website.
