 |
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.
An artist’s book made for participants in the EXERCISES FOR ALL exhibition on show at Bower Ashton Library, UWE Bristol, UK, until 31st October 2024.
Sarah Bodman: Earlier this year I invited 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 autumn. 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. Kurt Johannessen has produced more editions in the EXERCISES series that you can see on his website.
We have exercises in paper, stone, metal, sand, stitch, print, photography, wood… in the exhibition. Let’s Talk | Vamos Conversar, is a little artist’s book based on the exercise ‘whisper to a stone’. I will be giving a copy to each contributor when I return their artwork. It’s in English and Portuguese as I also received contributions from Brazilian artists. Thanks to Paulo Silveira for translations. If you can’t visit and would like a copy, email me and I can post you one.
Image: Detail from Let’s Talk | Vamos Conversar 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.
Written contributions to this issue include: Navigating co-creation and collaboration through Artists’ Publishing by Richard Nash. David Paton writes about the experience of unfolding Felicia Rice’s Heavy Lifting (Moving Parts Press). Egidija Čiricaitė on: THE RELEVANCE OF RELEVANCE – A glance at artists’ books from pragmatics; and a few observations. Tamar MacLellan & Philippa Wood discuss Re-working Failure: Taking a different approach to making. John McDowall provides “an ekphrasis” of The Great Leap Backwards by Sarah Jacobs.
Special thanks to artist Paul Cooke (Dubious Books, USA), who allowed us to use a selection of pages from his brilliant book I Know My ABC, as the featured artist for this issue.
Download your free copy and browse all back issues here.
Image: Cover Design for this issue, ‘B’ from I Know My ABC by Paul Cooke.
Congratulations to the MA Multidisciplinary Printmaking student JD de Wit, who has been awarded the 2024 Agassi Book Arts Prize for their work /A GIRL IS A GOD/ “a retroactive self-collaboration with my past “girl” self.
I used only one copper plate to make the initial piece and then cut the plate into many to complete the rest of my etchings. The idea of de- and re-construction is actioned within this and within the collage process. I also considered the presentation of my works in relation to the themes I was trying to convey. I made pieces of fake masking tape from old copper plates and enamel, using a familiar form to create an invitation for intimacy within a found space.
Image: Detail from /A GIRL IS A GOD/ by JD de Wit, etching, stitch, mixed media.
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 the artist’s book Al-Mutanabbi Street by Sarah Bryant, USA. You can find out more about the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here project on the LAAF Festival website.
