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ISSN 0160-0699

Volume 29, No. 4, Dec 2006

ARTIST BOOKS

News

art on paper for September/October features artists’ books, photo books, and exhibition catalogs. www.artonpaper.com A.A. Bronson writes about artist books and small press at Art Basel in the 1960s and 1970s.

Joshua Heller Rare Books has issued its Catalogue Thirty-Three, Summer 2006, a double issue, 90 pages with 221 entries of fine bindings, books from private presses, artist books, poetry, war, peace, calligraphy and portfolios of Write to P.O. Box 39114, Washington, DC 20016-9114. E-mail: HellerBkDC@aol.com

Paule Leon Bisson-Millet has a new Catalog of Artists’ books with Music, part 2. Contact her at plbmbooks@t-online.de

Hunt + Gather has changed as of 1 December joining forces with Jason Vass Gallery - Vintage Posters, featuring works on paper/printed matter including artist books, letterpress vintage posters, ephemera and printed matter.. Contact Hunt + Gather at 311 Aztec, Santa Fe, NM 87501. www.huntandgather.net

Polish book artists. Radoslaw Nowalkowski (formerly of Bookmakery Elephant’s Tail and now, artist books publishing house Liberatory), has launched a new website at www.liberatorium.com. Also, the Polish Artists Union - Warsaw Branch, Book Art Section has a great website at www.bookart.pl and click for the English version option.

Turning the Pages is a project that allows online access to digitized versions of rare, fragile illustrated books. As you may guess, you can turn the pages ina realistic way, using touch-screen technology and interactive animation, enlarge the images, listen to an audio commentary or read associated text. There are a lot of other features. Initially developed by and for the British Library, with pages from the Lindisfarne Gospels, the first to go digital in 1998, it is now available as a service for institutions and private collectors around the world. www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html

Silver Lining Pass Mine Artists’ Books is a small catalog representing the work of graduate Book Arts students at Boise State University who have been assigned to utilize Pass Mine materials in a bookwork. Pass Mine holdings were previously donated to the university, which has since sold it to a private individual. This catalog and exhibition represents a selection of books inspired by the claims and excavations of lead, silver and zinc, under the tutelage of Tom Trusky, Idaho Center for the Book. For more information, go to www.lili.org/icb

University of Alabama book arts site has 20 new interviews covering how individual artists make books, letterpress printing and bookbinding, career trajectories, starting book arts programs, and special collection librarians talking about what they collect and their advice to makers and educators. www.bookarts.ua.edu

The Blue Notebook is a new journal for artists’ books published by Sarah Bodman, UWE Bristol, School of Art, Media & Design. The first two issues will be in October 2006 and April 2007 at £10 GBP for a one-year subscription with full access to the color version on the website, and a black and white printed copy mailed to subscribers. The newsletter will continue. To order send to Sarah Bodman, CFPR, UWE Bristol, School of Art, media & design, Kennel Lodge Rd., Bristol BS3 2JT, UK. E-mail Sarah.Bodman@uwe.ac.uk for an electronic subscription form to save postage or download a paper copy from www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/bnotebk.htm.

A new website on South African artists’ books has just been launched. Please visit it at www.theartistsbook.org It includes:

We would welcome your comments (and advice of any errors!) Please advise us if you add our link to your website so that we can reciprocate. Jack M. Ginsberg Email: jackg@cjpetrow.co.za

EXHIBITIONS

Found in Translation, curated by Marshall Weber and produced by Booklyn, a touring exhibition of multi-lingual artist books, prints, and digital and video documentation exploring the cognitive, literary, and political processes of translation. The Center for Book Arts in New York City from 29 September - 9 December and then to the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. For more information, see: www.booklyn.org/exhibition/000231.php

Construct. Arthur & Mata Jaffe Collection of Books as Aesthetic Objects at FAU, Boca Raton, FL, an exhibit of artist books that deal with the topic of construction. On view until the opening of the new expanded Jaffe Collection, slated for later this year. www.library.fau.edu/depts/spc/jaffeconstructionexhibitiondetail.htm.

Heart and Hands 2, the second national juried student book art exhibition, sponsored by a consortium of institutions including the University of Nebraska at Lincoln Libraries and the UNL Departments of Art & Art History, the Nebraska Book Arts Center at the Univ. Of Nebraska at Omaha, and the UNO Library. This is open to graduate and undergraduate students in accredited academic institutions. Purchase Awards. Exhibit dates: November and December 2006 at University of Nebraska at Lincoln Love Library; January 2007 at Omaha Public Library, and February 2007 at University of Nebraska at Omaha Library. For full details and entry form: www.nebraskabookartscenter.org

The Book as Art: Twenty Years of Artists’ Books from the National Museum of Women in the Arts from 27 October through 4 February, including work by Claire Van Vliet, Audrey Niffennegger, Meret Oppenheim, May Stevens, Sandra Jackman, Carol June Barton, and many more. 1250 New York Ave., NW, Washington, DC. www.nmwa.org

Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from 20 October - 21 January 2007 includes the artist books that Kiefer has created in large format.

Inventing Kindergarten, curated by Margaret Wertheim and Norman Brosterman, in association with Stephen Nowlin, director of the Williamson Gallery, surveys rare objects and artifacts from the collection of Brosterman, based upon educator Friedrich Froebel’s visionary teaching system. Using the Froebel method, 19th-century children were inspired to reconstruct the world around them via exercises in art, designer, mathematics an nature. Georges Braque, Piet Mondrian, and Frank Lloyd Wright were among the founders of modernism who were exposed to the Froebel method as children. 14 October - 7 January 2007. Williams Gallery, Art Center College of Design, 1700 Lida St., Pasadena, CA 91103. Many concertina albums.

Bookmarks IV: Infiltrating the Library System in Australia, USA and Europe is the free distribution of 4000+ bookmarks created by 50 artists from the US, Australia, Brazil and Europe. To view all the bookmarks, with artists’ contact details, please see: www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/bkmks4 The distribution continues in various venues from 15 September - 15 February 2007. There are five UK venues including Arnolfini Bookshop in Bristol, UK; Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT; Rhode Island School of Art & Design, Providence, RI; Tate Library & Archive, London; Bookmark Bookstore, Oakland, CA; Permanent Bookshop, Brighton, UK; Queensland State Library, Brisbane, Australia; bookartbookshop in London; Victorian College of the Arts in Southbank, Australia. This project is run by the Centre for Fine Print Research at the University of the West of England, Bristol,UK. For more information, contact Sarah Bodman at Sarah.Bodman@uwe.ac.uk

Reinventing books in Contemporary Chinese Art at China Institute Gallery, New York, from 28 September 2006 through 24 February 2007. Chinese art and literature are uniquely bound together. This small, two-part exhibition, curated by University of Chicago professor Wu Hung., takes a look at artist books and “book-inspired works” created by Chinese artists since the 1930s. It claims to be the first study of the impact of traditional Chinese books on contemporary art. It ranges from Qin Siyuan’s A Self-Portrait book on Chinese calligraphy paper to Yue Minjun’s Garbage Dump, an installation that includes old books. Guild of Book Workers 100th Anniversary Exhibition. palimpsest.stanford.edu/byorg/gbw/

This exhibition celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Guild of Book Workers and closes the most active quarter century in the history of the Guild. National traveling exhibitions became a regular occurrence every two to three years. For the retrospective, curated largely by Peter Verheyen, that meant finding representative works by a selection of the leading proponents of the craft, and providing a link to the present. Of the fifty-nine works two of the most significant works for the book arts are Richard Minsky’s Birds of North America and Hedi Kyle’s April Diary. . In the end, 120 artists submitted 171 works, and 60 were juried into the show. The fully illustrated catalog brings together both the retrospective and contemporary halves of the Guild’s 100th anniversary exhibition. This is especially important as the two halves will only be on display together at the Grolier Club in New York City (September 20 -November 25), with only the exhibition of contemporary work traveling throughout the country until the end of 2007. You can, however, experience both exhibitions in the catalog which the Guild is pleased to offer at $32 (incl. s/h). The complete catalog, with ordering information, is now available online at the Guild’s website - palimpsest.stanford.edu/byorg/gbw/ For more information about the exhibit and ordering catalogs, contact the Exhibitions Chair, at exhibitions@guildofbookworkers.allmail.net

Ehon: The Artist and the Book in Japan from 20 October 2006 – 4 February 2007. The exhibition is drawn from the Library’s collections and features over 200 Japanese illustrated books from the 8th century to the present day. Further information about the exhibition is available at: www.nypl.org/press/2006/ehonLL.cfm

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Library will be hosting a symposium titled “The Japanese Illustrated Book: Continuity and Change,” to be held on October 25. It will feature curators, art historians, and practicing artists of the ehon tradition. The symposium is free; however registration is required and seating will be limited. Booklyn artist and curator Marshall Weber will moderate an artist panel that includes Booklyn artists Veronika Schaepers from Tokyo and Clement Tobias Lange from Hamburg. More information is available at: www.nypl.org/research/chss/ehon/index.html

J & L Books, a group show curated by Leanne Shapton and Jason Fulford at Marcia Wood Gallery, 263 Walker St., Atlanta, GA 30313. www.marciawoodgallery.com

Telling the Story: Artists Books 30 September - 10 December at the Noyes Museum, Lily Lake Road, Oceanville, NJ noyesmuseum.org/exhibitions.htm#current

Too Much Bliss: Twenty Years of Granary Books from 25 October - 13 December 2006 at Clark Humanities Museum, Claremont Colleges, Claremont, CA.

A Throw of the Dice: Viarations on Mallarmé’s Visual Poem at the Clark Humanities Museum, Claremont Colleges, 16 January- 8 March 2007.

A Poetic Coup d’Etat: Mallarmé’s Influence on Artists’ Books at Denison Library, Scripps College, Claremont, CA from 16 January - 9 March 2007.

Books in Black: A New Page, curated by Ruth E. Edwards, paying tribute to individuals of African ancestry who have made major contributions to society. 10 October - 31 January 2007. Presented by The National Museum of Catholic Art & History, 443 E. 115th St., New York City. Artists include Kamari Allah, Gail Becford, R. Gregory Christie, Valerie Deas, Brenda H. Falus, Ione M. Foote, Cleo Meri Abut Jarvis, Katrina Jeffries, Wanda Jones, Eremnise Landsman, Irene M. Mays, Andrea Ramsey, Sandra Redman, Cheryl Shackelton Hawkins, Shimoda, Dolores Taylor and Harriette Washington-Williams.

Creating With Abandon: Process in the Artist’s Books of Angela Lorenz at The Fleet Library at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI from 23 October - 22 December 2006. Also at the John Hay Library at Brown University in Providence. Signed catalogs available for purchase. This is an exhibition of Lorenz’s finished artist books with their process materials. For further information to acquire the catalog, contact Laurie Whitehill Chong, Special Collections Librarian, The Fleet Library at RI School of Design, 2 College St., Provide, RI 02903. lwhitehi@risd.edu

From My Mind’s Eye: Considerations in the Construction of Artists’ Books. 14 books created in an independent study by Libby Barrett at the University of Worcester, England in 2005, will be shown from October through December in the Albert Brenner Glickman Family Library at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, ME. libbybarrett@verizon.net

Index presents A Room of One’s Own/A Thousand Libraries, Malmö based artist Kajsa Dahlberg’s first extensive solo show. The exhibition embodies works permeated by an activist idea of how an individual actually can appropriate different public spaces, and then operates within them. A Room of One’s Own/A Thousand Libraries (2006), a book project sharing the same name as the exhibition, is a compilation of marginal notes made by readers in the library editions of Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own”, which was first published by Hogarth Press in 1929. The data compiled in the Dahlberg version of Woolf’s text derives from books borrowed by the artist in public libraries all over Sweden. Each page of the original book has – from out of a large number of the different library books — been manually copied into a facsimile. The exhibition also features “20 mins (Female Fist)”, 2005, a video that similar to “A Room of One’s Own/A Thousand Libraries”, investigates the right to define oneself. Furthermore, the video shows a resistance to be defined by what is considered being a repressive culture. In an interview, a female activist tells about a pornographic film project, made by women only and aimed at women exclusively. Since there is a strategic value for the protagonist to remain anonymous, the artist has consciously filmed the interview with the camera’s lens cap on. Kajsa Dahlberg is educated at Malmö Art Academy 1998-2003, and she studied at School of Art and Design, University of Illinois at Chicago UIC, in 2001-2002.

The Open Book, an exhibit of works by 20 book artists from throughout the world, will be shown through 15 December at New Jersey City University in the Visual Arts Building Gallery, 100 Culver Avenue in Jersey City. Curated by Mary-Ellen Campbell, an NJCU professor of art, the exhibit will feature works by Adele Outteridge and Wim de Vos of Australia; Mary Ellen Long of Colorado; Susan Weinz of Maine; Bonnie O’Connell of Nebraska; Kumi Korf, Anne Gilman, Ed Hutchins, Doug Beube, Miriam Schaer, Beatrice Coron, Janet Goldner, and Ms. Campbell of New York; and Chuck Miley, Liz Demaree, Pat Malarcher, Shellie Jacobson, Maria Pisano, Rocco Scary, and Sam Forlenza of New Jersey.

The Open Book includes books that can stand, hang, unroll, and be seen in their entirety. The books feature a wide assortment of experimental and traditional bindings, tell stories, and behave as sculptures, drawings, and prints. In addition to paper and board, the books are made of clay, fabric, plexiglass, and steel. Some incorporate found objects, some are alterations of old books, and others tell stories in such unusual formats as scrolls, hanging panels, or boxes. In addition to their unusual structures, all books in the exhibit deal conceptually with a broad variety of topics, ranging from obsolescence and war to women’s and environmental issues. Many of the exhibiting artists have been working in the book format for almost 30 years and are among the top-showing book artists in the country.

Beyond Words at Sewanee: The University of the South from 30 November - 12 February 2007. This is an international exhibition of contemporary artists’ books.

Labyrinth, a large-scale international artist́s book exhibition at Botkyrka Konsthall through 31 January 2007.More than one hundred artists or artists’ collectives from different countries – Japan, Rumania, Turkey, Israel, Singapore and the United States to name a few – are included in the show. One of the challenges when producing exhibitions is the cost of shipping and freights. In Labyrinth artists have sent their works by mail, and curators and artists on residencies abroad have carried works with them in their hand luggage. Most of the works are recent, many of them have been made with Labyrinth in mind. Included are well-known names within the artists’ book genre such as Clémentine Deliss, Leif Elggren, Luca Frei, Karl Holmqvist, Nina Katchadourian, Masato Nakamura and Gil Marco Shani. The visitor is also introduced to many of the most important artist’s book distributors around the world.

Labyrinth has the shape of a circular library. The novels Library of Babel and The Garden of Forking Paths by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges have been a source of inspiration. In Labyrinth you will get a feeling of what gets young artists in Italy to work in book-format, or why a curator in Japan chooses to create travelling exhibitions with only book works. The visitor is able to borrow some of the artist’s books in the exhibition. Botkyrka Konsthall is also producing a book by Teresa&David and Swedish photographer Johan Warden that will be released at the opening of Labyrinth.

Curator is Joanna Sandell and Pia Sandström. For more information please contact Joanna Sandell at joanna.sandell@botkyrka.se

The Artistbook Library and Store through May 2007 at Proteus Gowanus, an interdisciplinary gallery and reading room at 543 Union St. (See www.proteusgowanus.com). The Artist Book Library is part of the interdisciplinary Library Exhibition at Proteus Gowanus in Brooklyn, New York. Over 50 artist books are included, from educational pamphlets to unique sculptural book art, curated by Maddy Rosenberg. For the store, proteusgowanus.com/storeindex.html

Pamela Paulsrud: Altered Books - Installation: Books, Paper, Stones at Vespine Gallery, Chicago, IL through 23 December. Peter Downsbrough at 871 Fine Arts, 49 Geary St., San Francisco through December.

OPPORTUNITIES

Call for Entries: Book in Hand with guest juror: Patti Belle Hastings at Arts + Literature Laboratory Gallery in New Haven, CT.www.allgallery.org 17 February - 18 March 2007. Submission deadline: 22 December 2006. Please go to website to submit online and read the prospectus and submission requirements. www.allgallery.org/submssions.

Call for Entries: Susan Hensel Gallery in Minneapolis seeks participation in A Reader’s Art 7: Frugal Finds for Prudent Collectors. The exhibit will take place from 3 March - 28 April. All books or book objects should sell for under $100 or express in some other way the concept of frugality. All media welcome, all approaches, even installation and performance. Slides due 15 January 2007. Accepted work due 24 February 2007. For more information, see www.susanhenseldesign.com

Call for Entries: The Book of Invitations. Open call to artists for submission of projects for a book that is of and about invitations. Invitations are as much passive platforms of communication as they are active, world-engendering propositions. They are things that are written through with the stuff of culture. Participants hsould keep in mind, however, that all selected invitations will be published in a book. Although the actual size or support for the work is not important, objects or actions that are not 2D and larger than 11 x 14” should be submitted in teh form of their documentation. Contact Pedro Rodriguez, [mailperack@gmail.com[mail The exhibition will be in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Minnesota Center for Book Arts. Open call for new book artists interested in selling work through the bookstore. 60/40 terms. To be considered, please send a description of your work, a brief bio, and digital images to Jeff Rathermel jrathermel@mnbookarts.org. Submissions are evaluated on an ongoing basis.

NEW BOOKWORKS

Poisonous Plants at Table, featuring Prudence: The Cautionary Tale of a Picky Eater, written and illustrated by Audrey Niffenegger incorporating selections from Poisonous Plants in Field and Garden by the Reverend Professor G. Henslow with Poisonous Plants at Table (selected menus and recommendations) by Dr. E. Coffin.

Letterpress printed in two colors in an edition of 75 on Mohawk Superfine and Twinrocker handmade paper, with four color illustrations by Niffenegger giclée printed on specially coated handmade paper developed by Twinrocker. 2006. Order from Sherwin Beach Press, 22 E. Illinois, Chicago, IL 60611. (312)644-6057 www.sherwinbeach.com

12:38 - 14:16 by Daniela Deeg and Cynthia Lollis is a screenprinted star accordion book with photographs taken in New York City in May 2006. It represents a journey beginning at the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue at 41st, ending at the southern edge of Manhattan in Battery Park. The artists stopped every seven minutes to photograph down the middle of the street for the front (and up to the street for a return trip on the back). Inside this accordion, one looks through seven minutes -from the outer streetscapes to inner ones –via seven views. Ed. 36. Star accordion book with plexiglass covers in grayboard box. Printed at the Frans Masereel Centrum, Belgium. For more information, see Etc Press at etcpress@earthlink.net

To be Read in the Light by Nora Lee McGillivray is an interactive artist’s book, in which pairs of printed images and 13 brief verses of words use Light as material and metaphor to illustrate and provide luminous moments of discovery and understanding. Take this book in your hand, grasp it firmly by its broad spine. Allow the pages of word and image to cascade from side to side. Let light illuminate and blend the images. Ed. 26 with 2 AP copies. For more information, contact the artist at 3394 Owasso St., Shoreoview, MN 55126, McGillicek@aol.com or Joshua Heller Rare Books, Inc., P.O. Box 39114, Washington, DC 20016. HellerBkDC@aol.com

FLUXUS BOOKS AND EXHIBITIONS

A Flexible History of Fluxus Facts & Fictions by Emmett Williams, which includes 70 “Kunstfibel” collages digitally remastered by Ann Noël with commentaries by Emmett Williams, hard cover with dust jacket, 152 pages. London/Bangkok, 2006, EUR 40 from Boekie Woekie, books by artists, Berenstraat 16, NL 1016 GH Amsterdam. The Netherlands. E-mail: boewoe@xs4all.nl

Edizioni Francesco Conz: Works on Cloth at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Bolzano, Italy from 9 November - 12 January 2007. Beautiful full-color catalog with interview with Francesco Conz by Elena Bini and Petra Guidi and color plates of the work of Philip Corner, John Giorno, Eugen Gomringer, Dick Higgins, Robert Lax, Ann Noël, Gerhard Rühm and Emmett Williams.