People Reading

The Spartanburg Art Museum in South Carolina recently opened the doors to its' new location with the powerful exhibition People Reading : Selections From the Collection of Donald and Patricia Oresman. The exhibit is perfectly curated by Thomas L. Johnson, librarian emeritus at the University of South Carolina, and consists of 60 works from the vast Oresman collection which consists of over 2,000 images.

Maurice Askenazy PIONEER, 1929 Ink and pencil on paper 2 15/16 x 3 11/16

We see people reading books, we see people reading newspapers, we see people reading alone and in groups, in bed and in the bath, at night and during the day, inside and out. The range and breadth of the images conveys both the power and the pain inherent in the act of reading.

Will Barnett SWING AT DUSK, n.d. Lithograph (edition unknown), 11 x 14 in.

In his introduction to the catalog for the exhibition Johnson mentions that one of the reasons he wanted to curate the show is because "he loves books and art" and "While I do not worship them, I do love them intrinsically-as wonderful and curious objects to be handled or images to be seen and enjoyed spontaneously-as well as for their power to communicate emotionally and intellectually at the deepest levels."

Johnson then goes on to ponder the question as to why such a collection has not be duplicated in the public domain. He offers us this:

"Why not establish a collection in the public domain that brings together these two themes and elements-these twin necessities of reading and artistic expression-in the phenomenal way in which the Oresman's have accomplished this in the private realm?"

Ah, the "twin necessities" for the masses - what a beautiful thought.

View the exhibit online

Catalog available here

Top image: Catalog cover Leo Meissner WAR BULLETINS, c. 1942. Wood engraving (edition of 50) 6 1/8 x 11 1⁄4 in.

The Enduring and Evolving Codex

Is the end of the book near? Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer boldy claims in his talk with the Washington Post that "In the next 10 years, the whole world of media, communications and advertising are going to be turned upside down" and there will be "no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network." Though talking particularly about newspapers and magazines there are many who would include the future of the book in his assessment. While I agree that newspapers in there current state are doomed, magazines less so, the book will continue its reign as a premier mode of content delivery. Yes, there is a good possibility that most book content will be available digitally in the next 10 years but this will simply be a complement to the printed book not a replacement.

Before we continue with the funeral arrangements Joyce at Bibliophile Bullpen reminds us that printed book is most enduring media element in the history of mankind.

Here is how it stacks up:

CD-ROMs are estimated to last from 30 to 200 years.
CD-Rs, before they are recorded, have an estimated shelf life of five to ten years.
CD-Rs, after recording, estimated 70 to 200 years.
CD-RWs are expected to last at least 30 years.
Photo CDs have an expected life of over 100 years.
Magnetic tape has a life of 30 to 100 years
Hard drives expected to last 114 to 170 years
A vinyl record has a life span of 100 years
Solid state drives last about 145 Years

while The Archimedes Palimpsest, written on parchment in the codex form, has survived since the second half of the tenth century!

For a comprehensive look at how the codex is evolving in today's world there is the newly published 500 Handmade Books : Inspiring Interpretations of a Timeless Form from Lark Books.


500 Handmade Books is a visual journey through the world of contemporary book arts. The only requirement is for each piece to "function like a book." The books were chosen by Steve Miller who studied under legendary book artist and teacher Walter Hamady and teaches in the book arts program at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The book is a stunning testament to the book form and to the artists who continue to find in the book a means to communicate.

Book Details:
500 Handmade Books: Inspiring Interpretations of a Timeless Form. New York: Lark Books, 2008. First Edition. 8" X 8". 419pp. Pictorial french-fold wraps. Illustrated in color. $24.95

Book available here

'The Writing's On The Wall' : Art Meets Language

SHIRIN NESHAT -Rebellious Silence (1994)
Black and white RC print and ink, 27.9 x 35.6 cm.
Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York.

The current issue of ArtAsiaPacific features an in depth look at artists who employ text in their work.

Articles include:

-A great piece on contemporary calligraphy in China, "Square Words, Round Paradigms" by Eric Wear.

-A look at Yoko Ono's embrace of online communities (Ono averages 200 new 'friends' on MySpace a day) by HG Masters.

-Gregory Galligan's looks at Islamic text-based art in his piece, "Architecture in Script: From Without Boundaries to Archive Fever," and includes Shirin Neshat whose iconic work appears above.

Also in this issue is Eliza Gluckman's profile of Sharmini Pereira and her publishing imprint, Raking Leaves, which focuses exclusively on artists using the printed book as the medium.

It is refreshing to see how widespread the use of language, and the book for that matter, is in contemporary art. These new avenues of textual consumption expand the boundaries of reading and offer us fresh ways to make sense of the world.

Related: previous Book Patrol post : "The Book Gods of Contemporary Chinese Art"

Pearl Jam Visuals

"Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest" -Eddie Vedder

Pearl Jam vs. Ames Bros brings together 229 posters created for Pearl Jam from 1995-2007 by the Ames Bros and Brad Klausen.

The book features over 80 comments on individual posters from all five members of Pearl Jam and running commentary from the poster designers -- offering insight into the inspiration, concepts and process of poster creation.

Details:

Bros, Ames and Brad Klausen. Pearl Jam vs. Ames Bros: 13 Years of Tour Posters. Ames Bros Inc. / Ten Club LLC, 2007. First Edition. Quarto. 263pp. including index. Illustrated throughout in color with reproductions of over 200 posters. Green cloth lettered in gilt with 3 color illustration on front board. As New, issued without dust jacket.

Book available here


Pearl Jam Press Release

Pop Surrealism Meets the Book

"Dry All My Tears" 2008

Ink and acrylic on old book
Size: 27/29cm (10.5/7.5in)

Mike Stilkey is on a roll. On the heels of his amazing installation, "When the Animals Rebel" at Rice University this past summer comes "An Occasion of Wonder" his one-man show currently on view at at Milieu Gallerie in Bern, Switzerland.

From the exhibit intro:

Using ink, colored pencil, acrilyc, gouache and lacquer Mike Stilkey depicts a melancholic and at times whimsical cast of characters inhabiting ambiguous spaces and narratives of fantasy and fairy tales. His work is reminiscent of Weimar-era German expressionism and his style has been described by some as capturing features of artists ranging from Edward Gorey to Egon Schiele.

"Man Trips and Falls In His Own Country" 2008
Ink, colored pencil and acrylic on old book
Size: 27/29cm (10.5/7.5in)

I can think of no better afterlife for these books.

Here is a neat video of Stilkey at work.




Previous Book Patrol post, "The Book Painting of Mike Stilkey"

Side image: "The First Mortgage" 2008. Ink, colored pencil and acrylic on old books
Size: 77/29cm (30.25/11.25in)

Blood on Paper : Books in the Hand of Artists

"At a time when the notion of the book is challenged by the advent of the screen and computer, this exhibition aims to show the extraordinary ways in which the book has been treated by leading artists of today and the recent past. Blood on Paper will focus on new and contemporary work, and on books where the artist has been the driving force in conception and design." --from the Introduction to the exhibit.

Most notable artists of the 20th and 21st century have used the book form as a vehicle. No matter what their primary artistic leaning (painting, sculpture, drawing, installation) is the conceptual framework of the book has drawn each into its grasp.

Anselm Kiefer The Secret Life of Plants

Many of the heavyweights of Modern Art are included in the show and the power of the book object shines through in works ranging from the grandeur of Anselm Kiefer's 'Secret Life of Plants' to the minimalist work of Edward Ruscha and Sol Lewitt to the remains of conceptual artist Cai Guo Qiang's piece 'Danger Book: Suicide Fireworks'

Cai Guo Qiang 'Danger Book: Suicide Fireworks'

The exhibit runs through June 28th at the Victoria & Albert Museum and is a must see for those planning to be or living in and around London.

The V&A's worthy online feature on Artists' Books.
Senior curator Dr. Rowan Watson's essay on the exhibit (pdf).
Michael Glovers piece in the London Times, "Blood on Paper: art goes under covers."

Selection of previous Book Patrol posts on Books and Artists :

'The Book Gods of Contemporary Chinese Art'
'Books to Be Desired : Penelope Umbrico's Private Residence'
'The Book That Didn't Get Built'
'Contemporary Artists Tackle Their Favorite Books'

Books and History in the Work of Nicola Dale

Time creates history and time changes history. From existing texts visual artist Nicola Dale painstakingly carves a new history, both for the texts themselves and for the those of us lucky enough to consume them.

A Secret Heliotropism, 2006. Hand cut found book; full color, 320 pages

Using a Walter Benjamin quote from his ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’ as a starting point Dale took a copy of “The People’s Century” and a very small pair of scissors and transformed the 320 page history book from a mass produced object to a unique piece of book art. Over the course of a year, each page was hand cut into a leaf pattern so that "the leaves (pun intended) stretch out from the book towards a source of natural sunlight, as though the book itself were growing and changing in the same way history does."

"The leaves I had created were a reminder of the book’s historical origins: trees turned to paper and symbolically back again. The work also has its own secret mechanism, as I created a pattern which allows the pages to be folded down flat and put back into their cover to transform once more into an ordinary looking book."

Telling the Truth About History, But Not About the Past, 2007
altered hardback book, book jacket measures 16cm x 21.5cm

Dale deals with time a little differently in this amazing work:

The Book That Reads Itself, 2007

10cm x 28cm x 15cm

"Once upon a time there will only be the book which reads itself.."

Here it is not so much history but the future that concerns Dale. Will time and technology continue its onslaught on the physical book? As readership continues it decline will books need to ultimately engage themselves to fulfill their mission?

"The artist's books I make (part of a wider artistic practice) deal with the themes of originality, authorship and repetition not because I think everything has already been said, but because there is always something to add to the conversation, by way of a little rearrangement to the order of things."

This is good stuff!

Dale at Axisweb
Piece in issue 5 of STATIC the web resource of the London Consortium
Dale at Artists Books Online
short Q&A with Dale at artselector

The Book Gods of Contemporary Chinese Art

"Read thousands of books, travel thousands of miles"

Liu Yi (1017-1086)

Xu Bing. Book From the Sky
1987-91
Mixed media installation / Hand-printed books and scrolls printed from blocks inscribed with ''false'' characters.

Huang Yong Ping The History of Chinese Painting and a Concise History of Modern Painting Washed in a Washing Machine for Two Minutes
1987-1993
Chinese teabox, paper pulp, glass

In the art world there are few genres as hot as Contemporary Chinese Art and in Chinese Contemporary Art there are few objects as important as the book.

The quote above from Liu Yi begins Wu Hung's introduction to the catalog of the seminal exhibition Shu: Reinventing Books in Contemporary Chinese Art which he curated for the China Institute and which is currently on view, albeit in a condensed form at the Seattle Asian Art Museum.
through December 2.

Hung, who also curates the exhibit, is the Harriet H. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor of Art History, East Asian Languages & Civilizations at the University of Chicago, and his introduction is a must read for those who want to understand the importance of the book in Chinese cultural.

The exhibit is a who's who of Contemporary Chinese Art featuring over 20 artists, and their "book-related experiments," including work by Xu Bing, Cai Guo-Qiang, Huang Yong Ping, Song Dong, Hong Hao and Wenda Gu.

Many pieces are inspired by the traditional book materials like calligraphy, paper and ink, all essential materials of Chinese culture, and many are reactions to the power and potential danger inherent in the book object.

There is simply too much great stuff here to cover in one post. The two images included here are considered masterworks of the genre. Both began in the late 1980's as Cultural Revolution was fading. Neither artist still lives in China.

The curator Wu Hung will be a giving a talk at the Seattle Asian Art Museum this Thursday.
If you live anywhere near Seattle the exhibit is worth a visit.

Video of Wu Hung's talk about the exhibit at the China Institute
Review of exhibition by Bridget L Goodbody in the New York Times; Defending the Printed Page as the New China Stirred

Book Patrol will feature other artists whose book works appear in the exhibition in the coming weeks

Shaker Primal Books

"There is a primal book as there is a primal voice, & it is the task of our poetry & art to recover it" says Jerome Rothenberg curator of the amazing visual ethnopoetic trip through history over at UBUWEB.

Rothenberg says that "while the initial focus of ethnopoetics was on orality and performance, the discourse turned as well to the visible aspects of language — writing & inscription — both as a persistent contemporary concern & as an often unacknowledged kingpin of a revitalized & expanded ethnopoetics."

The image above was done in the mid-nineteenth century and is attributed to Timothy Randlett a Shaker living in New Hampshire. In his 1940 book The Gift to Be Simple noted Shaker historian Edward Deming Andrews talks about the 13 years between 1837 and 1850 that were known as the "Era of Manifestations."During this time the Shakers composed, "or where the recipients of", hundreds of visionary drawings.
The caption at bottom of the image above identifies it as a song while the vertical writing seems to be comprised of either some sort of wordless text or musical notation.

Here is another Shaker visual piece done in the early 1840's. It is not hard to see Dada and Surreal elements though both movements were still more than a half century away.

Amazing stuff.

The book Heavenly Visions: Shaker Gift Drawings and Gift Songs published by the Drawing Center is the monograph on the subject.



Thanks to Deeplinking for the lead

The Growing Bestiary of Briony Morrow-Cribbs

The "Cabinets of Curiosity" of the 16th and 17th century is the jumping off point for Morrow-Cribbs. These rooms of mythical constructs blur the boundary of fact and fiction, where the real and the imagined share the stage.

Morrow-Cribs says she "uses the mediums of print and the book arts (and occasionally ceramics) to create a graphic connection between the recognizable 'real' world and my invisible, 'fantasy' world.

Her latest project is providing 11 aquatint prints to accompany the first book publication of Brigit Pegeen Kelly's prose poem Iskandariya. The book is designed and published by Rollin Milroy at Heavenly Monkey.

Milroy says the poem offers "a perfect companion for Briony's growing bestiary of anthropomorphically jumbled creatures."

Millroy and Heavenly Monkey continue their ascent to the top of the fine press world with each book taking us on a quality journey utilizing the most creative artists, writers and book makers this region has to offer. I have yet to be disappointed.

Morrow-Cribbs, the daughter of two artists, has yet to leave her twenties so settle in, this journey is just beginning.

We are delighted to host an exhibit of the work of Briony Morrow-Cribbs to coincide with the release of Iskandariya. The exhibit runs through Halloween. For those who can't make it here is the online version.

The Book Painting of Mike Stilkey

The piece is titled When The Animals Rebel. It occupies a 16 X 44 foot wall and consists of thousands of books LA artist Mike Stilkey has accumulated over the last few years via thrift stores and yard sales.

"Using pen and ink and acrylics, Stilkey has painted the books’ spines to depict a scene where wild and domestic animals are, as he puts it, “taking back their land,” while humans with detached expressions continue their daily routines, seemingly oblivious to the animals’ presence." The books became his paper.

He is attracted to them “ sometimes by the title, or more the look of it, the antiqueness of it, or the wear and tear of it. Sometimes there’s a weird illustration. I’ve got these books and I’ll never read them, but I want them for some reason and I’ve never known why. And then I started drawing on them."

Stilkey turns the transformative power of books upside down. In Stilkey's world the text is silenced and the bindings become the conveyors of meaning. The spines and in some cases the covers become the canvas, with each book playing a unique role in the piece. The blurring of the traditional boundaries of the book infuses each of them with new meaning. They are altered books in the sense that they have been tampered with but they have also been built upon with each book playing its part in the overall meaning of the sculpture.

A work of art that smells like a used bookstore. This guy is my hero.

The piece was the Summer Window Installation at Rice University Art Gallery

P.S. - To that bookseller who was burning his books in Kansas City because he couldn't get rid of them. Pack them all up and send them to Stilkey so they can begin a new life.

Thanks to Houstonist for the lead

Books To Be Desired: Penelope Umbrico's Private Residence

How many unsolicited home improvement magazines arrive in your mailbox?

I would guess these companies have figured out how many one home should receive to maintain the cultural desire needed for them to succeed; just enough to keep you thinking that your lacking something or in need of something.

In Private Residence Umbirico re-photographs selected details of the images contained in these magazines to explore the "fictional narratives found in the images of idealized rooms," she is interested in "how corporations construct publicly accessible “private” spaces in media - and how this works to produce desire, and the illusion of control, agency and individuality."

Her preferred image detail is the book. She extracts the book detail from these idealized rooms and transforms them into a collage of vacancy. There are no readers in this world, there is no transmission of knowledge. Our beloved books are merely props and pedestals. They are all dressed up yet utterly alone, no one to engage, no one to play with.

Now that should kill your desire.

When you visit her website Umbrico has another related piece worth a look. All Catalogs (A-Z) is "a text piece that is comprised of the names of all the available mail-order catalogs listed on the internet." There were over 15,000 of them in 2002 when the piece was done.

Also, in the same vain as Private Residence is her Suns From Flickr piece which resulted from the 541,795 pictures of sunsets that came back when searching for the word “sunset” on Flickr.

Pop-Up Comes Alive

The Pop-Up Music Video award goes to:

ShitDisco for "OK"


Awesome.



Thanks to Popular Edge Book Arts Blog the blog of pop-up artist Carol Barton for the lead.

Wilde Times

"The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands." - Oscar Wilde The Soul of Man Under Socialism

Aside from his success as an author and playwright Wilde was also a major celebrity in Victorian London. In many respects his celebrity mirrors the path of many of today's celebrities (Martha Stewart and Paris Hilton immediately come to mind) where the prevailing culture hoists them up then tears them down with no mercy.

My Wilde phase took place in England in the mid 80's. I was studying in London and The Smiths were on top of the music world. My roommate was a young innocent looking kid from Wisconsin who was infatuated with Morrissey. His passion was contagious and soon I was hooked too. There is a line in the Smith's song Cemetry Gates "A dreaded sunny day so I meet you at the cemetry gates Keats and Yeats are on your side while Wilde is on mine." That is where it began. I had a copy of Oscar Wilde's collected works by my side for the rest of the semester.

The power of Oscar Wilde is still all around us. Somewhere in the world I am sure a production of one of plays is being planned or staged and not a year goes by without some other other artist, filmmaker or musician paying tribute to Wilde in their work.

Here are a few Wilde related items that I came upon in the last few days.

Anthony Gardner has a great piece in the Sunday London Times, The Oscar sinners, where he recounts the long history of forged Wilde manuscripts with the latest appearance of some questionable documents surfacing this past April at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair. When Wilde was imprisoned and declared bankrupt in 1895 there was an auction of his possessions. "The auction of his house and its contents became such a free-for-all that the police had to be called; as a result, the provenance of a particular document is often impossible to establish." The details are worthy of a biblio-mystery of the highest order.

and here is an 8 minute stop-motion puppet animation on Oscar Wilde by Lucy Knisley who describes herself as "a 20-something artist and cartoonist who still plays with toys and dressup clothes."


and finally, this classic Monty Python skit:




These are still very much Wilde times.

Submergible

Bachelor - The Dual Body by the South Korean artist Ki-bong Rhee
2003, plexiglass, steel, water, book, water pump,light
150 x 65 x 196 cm

The concept came to Rhee after he accidentally dropped a book in the bathtub. While watching the closed book fall into the tub he began contemplating the effect the water was having on the "rigid" solitary book.

In the piece the book is submerged in a tank of water and set in motion, transcending its solitary closed state into a dreamy fish-like dance across time.

In a 2004 interview in Para 21 Rhee was asked about the piece and said "This work refers to a certain death that can be found within the continuous flow...I wanted the dreamlike image to be dominant over the meaning or the material...this work is cruel yet serene."

Here is a 3+ minute video of Rhee taking about the concept and execution of the piece:



The piece is appearing in the important exhibition of contemporay Asian art Thermocline of Art: New Asian Waves , which is curated by Wonil Rhee and currently on view at ZKM Museum for Contemporary Art in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Ki Bong Rhee is represented by the Kukje Gallery in Seoul. The gallery also represents Anslem Kiefer, a Book Patrol favorite, and features an image of his 2001 book-themed piece Tannhauser

The Death of the Bookend?

Furniture designer Leo Kempf was interested in designing a piece of furniture using a new technique. He came up with a "process of bending plywood to create a simple curve." He then inserted these curved plywood shelves into a red hardwood main beam to create The Gravity Bookshelf.

The bookshelf "is ideal for holding books securely without the need for bookends."

It works by "gravity gently press[ing] the books into the shelf, creating a very simple, clean, and unique piece of furniture"

















Thanks to LibraryPlanet for the lead

Buy - Dry - Read

This is Paolo Orsacchini's striking design for a limited anniversary edition of the Italian publication of Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

The book comes wet. Soaked in sea water then sealed in a nice clear pouch.

Luckily, the paper is waterproof so if you want to read it you simply set the book out in the sun. Let it dry then read.

I haven't been able to find out much about the book details, like size of the edition and retail price, but the image and the story have been deservedly making the rounds of the design blogs.

The concept alone puts it in the same class of the limited edition of Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451 which was published in 1953. The edition consisted of 200 signed and numbered copies bound in a form of asbestos! Collectible copies today sell for around $15,000.

The high-end Jules Verne collectors are going to be tempted to buy two copies of this edition, one to buy and hold and one to buy and dry.