Volume 30, No. 2, Jun 2007
Artist Book News
“Catching Up on a Little Light Reading” by William Grimes was an article in the 20 May issue of the New York Times about the exhibition at the Grolier Club of “Miniature Books: 4,000 Years of Tiny Treasures” through 28 July.
“Meet the new paper pushers” by Hugh Hart, about the move of design students from digital to making zines, artist books, and student magazines, appears in the LA Times for May 27.
“Irish Classic (Book of Kells) is Still a Hit (in calfskin, not paperback)” in NY Times for 28 May.
Unique altered Book Project in the UK: www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/regen/regener8.htm
“Substantive Spaces” by Johanna Drucker reviews two new books of Clifton Meador in Afterimage for March-April 2007.
JAB 21 (The Journal of Artists’ Books) is back and better than ever. This Spring 2007 issue features a great editorial by Brad Freeman, sometimes a rant, but solid suggestions and criticism of the field. An interview with Johanna Drucker by Tate Shaw is extensive and revealing; Elisabeth Long writes about understanding Anselm Kiefer’s books; Ward Tietz writes about viewing and reading artist books; an interview by Tony White with Marshall Weber tells us all about Booklyn; and Clifton Meador fleshes out what artist books are in the past, and reviews some new ones. What a package! Everyone should subscribe to JAB, now coming out of that amazing Center for Book & Paper, 1104 S. Wabash Ave., 2nd flr., Chicago, IL 60605. Contact jab@colum.edu $25.00 North America, $35 outside North America. Published twice each year.
PAST EXHIBITIONS
By All Means: Artist’s Books and Objects, exhibit curated by David Abel for NAAU 4 May - 27 May . Included work by Barbara Tetenbaum, Diane Jacobs,David Abel, Megan O“Connell, Inge Bruggeman, Sarah Horowitz, Rachel Wiecking, New American Art Union, 922 SE Ankeny St., Portland, OR 97214. naau@earthlink.net
UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST OF ENGLAND exhibitions
University of the West of England in Bristol, UK had an exhibition of Barbara Barnes Allen: Accordion Books from 30 April - 27 May. The exhibition consisted of many collage pages that could be formatted as a maze, allowing numerous different ways to create a unique installation every time they are shown. Allen is a book artist from Seattle, WA.
Regenerator: altered books project at Off-Centre Gallery, Bristol, UK from 25 April - 11 May. 88 artists took part, selecting a book (from hardback to paperback, novels, old exhibition catalogs and manuals, some in good condition, some worn. Altered books, sculptures, paper cuts and objects made from the books’ pages and sound pieces based on the site of the original book all were “generated” from the idea of altering.
Artists & Bibliophiles: Books by father and son, Raoul and Ral Veroni, La Rural Buenos Aires, Argentina from 16 April - 7 April. The show is available for touring by contacting mail@AetB.com.ar
Flora: an exhibition of works at Eagle Gallery, 159 Farringdon Rd., London EC1R 3AL until 4 May. www.emmahilleagle.com
Gerhard Rühm, Begegnung der besonderen Art, Editions works 1959-2006 at Neues Museum Weserburg,, Bremen through 3 June 2007. www.weserburg.de
Peter Lyssiotis: “Outside of a Dog…”, a survey exhibition through 2 June 2007 at The Stonington Stables Museum of Art, Deakin University, Victoria, Australia. www.deakin.edu.au/artmuseum
Effects of War: Atlered Lives, Altered Book, curated by Tanya Wilkinson and Priscilla Otani, sponsored by the Clinical Psychology Program at California Institute of Integral Studies until 31 May in San Francisco, CA. www.ciis.edu/news/otani.html
How I entered there I cannot truly say: Collaborative works from the ANU Edition + Artists Book Studio until 17 June 2007 at Keith Murdoch Gallery, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne. slv.vic.gov.au/artistbook
California Printers in the Fine Press Tradition 1975-2006, selections from Stanford’s Special Collections, at the Peterson Gallery, Green Library at Stanford University, California until 17 June.
Pass It On: Connecting Contemporary Do-it-Yourself Culture, curated by Anne Dorothee Boehme, Lindsay Bosch, and Kevin Henry at Columbia College Chicago’s Art & Design Gallery. Catalog includes a custom-built, die-cut cardboard holder, ephemera from the show, and a 126-megabyte jump drive that contains images of the installation, a checklist, essays, and it can be ordered for $25 (including US shipping and handling) by emailing Jennifer Murray at jemurray@colum.edu
CURRENT ARTIST BOOK EXHIBITIONS
The next venue for the Guild of Book Workers exhibition is The Bridwell Library, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, 18 June - 14 September 2007; and the final venue will be Dartmouth College Library, Hanover, New Hampshire 9 October – 22 November 2007.
A full color catalog (8 1/2 x 11, 112 pp.) picturing each entry in both the non-traveling retrospective and the juried contemporary exhibitions, will be available at each venue while the work is on exhibit. Unbound copies only are available online from the Guild’s website, where the complete exhibition is also online, palimpsest.stanford.edu/byorg/gbw/gallery/100anniversary/index.shtml, or from the Guild of Book Workers, 521 Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10175.
The Book of Origins: A Survey of American Fine Binding closed at Michigan State University Libraries, Special Collections, in East Lansing, Michigan on June 1, 2007 (specialcollections.lib.msu.edu/). The show is now at The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Cincinnati, OH, July 1 - August 15, 2007.
The Book of Origins traveling exhibition features twenty contemporary fine bindings by ten American binders. The entire exhibition and travel schedule is online at library.syr.edu/digital/exhibits/b/bookoforigins/ A 32- page, full color catalog of this exhibition is available for $20 including shipping.. It depicts all 20 works, plus binding descriptions and biographical statements by each binder. Order information is online at library.syr.edu/digital/exhibits/b/bookoforigins/catalog.htm or order via Paypal to karen@karenhanmer.com or send check to:
Karen Hanmer
709 Rosedale Rd
Glenview, Illinois 60025
The Book of Origins: A Survey of American Fine Binding continues through August 15 at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, and will then travel to the University of Alaska Anchorage, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, and Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts.
Titles: An Exhibition of Artists’ Book Works organized by the WayUpWayDown collective 23 June, 07- 8 September 07 At Balfour Books, 601 College St., Toronto, ON M6G 1B5. Noon - 11 p.m. daily.
“Titles” invites a number of artists, architects and designers to produce book works or related artworks in a bookstore. The participants will either choose an existing book title or create a new title to work on. The criterion is that the form and content of the artistic work should have a relation to the chosen title; it must be found under a category in the bookstore (i.e. literature, children’s books, art, etc.) and placed in a slot on the shelf according to alphabetical ordering. A list will be provided to the visitors to locate the works.
The structure of “Titles” is designed to adapt and travel to other bookstores in different cities. New participants, especially those living in the city of the exhibition, will be invited with each new exhibition. The first exhibition of “Titles” opened on 23 June 2007 at Balfour Books in Toronto. It will travel to London, Ontario and Montreal in the fall of 2007.
This project reflects the “curatorial” interest of the WayUpWayDown collective (Sunny Kerr, Yam Lau, Tania Ursomarzo) to set into motion itinerant exhibition structures and maneuvers. It is the mandate of the collective to facilitate tenuous and fluid relations between exhibitions, artworks and communities. The invitations to participants are extended on the basis of respect, which already entailed artistic merits, friendship and trust. Hence, the curatorial injunction is reduced to the existing categories of the bookstore.
A related project using Lau’s car as a mobile project space will be implemented in the fall of 2007.
Specific Object / David Platzker is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition documenta 5 : 30. Juni bis 8. Oktober 1972. The exhibition will be on view at Specific Object from June 30 through October 8, 2007.
Thirty-five years to the day later, the show examines the run-up, exhibition, and critical aftermath of the original presentation through the printed materials produced for the 1972 exhibit in Kassel, Germany. Both hailed and derided by artists and critics, the exhibition was the largest, most expensive and most diverse of any exhibition anywhere, and foreshadowed all large-scale, collaboratively curated, comprehensive mega-shows to come.
Documenta 5, subtitled “100 Days of Inquiry into Reality – Today’s Imagery,” curated by the team of Harald Szeemann, Jean-Christophe Ammann and Arnold Bode, followed a lineage of comprehensive shows documenting conceptually and minimally charged artworks curated by Szeemann including Live in Your Head (Kunsthalle Bern, 1969), Happenings and Fluxus (Kunstverein, Köln), 1970 as well as the exhibitions Konzeption / Conception (curated by Rolf Wedewer and Konrad Fischer at Stadtischen Museum, Leverkusen, 1969), Information (curated by Kynaston McShine at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1970), Software (cuarated by Jack Burnham at The Jewish Museum, 1970), and the Guggenheim International Exhibition (curated by Diane Waldman and Edward F. Fry at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1971).
Featuring the works of over 170 artists and an equally expansive variety of materials and subjects drawn from popular cultural materials such as science fiction publications, kitsch objects, exploitation films, as well as advertising imagery, in addition to the more anticipated painting and sculpture - Documenta 5 valiantly attempted to bridge the gap between art, culture, science and the broader society.
A lasting highlight of the exhibition was the graphic logo for the show designed by Edward Ruscha. Commissioned by Szeeman, Ruscha’s graphic image for the show featured ants arranged in the word “Docu /menta” and the number “5.” The emblem was used on the exhibition’s poster, catalogue cover, as well as on a limited edition screenprint, which is included in Specific Object’s exhibition. Additionally, Ruscha also contributed a project found within the catalogue titled “5 Girlfriends,” which incorporated headshots of the artist’s high school girlfriends from Tulsa, Okalahoma.
In addition to warm sentimentality in the years following, critical commentary from 1972 included:
” … nastier … unending and unendurable … bizarre … vulgar … sadistic … ”
– Hilton Kramer, The New York Times, July 1, 1972
” … painful … crazy … very little art … but a lot of paradox ”
– Michael Gibson, International Herald Tribune, July 8-9, 1972
” … chaotic … quagmire … hermetic … troublesome … disappointingly unviable … ”
– Harry J. Seldis, The Los Angeles Times, July 9, 1972
” … circumambient silliness … ”
– John Russell, The Sunday Times (London), July 16, 1972
” … monstrous … overtly deranged … ”
– Barbara Rose, New York Magazine, August 14, 1972
“There is some reason to think that Szeemann, for all his thematic planning, misjudged New York artists socially. He antagonized women artists as a group … [then] he perfunctorily rejected them all.”
– Lawrence Alloway, Artforum, October 1972
Documenta 5 viscerally enraged artists well before its opening. Carl Andre, Hans Haacke, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Barry Le Va, Robert Morris, Dorothea Rockburne, Fred Sandback, Richard Serra, and Robert Smithson jointly penned an advertisement placed in Artforum (June 1972) condemning both the exhibition itself as well as curated exhibitions in general. Haacke, LeWitt, Le Va, Rockburn and Serra allowed their works to be shown nonetheless, while Smithson contributed only to the exhibition’s catalogue with a text railing against museums. Andre, Judd, Morris, and Sandback withdrew from the exhibition altogether.
An additional letter by Morris appeared enlarged to a full-page within Flash Art (May-June 1972) that took further issue with curators, asserting: “I do not want to have my work used to illustrate misguided sociological principles or outmoded art historical categories … ”
Smithson’s text from the catalogue also appeared in English for the first time within the October 1972 issue of Artforum and stated: “Cultural confinement takes place when a curator imposes his own limits on an art exhibition, rather than asking an artist to set his limits. … Could it be that certain art exhibitions have become metaphysical junkyards? Categorical miasmas? Intellectual rubbish? Specific intervals of visual desolation? … ”
Paradoxically, the Documenta 5 catalogue - a true masterpiece in its own right - contained three versions of “The Artist’s Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement,” one each in English, German, and French. A contractual document commissioned by Seth Siegelaub and authored by Bob Projansky in 1971 which perpetually conferred rights to artists to their artworks once they had been sold, it intended to insure that artists would receive “15% of any increase in the value of each work each time it is transferred [sold] in the future,” “the rights to be notified when the work is to be exhibited, so the artist can advise upon or veto the proposed exhibition of his/her work,” as well as “to give assurance to the owner that he is using the work in harmony with the artist’s intentions” as well as other economic and intellectual rights.
The parallels between 1972 and 2007 are deeply striking – the topic of Jens Hoffman’s 2005 book The Next Documenta Should Be Curated By An Artist resonates with the artists’ statements vis-Ã -vis Documenta 5. The similarities between then and now runs deeper: the United States was engaged in a deeply unpopular war; the world was bitterly divided between East and West; genocide was rampant in Africa; factional violence and terrorism were pervasive in Europe and the Middle East, and the American president would soon vacate the office.
The exhibition at Specific Object contains elements from before, during and after Documenta 5 including the exhibition’s catalogue, exhibition ephemera, artists’ publications and editions produced in conjunction with the exhibition by Art & Language, Joseph Beuys, Claes Oldenburg, Edward Ruscha, and Lawrence Weiner, as well as reviews and critical responses to the 1972 exhibition. A complete checklist is available upon request, or through the link: specificobject.com/projects/documenta_5/Documenta-5.pdf
Specific Object’s hours are Monday - Friday 11 AM to 4 PM, or by appointment. The exhibition will continue through October 8, 2007. The gallery will be closed between August 6 and August 17.
Specific Object is located at 601 West 26th Street / Floor 2M / Room M285, New York, New York 10001. Telephone (212) 242-6253. Specific Object’s website is www.specificobject.com For additional information regarding Specific Object please email David Platzker at david@specificobject.com
Episodes of the City: New York as a Source Book, Wallworks & Artists Books of Joyce Cutler-Shaw at the Bobst Library, NYU, 3rd floor, 70 Washington Square South in New York City opened on 30 May. The show will be up through 16 August 2007.
Joyce Cutler-Shaw writes:
“In this New York Odyssey, the artist is a migratory worker. Home is a portable loft. Growing up as a perpetual transient, moving from place to place to place, in a city every in transition, while living within books and art and invented nature. Libraries, museums and parks are havens, are temporary homes. New York is the source book for these Episodes of the City, which are vignettes of a life translated to words and images rooted in memory and the imaginary.”
The Arts of the Book Collection at Yale University is exhibiting Poison America: Sharon Gilbert Bookworks June 4 - September 27 , 2007, curated by guest curator: Courtney J. Martin. www.library.yale.edu/aob/ www.library.yale.edu/aob/SharonGilbert/PoisonAmericaExhibitEssay.html
Born in 1944, Sharon Gilbert engaged with many of the most pressing social and cultural currents of her time. As a child of both the Cold War and the civic upheavals of the 1960s in America, she used the medium of artists’ books to tackle national anxieties ranging from nuclear waste to sexism to the American workday. Often executed with textual wit and visual puns, her production engaged a variety of aesthetic strategies, most notably, repetition and collage. Gilbert’s frequent use of the photo-copy machine was both innovative and effective, a demonstration of her interest in mechanization and her skill in moving between forms of graphic media. Poison America, a title taken from one her works, presents a selection of her books from the late 1970s to the present.
Included with Gilbert’s artists’ books are other artists’ books that are in aesthetic, media, or contextual dialogue with hers. These include her contemporary Dona Ann McAdams, her colleague in the political art collective, Political Art Documentation & Distribution Archive (PAD/D), and other copy-art artists Mariona Barkus, Louise Neaderland, and John Wood. In addition to the bookworks on display, the exhibition features an essay by Martin, available on our web site: www.library.yale.edu/aob/SharonGilbert/PoisonAmericaEhibitEssay.html
Courtney J. Martin is an art historian and a curator. Most recently, she curated an exhibition of artists’ books, the C-Series: Artists’ Books and Collective Action, in New York at the Nathan Cummings Foundation. The C-Series traveled to the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, England (2005); Neon Campobase in Milan, Italy (2006); and the Liverpool Biennial (2006). In 2004, she co-curated, an exhibition of abstract art, Sunrise/Sunset at Smack Mellon in Brooklyn, New York. Currently, she is completing a doctorate on late twentieth century British art at Yale University. Prior to her arrival at Yale, she was the Interim Head Curator at the Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum and worked in the media, arts, and culture unit of the Ford Foundation in New York. She has written for several publications, including Artforum, Flashart, Frieze, and NKA.
There will be a lecture by the guest curator in September 2007. Details will be posted on this web site as soon a the date and time are confirmed.
Books.07 The Search for the Impossible at Noosa Regional Gallery. 24 August - 30 September 2007 at Noosa Regional Gallery, Tewantin QLD, Australia. www.noosaregionalgallery.com
Underconsstruction on the Island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni from 9 June - 13 October 2007 open everyday from 3 pm. - 5:25 every day (vaporetto stop St. Zacharia). Underconstruction is an online visual dialogue by diasporan Armenian artists Silvin Der-Meguerdichian, Achot Achot, Archi Galentz, Dahlia Elsayed, Sophia Gasparian, Andrew Demirjian and Emily Artinian. The artists are now extending this virtual dialogue in a group exhibition curated by Der-Meguerdichian and Barbara Hoffer which takes place during the Venice Biennale 2007 as an alternative site, stressing the idea of Transnationhood in the context of mainly National Pavilions. The artists, most of whom have not met in person, but have been conversing online for a year, will show new and previous works, alongside their contributions to www.underconstructionhome.net/underconstr_venice/bienal_intro.htm. For further information, contact Emioly Artinian, e.artinian@chelsea.arts.ac.uk
The Art of the Book 2007: Recent Student Work at the San Francisco Center for the Book through 27 July.
Haegue Yang: Remote Room at Barbara Wien Galerie und Buchhandlung, Linienstrasse 158D, 10115 Berlin, Germany.
(Un)Contained Vessels, Annual Artist Members Exhibition at The Center for Book Arts in New York City through 15 September. Artist’s Talk on 21 August. Location: 28 W. 27th St., 3rd flr, New York, NY 10001.
Brian Dettmer: ReMixed media at Tommey/Tourell Gallery, 49 Geary St., San Francisco through 11 August.
13+ Contemporary German Artists’ Books, featuring the work of members of the German artist group 13+ (13-plus.de/index.htm). Through representative works made in various techniques, the exhibition provides an overview of contemporary book arts in Germany. Presented by the Library’s Book Arts and Special Collections Center and sponsored by the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, the San Francisco Goethe-Institut (www.goethe.de/ins/us/saf/kue/en2300969.htm), and the Klingspor-Museum Offenbach, Germany (www.klingspor-museum.de/). The exhibition opened 21 July with a lecture by 13+ member Uwe Warnke and runs through 14 October 2007, in the Skylight Gallery.
A color catalogue of the exhibition is available for $10 from the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library’s Book Bay Main, located at the Main Library’s Grove Street entrance, 30 Grove Street, between Hyde and Larkin Streets. For information on buying a catalogue, please call 415.557.4238 or email info@friendssfpl.org.
AFRICAN AMERICAN BOOK ARTS EXHIBITION REVEALS MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES
We, Too, Are Book Artists, curated by Amos Paul Kennedy, showcases the work of African American artists using the book format and related book arts to communicate humanistic responsibility, social justice, cultural consciousness and spirituality. Through written and visual narratives, the artists present not only a variety of interpretations of “book,” but also the varied perspectives held by African American artists from across the nation and abroad. Artists represented in the exhibition range from muralists and paper artists to printmakers and writers.
WHERE:
Minnesota Center for Book Arts
At Open Book
1011 Washington Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55415
612.215.2520
www.mnbookarts.org
Exhibit Dates: 21 July 21 – 22 September 22
Opening Reception: Friday 27 July , 6 to 9 pm,
7 pm presentation by curator Amos Paul Kennedy
GALLERY HOURS:
Monday: 10 am to 5 pm
Tuesday: 10 am to 9 pm
Wednesday – Saturday: 10 am to 5 pm
Sunday: closed
Exhibit and opening are free and open to the public.
The book arts are broad in scope. A variety of media can be used as communication tools often challenging traditional definitions of “book.” This breadth also extends to the artists who create artists’ books. For many, books represent just one method for the expression of ideas. As boundaries between disciplines such as painting, textiles, performance and printmaking begin to merge and blur, exciting work incorporating book-like elements develops. We, Too, Are Book Artists, curated by Amos Paul Kennedy, brings these varied, international perspectives to a single venue, at Minnesota Center for Book Arts.
Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. is a letterpress printer, papermaker and self-proclaimed “book builder” dedicated to the documentation of Negro culture. His work embodies his passion for stirring up strong emotions and encouraging people to think in previously unexplored ways. In addition to his work as a book artist, he is an educator, performance artist and proprietor of Kennedy Prints, a letterpress print studio in Akron, Alabama.
It’s All in the Fold–More than Just Origami at the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts from 28 July - 25 August. This exhibition takes a world-view of the way paper is transformed when folded.
Spend Your Alphabets Lavishly! exhibition at the Cary Collect, Wallace Library, RIT in Rochester, NY through summer 2007. Catalog is available with 48 pages, 21 illustrations , paperback with foil stamping, $20.00 or go to carypress.rit.edu/
Im Fluss: Kunstlerpublikationen mit Blick aufs Wasser (Artists’ publications with a river view ), including work by Bas Jan Ader, Marcel Broodthaers, Christo, Tacita Dean, Jan Dibbets, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Hamish Fulton, Roni Horn, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Gerhard Ruhm, Jan Voss, Lawrence Weiner and many others at Weserburg, Museum fur Moderne Kunst in Bremen, Germany.16 June - 13 January 2008.
DEALERS’ CATALOGS
Bertram Rota a new Spring 2007 Book Arts Catalog which can be downloaded from www.bertramrota.co.uk or e-mail Nancy Campbell at bertramrota@compuserve.com for a PDF.
Another Room Book Arts Bookstore, located in Alameda, California opened 2 June along with the rest of Rhythmix Cultlural Works (www.rhythmix.org), a non-profit arts center. Artists’ books, broadsides, and ephemera are offered. It will also be one of the 10 locations for Bookmarks V 2007.
Paule Léon Bisson-Millet has a new catalog of artists’ books and some other artist’s interventions dated 1990 and onward. Write to her at Famersberg 11, D-71717 Beilstein, Germany or plbmbooks@t-online.de
CONFERENCES & BOOK FAIRS
Artists’ Talks on Artists’ Books, a one-day symposium at Winchester School of Art, 13 July 2007. Includes a special focus on John Bently’s 23 years of publishing and performance as the Liver and Lights Scriptorium.
The Second Manchester Artist’s Book Fair will be held on 29 September 2007 at the Holden Gallery, Manchestser Metropolitan University, UK. For more information, e-mail Tom Sowden, t.sowden@mmu.ac.uk
5th artists’ books + multiples Fair, Brisbane, Australia 7 - 9 September 2007 at University Art Museum, the Mayne Centre, Unviersity of Queensland, Brisbane, organized by Noreen Graham. For exhibitors’ fees, entries, etc. contact info@grahamegalleries.com
This year’s London Artists Book Fair - LAB’07 - will be held at the ICA, The Mall from 23 to 25 November 2007. For entries, etc., contact Marcus Campbell, info@marcuscampbell.co.uk
Contemporary Creative Books - Tenth International Book Fair, Park Chanot (Halln. 7) 20-21 October 2007, Marseilles, France.
Small Publishers Fair 2007 will take place on 12 and 13 October at Conway Hall, Red Lion Sq., London WC1, UK
OPPORTUNITIES
Field Study Call for Submissions: ReSite
Re = a prefix indicating repetition
Site = the place where some activity or event takes place. ReSite is a new assembling publication with a difference.
All pages are to be conceived as having an element of audience participation or interaction. Works could take the form of scores, instructions, or interventions to be realized by the reader.
Send 40 copies size 21cm x 14.8cm (A5). Copies have to be flat and landscape format. Please leave 2cms on the left hand side for the binding. ReSite is an ongoing project, issue made every 20 participants. Send to Field Study, P.O. Box 1838, Geelong, VIC 3220 Australia.
Call for Submissions: Lovingly Bound: Book and Arts Fair in Philadelphia
Ladies and Gentle-men (and book artists, printmakers, and craftspeople),
The 215 Festival presents: For one day only, the spectacular literary extravaganza that is the Lovingly Bound: Book and Arts Fair. See with your own eyes:
Renegade publishers who defy the megalo-maniacal mainstream!
People who bind books with their bare hands!
Fearless type wranglers who control language one letter at a time!
Learned musicians!
Dazzling performances!
Latvian beer!
And a crowd of Philadelphia’s hip, young bibliophiles carrying heavy coin-purses!
Would you like to help lighten their load?
You are cordially invited to exhibit and sell your wares on Saturday, October 6th from noon to 5 p.m. at the Latvian Society in Philadelphia. Lovingly Bound brings together independent publishers, book artists, craftsters, and musicians for one big book bash. A mere $30 in bona-fide United States currency will reserve space for you at one (1) table, grant you a listing and link on our Internet web-site (215festival.com), and ensure complete market coverage and visibility for your organization in the finest media publications in Philadelphia and beyond.
To take advantage of this unbelievable proposition, please follow these instructions: Send 3 jpgs (no larger than 72 dpi) of your work and your contact information to this email address. If selected, you will receive a registration form to return with payment. Queries and questions:
Kristine Paulus kristine_paulus@yahoo.com
Field Report 2007
Journal of Field Study International. Field Study invites you to take part in its 13th report. Send 100 copies of a documentation of a performance, instruction, manifesto, journey work, etc. which you have conceived as a Field Study action and accordingly ‘Field Study Emanation by… + artist’s name’
Copies have to be flat and landscape format. Size (A5) 21cm x 14.8cms. Please leave 2cm on the left hand side for the binding. All emanations will be bound and a copy of the report sent to all participants. Deadline: 31 December 2007.
Bright Hill Literary Center in Treadwell, NY, announces a call for its 6th North American Juried Book Arts Exhibit. The exhibit will take place from October 7 - 31 in the Center’s Word & Image Gallery. Books submitted to the 6th Anniversary BHP Book Arts Exhibit should contain both words & images in a book format. Jurors Karen Hanmer & Bertha Rogers are looking for a clearly stated concept, thought-provoking text, engaging visual presentation, the relationship of the words and images to each other, exceptional technical presentation, an imaginative approach, and an integrated overall delivery of the message. Two books will be selected for special recognition, in the form of Best of Show ($200 cash award) and Second Place ($100 cash award). Entries, which must be postmarked no later than 17 August 2007,will be judged by IMAGES ON CDS. Entries will be limited to three artists books (traditionally-bound books, artists books, sculptural book works, hanging books, etc; books must have been created in the period 2003-2007 and must never have been exhibited at Bright Hill Center in Treadwell, New York). Each book entered may be represented on the CD by three views. If the books are accepted and are designed to be hung, artist must provide them ready to hang; if flat, they will be displayed on pedestals. Entries will be limited to books created by artists residing in North America.
Karen Hanmer is a Chicago book and installation artist whose intimate, playful work fragments and layers text and image to mirror the experience of personal and cultural memory. She exhibits widely, and her work is included in collections ranging from the New York Public Library and Tate Britain to UCLA and Graceland. Hanmer holds a degree in Economics from Northwestern University, and has studied at Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts and with several notable fine binders. She is Exhibitions Chair for the Guild of Book Workers, and serves on the editorial board of The Bonefolder, a peer-reviewed online book arts journal. A complete catalog of her work is available online at www.karenhanmer.com
Bertha Rogers has read, lectured about, and taught writing and fine and applied arts to children, adults, and teachers for 35 years. Her two-and three-dimensional art has been shown in more than 200 juried and solo exhibitions throughout the US and abroad. Her awards include fellowships to the MacDowell, Millay, Hedgebrook, Caldera, and Hawthornden artists’ colonies, and a Ludwig Vogelstein grant for her interdisciplinary exhibit and book, Even the Hemlock: Poems, Reliquaries, & Illuminations. Her “Bears” book is currently on view at Syracuse University Library and online at library.syr.edu/digital/exhibits/c/cnybookarts/Rogers.htm Rogers is the founding director of Bright Hill Literary Center, now in its 15th year.
For complete guidelines and required entry form, or for questions, please email Bright Hill Literary Center at wordthur@stny.rr.com
Call for Entries:: Altered Books at Minneapolis Central Library
Minneapolis Public Library announces a national call for U.S. artists to submit digital images of altered books for a juried exhibition January-March 2008 at Minneapolis Central Library’s Cargill Hall exhibition gallery. The exhibition will be juried by Betty Bright, Ph.D., former curator at Minnesota Center for Book Arts and author of “No Longer Innocent: Book Art in America, 1960 to 1980,” (Granary Books, 2005). The exhibition will be part of a city-wide series of workshops, exhibitions and programs capped by the annual convention of the Public Library Association, in Minneapolis, March 25-29, 2008.
According to the International Society of Book Artists, an altered book is any book, old or new, that has been recycled by creative means into a work of art.. Entry fee $20 for up to 5 images on CD in JPG format, 72 dpi, no more than 7 inches (or 504 pixels) along the image’s longest dimension. Works must be original in concept and execution and have been created since January 1,2003. Note that this exhibition is open to working artists only. Deadline: Oct. 15, 2007. Final selection Nov. 1, 2007.
For application details see: www.mplib.org/callforexhibitions.asp or www.mplib.org/AlteredBooks.pdf
Please direct questions to: Melinda Ludwiczak at mludwiczak@mplib.org or 612-630-6246.
COURSES
23 Sandy Gallery is pleased to present EAST MEETS WEST: A Book Arts Workshop with Bea Nettles
Dates: September 22-23, 2007, Saturday and Sunday, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm
Location: 23 Sandy Gallery, 623 NE 23rd Avenue, Portland, OR 97232
Cost: $235 plus $20 materials fee
23 Sandy Gallery is excited to bring photographer and book artist Bea Nettles to Portland to teach her popular two-day workshop: East Meets West. Students will create inspiring model books over two days that are ready to take home and re-create using your own photographs, collage, prints or any other materials. No previous experience with bookbinding is necessary.
Bea Nettles will be our featured artist in the gallery in September. She is a photographer and book artist and author of the classic textbook, Breaking the Rules: A Photo Media Cookbook. You can learn more about Bea and see her work at www.beanettles.com. Be sure to check out her new photographic artist books made during her recent residency in Iceland. Download a PDF registration form at www.23sandy.com/Events.html
INTERNET RESOURCES
Colin Sackett’s new website: www.colinsackett.co.uk includes The “Writings and Radings” pages and much more to come.
www.forever.net/archives/dont-try-this-at-home where you won’t believe what you see re: artist books!
Laure Whitehill Chong (Special Collections Librarian at RISD) has made a PowerPoint slide show with images of the recent Angela Lorenz exhibition at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI. To download the PDF, visit the RISD Library Intranet page at: intranet.risd.edu Underneath the photo banner at the top, click on the tab for Library. When you get to the library page, there is a column on the right side for links to PDF files. Select “Angela Lorenz Exhibition Highlights.”
The Bonefolder, vol. 3, no. 1, Spring 2007 at www.philobiblon.com/bonefolder/vol3no2contents.htm
The William Blake Archive is also very interesting:
www.blakearchive.org/blake/
The digital images on this site are far superior to many of the muddy reproductions in published books. Quite revealing and exciting!
Peter H. Barnett’s new web site – the philosophic artist’s book is www.nameeman.com
