Volume 30, No. 3, Sep 2007
Artist Book News
NEWS
New website for 20th-century Art Archives in Cambridge, UK: www.20th-century-art-archives.com
Artists’ talks on artists’ books web archive is now online, culled from a one-day symposium at Winchester School of Art at www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/winarc07.htm
The National Art Library (NAL) at the V & A has recently launched a visual database of artist books featuring a selection of objects from the collection, featuring over 100 objects from the collection of over 5000 artist books held in the NAL. Some of the objects are shown in 3-D, providing rotating views of some of the more sculptural objects in the collection. See www.vam.ac.uk/collections/prints_books/artists_books/database/index.php It is accompanied by a suite of pages which include a brief history of artist books, a series of interviews with some contemporary book artists, links to other projects and websites and some suggested further reading.
The Joan Flasch Artist’s Book Collection at the School of the Art Institute Chicago has launched anonline searchable database of visual books in their collection, you can search by artist/author/title/image etc. See digital-libraries.saic.edu/cdm4/index_jfabc.php?CISOROOT=/jfabc
Focus on Artists’ Books IV due to be held in Mackay, Australia in February 2008. The sessions involve workshops and masterclasses, official opening on 8 Feburary, exhibition from 9 February - 23 March 2008; Australian Artists’ Books Forum. For more information, contact artspace@mackay.qld.gov.au or go to www.artspacemackay.com.au
The World’s Longest Accordion Book was created at the Minnesota Center for Book Art’s Symposium in July and was assembled on 28 July 2007. The book spanned the Stone Arch Bridge, stretching a half-mile across the Mighty Mississippi. The theme was “Why not build a book to show how art serves as a bridge and how the book arts bridge the literary arts with visual art? See www.mnbookarts.org/events/longestbook.html
So Multiples - Newsletter #6. Research website for multiples and other artists’ publications can be see at www.so-multiples.com
Robbin Ami Silverberg exhibited her books at Galerie Druck und Buch in Tubingen, Germany until 27 October.
Miriam Schaer was seen in refuse/refuse at Pochron, Brooklyn for one week in September-October and is in an exhibition at Proteus Gowanus in Brooklyn through the September 2008.
EXHIBITS
Tom Phillips: A humument explores the work of British artist Tom Phillips, focusing in particular on his book A humument: a treated Victorian novel. Phillips first conceived this long-running (and ongoing) project in the 1960s, transforming an obscure Victorian novel (A human document, by W.H. Mallock), by excising selected portions of the text and overlaying the gaps with his own imagery.
The first complete edition of A humument was published privately in 1970, but since its first trade edition, 10 years later, the book has achieved cult status. With the recent publication of a fourth edition, A humument has been confirmed as one of the most successful and influential artist books of the last fifty years. Phillips has continued to remark the book, and the display follows the evolution of the project from its beginnings to the present day, with different editions on show alongside related works-on-paper, as well as a number of new pages that have not been seen in public. At Dean Gallery, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 73 Belford Rd., Edinburgh. Permanent collection display from 6 October 2007 - 6 January 2008. The fourth edition of The Humument is available in your local bookshops or from Thames & Hudson in London or in New York.
Photo + Construct, a group of mixed media and sculptural photography from 4 October - 3 November in Portland, OR at 23 Sandy Gallery at 623 NE 23rd Ave.
Lasting Impressions: 25 Years of Pyracantha Press, Herberger College School of Art, ASU Libraries, Tempe, AZ from 20 August - 12 October 2007.
Place of Mind: Paintings and works on paper by John Bailly / Poems by Richard Blanco October 4 – December 15, 2007. Main Library Auditorium, 101 W. Flagler Street, Miami The work for this exhibition is the result of a collaboration between critically acclaimed Cuban-American poet Richard Blanco (City of a Hundred Fires, Directions to the Beach of the Dead) and painter and printmaker John Bailly, Fellow of the Honors College at Florida International University. Bailly’s work for this project consists of prints, paintings, and book art created in dialogue with Blanco’s poems, which will be printed and mounted for the exhibition. Often subtle, sometimes vague, and rarely obvious, the relationships between the poems and paintings will rely on the viewer’s own intuition and associations.
Stargaze and Other Tales, or More Artist-Poet Collaborations from the Permanent Collection of the Miami-Dade Public Library System Through December 19, 2007
Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic at the Center for Book and Paper Arts in Chicago through 27 October. I recently had the good fortune to be in Chicago the night of the opening of this beautiful show. It includes an outstanding collection of writing manuals going back to the 17th century as well as a variety of antique schoolbooks – reading, spelling, math, and geography texts, some from around the globe. There’s also a delightful assortment of early teaching aids. Visually, the exhibition is intriguing, rich in the worn surfaces dear to collage artists. Especially noteworthy is the elegance of form, language, and thought that many of these works reveal. See it if you can.
Book Artists’ Response to Death and Memory at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, from October 1 - November 30, 2007, at Special Collections, UWM Libraries, curated by Maria G. Pisano.
“Maria Pisano: Books and Prints” September 24-December 28, 2007 Special Collections, UWM Libraries, 414 229 4345 or libspecial@uwm.edu. The exhibit showcases books and prints from Memory Press.
Production, Not Reproduction: Offset Printed Artist Books, organized by Tony White with an amazing array of artists from Sally Alatalo, Bill Burke, Toni Dove, Eugene Feldman, Brad Freeman to Patti Smith, Jim Snitzer, Buzz Spector, and Philip Zimmermann. At the Center for Book Arts, New York City through 8 December.
LONG WAYS to TRAVEL:The Books & Broadsides of Convivio Bookworks John Cutrone and Seth Thompson create letterpress-printed limited edition books and broadsides in a small studio at their home in Downtown Lake Worth, Florida. Before settling into this studio, though, their work was done very much in the spirit of the itinerant printers of yore, working at presses and book studios across the country. In organizing this first retrospective of their work, it became apparent that books by Cutrone & Thompson involve not just type and paper but also miles and wanderlust. The show takes its name from a shellac disc recorded by Woody Guthrie in 1945: “Long Ways to Travel” seemed a fitting title for a show of books and broadsides printed in many far-flung places.
This show gathers twenty of their print works, including “Psalm for Cordie” (1994), which was Cutrone’s first book, and some of Convivio Bookworks’ most recent productions: “Works on Paper” (2007), a book of poems by Shin Yu Pai, and two pieces that came about from their participation with the Mutanabbi Street Coalition, raising money for humanitarian relief agencies in Iraq through the sale of letterpress-printed broadsides of the work of Iraqi poets. Cutrone and Thompson worked with poet Zaid Shlah on a piece called “From Occident to Orient” (2007).
“Long Ways to Travel” runs now through January 3, 2008, at FAU’s MacArthur Campus Library, 5353 Parkside Drive in Jupiter. Telephone (561) 799-8530.
Outside the Book, an exhibition of contemporary artist-made books with bookmaking activities for children, curated by Dan Mayer, at Arizona Museum for Youth, mesa, AZ from 19 October - 3 February 2008. Includes work by Mark Atwood, Carol Barton, Jerry Bleem, Karen Bleitz, Macy Chadwick, Joe D’Ambrosio, Lise Hawkos, Catherine Alice Michaeolis, Rebecca mcAneny, Michelle Segal, Dolph Smith, Esth K. Smith & Dikko Faust, Linda Smith, Jessica Spring, Ashlee Weitlauf, and Xu Bing’s “A Book from the Ground” (work in progress) and “Square Word.”
Locus 13 - A Postal Project by Mike Nicholson of Ensixteen Editions at UWE, Library, School of Creative Arts, Dept. Of Art & Design, Bristol, UK
Touch - Julie Barratt at UWE 24 October - 24 November. Artists’ Books by Australian printmaker/artist ook maker using colograph, screen printing, etching and embossing useing as theme, “ways of seeing”.
Looks@books #3 - curated by Jan Davis and Stephen Spurrier with bookworks fromSouthern Cross University and the University of Southern Queensland. At UWE Bristol.
Top of the World: Paintings and Artist Books of the Arctic by Ken Leslie at Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium, Vermont until 27 January 2008. It includes paintings, digital photographs, and artist books of landscapes and sky during the polar winter and polar summer from Svalbard, above the Arctic Circle. See www.fairbanksmuseum.org
For the Love of Making Books, a touring exhibition of artist books and related artwork from www.artistsbooksonline.com launching at Wrexham Arts Centre until 14 October. At Gwynedd Museum and Gallery, Bangor, Gwynedd UK from 10 November - 12 January 2008.
Poesia per I Sensi: the artist books of Clemens-Tobias Lange from 31 October - 18 November at Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Entrance from Museo Correr, Venezia, Italy.
A retrospective of Susan Johanknecht’s Gefn Press at Bailey/Howe Library, University of Vermont. It will travel in Autumn 2008 to Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.
Do I miss the rest of the world?: drawings and books by Nanne Meyer at the Barbara Wien Galerie und Buchhandlung fur Kunstbuecher, Berlin through 7 November.
An Alaskan Decade: Susan Jay Share at the Center for Book Arts, New York through 8 December.
Papel Mexicano at Columbia College Chicago Center for Book & Paper Arts from 3 November - 15 December.
Place of Mind. Paintings and works on paper by John Bailly / Poems by Richard Blanco at the Miami Public Library from 4 October - 15 December 2007.
2008 BOOK FAIRS
scissorspaperstone, London. 12 April 2008
a one-day, subsidized artist book and multiples fair offering artists, book artists and small presses an exciting opportunity to display and sell work directly to the public. Sponsored by londonprinstudio in partnership with Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, University of the West of England. Details can be found at www.londonprintstudio.org.uk for a downloadable application form (Word document and PDF) Deadline for Submissions: 14 December 2007. For questions, contact bookarts@londonprintstuido.org.uk
Glasgow International Artist’s Book Fair 2008 at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, UK on 25 and 26 April 2008 from 11 - 6pm. To participate, please request and return the booking form and payment before 31 December 2007 and e-mail the information for the catalog by the same date. If you need information, please contact Helen Shaddock, glasgowartistsbookfair@gogglemail.com or 07845-579706. Cost of table is £60 or if you cannot attend, you are still able to send your bookworks and unsold items will be returned (£90)
OPPORTUNITIES
Call for Entries:
A Reader’s Art 8: handmade with care is a survey show of artist books with a theme of the “mark of the hand” with special weight to those who use handmade paper. Send up to 10 jpegs or slides, resume, artist’s statement for consideration by 15 January 2008. For more indepth specifics, go to www.susanhenselgallery.com The gallery is located in Minneapolis, MN.
Fresh Impressions: Letterpress Printing in Contemporary Art from 28 February - 20 March 2008, curated by Inge Bruggeman and Heather Watkins, Hoffman Gallery, Oregon College of Art and Design. Details can be gleaned from Inge Bruggeman, inge@texturaprinting.com
COLLEGE BOOK ARTS ASSOCIATION
As co-coordinator, I am writing to invite any interested book arts educatorsto come to the first annual meeting of the newly formed organization, the College Book Arts Association, or CBAA. This is the group that was originally proposed at the informal gathering of book arts educators held in January 2006 at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
Karen White Zimmermann, head of the Visual Communications Department of the University of Arizona in Tucson is the other co-coordinator and the University of Arizona’s College of Fine Art has kindly agreed to be the host institution. Details are still being worked out but we have confirmed the dates as Friday, January 11 and Saturday, January 12, 2008 in Tucson.
It has been proposed by the Board of Directors of CBAA, that there be a work-and-planning meeting of the new organization every other year (at least for the first few years) and a full book arts convention on the alternate year, which would be 2009. This upcoming no-frills get-together in January 2008 would be the first major planning meeting. The main point of the meeting needs to be the work of the organization –which of course concerns the teaching of book arts. We will focus on how to make and have the organization be one that is responsive to member educator needs. It would be different in general tone and intention from earlier collegiate press conferences. This will not be a conference. This will be an organizational meeting that will set the course for this important new association.
If you would like to be part of what we hope will be a very important professional organization, we hope that we will see you in Tucson. If you feel that you would like to have input and you have ideas about what the CBAA can be, please reserve these two dates in January and stay tuned for more detailed info in the next month and a half.
Philip Zimmermann,
Professor, School of Art+Design
Purchase College, State University of New York
735 Anderson Hill Road
Purchase NY 10577-1400
914+251.6785 (academic year only) Mon through Weds.
845+876.2719 (home) Thurs through Sun.
pzim@spaceheat.com (all year + preferred)
phil.zimmermann@purchase.edu
