Walking
through the three rooms that were assigned to the 2011 Book Art MA
artists you
get
a real sense of the calming off whiteness of paper, imbued with the
surety of the
printed
word and image. The larger room is dominated by two ceiling to floor
pieces; an
ephemeral
hanging paper installation by Wiebke Kowal next to a book where the
words
literally
came tumbling out of the covers, cascading down in rivulets of text
which pool on
the
floor, very reminiscent of a piece displayed in the V&A in 2007
by the artist Lu
Shengzhongi,
but while Lu's piece consisted of empty paper, devoid of text,
Jukhee's is a
sculpture
of an altered book, each shower of paper formed by printed words and
sentences,
like the book is trying to speak.
 |
| Book Surgery, 2011, Jukhee Kwon |
In
book art exhibitions I find it is often, if not always, imperative
that a curator or artist
pays
a great deal of attention to the display of each book. Each piece in
this show has
been
exhibited very skilfully, with time spent finding the best way to
present the pieces to
the
viewer. One of the works where display is particularly well achieved
is a book by
Imogen
Chester called Crossing
Borders which
has been presented quite simply on a
shelf/stand
on the wall, open at the middle spread of pages. The book itself,
made of
fibrous
paper with no difference for the covers, is simply bound with a
pamphlet stitch.
The
edges of the pages are covered in what looks like sticky tape which
makes turning the
thin
pages easier, more inviting as it is less likely to be damaged or
marked by dirty
fingers.
The content of the book is solely image based, registration points
were clearly
visible
round the edge of the printed pictures, which are mainly photographs
of travel
documents
which suggested migration.
 |
| Crossing Borders, 2011, Imogen Chester |
On
the wall and floor she has used yellow and black patterned parcel
tape to mask off an
area
around the piece and the shelf it's sitting on. This is evocative of
the line, or hashed
box
that is drawn on the pavement surrounding cash-points; both inviting
you to step
inside
and also to keep your distance. In the gallery the viewer is invited
to cross
the
border,
to break the boundary and step inside the space allocated to interact
with the
book.
While one viewer is within this area the tape border acts as a
barrier to stop others
from
crowding around and entering that sacred space and reduces the risk
of breaking the
one
to book experience with the work.
 |
| Immersive City, 2011, Chao Kang |
Chao
Kang's piece Immersive
City consisted
of a lightbox on a table top in a darkened
room,
8 books spread out beside the box. Embossed white paper sandwiched
square
transparencies
to form each page, bound together with an open spine binding in red
thread.
The books can each be placed by the viewer onto the light box in
order to read
the
pages with light behind them. Each page turn adds or subtracts from
the main image.
Layers
are stripped away to reveal images that could stand alone, both
having a certain
beauty.
The images themselves play with elements of the city; blurred lights
in the night
time
or hazy urban buildings looming through the fog. I love the way the
piece invites
interaction,
even if it is just the simple act of choosing which book to look at
first and
placing
it upon the light source in order to see the images, it feels like
you are selecting a
window
to look through onto an unknown city.
 |
| Portraits, 2011, Renée Fisher |
Renée
Fisher's wall based piece Portraits
is
another piece where precise installation and
display
was obviously essential, it shows fragments of text; printed, typed
and handwritten
dotted
over a white wall, some pinned within old picture frames, torn off
scraps glued into
the
corner of the backing board leaving an expanse of empty brown
chipboard to fill the
rest
of the frame. Cardboard is nailed to the wall, cut out printed
sentences are paperclipped and taped to the card backing, spilling
over the edge to the wall. One off centre frame holds an accordion
book which is spilt open to drop down, the back cover board hanging
just below the floor. The pages are filled with a sprawling concrete
poetry style writing.
 |
| Detail from Portraits, 2011, Renée Fisher |
Contemplative
text but broken up into small bite size sentences that form shapes
across
the
page. The writing itself seems like fragments of poetry, some
elements seem like
excerpts
of an autobiography that have been ripped out of a document and been
found
crumpled
in the waste paper basket of a bedroom. These personal fragments of
text are
given
status by being framed and hung on a wall, and yet the frames are
incomplete, the
paper
pieces do not fit, some have even just been directly nailed to the
wall; and so the
elevation
they were given has been somewhat torn down again. Arranged how they
are its
as
if the visual poem from the wall bound book has escaped to form
offshoots; an
installation
as poetry on a surface, perhaps the wall is a page?
Back
in the largest gallery room, fighting for space, could be found a
book by Christa
Harris,
but the only way you would know that it is by her is if you found and
read the wall
label
which depicts her real name. The book on first glance, sat upon a low
plinth or
coffee
table style table is a published work on the state of Book Art today;
the title being
Form
and Content by Sarah Richirst. Flicking
through the semi glossy pages you see work by different artists and
the authors comments upon them, reviews of artists' books from around
the book art world. And yet I do not recognise any of the names or
the images of the books; I get suspicious; “why is a non fiction
book on artists' books being shown as a piece of art in its own
right, and why can't I find this 'Sarah Richirst' in my catalogue?”
- the answer dawns on me as I rush to find the artists' name label on
the wall nearby: 'Christa Harris'... I turn to the inside cover page
of the book in my hands, it confirms my suspicions that 'this is a
work of fiction, all resemblance to those mentioned within it is
entirely coincidental...'. I sheepishly look up to see if anyone
witnessed my realisation that the artist had in fact made the whole
thing up herself, every book art piece written about in this
fictional-non-fiction-book was in fact made by her and then reviewed
by her; artist as author, artist as other artists and artist as
publisher.
 |
| Excerpt from Form and Content by Sarah Richirst, 2011, Christa Harris |
I instantly think of the conceptual artist Jamie Shovlin
who makes fakes and fictions as work. His 2005 exhibition was a
collection of works supposedly created by Naomi
V Jellishii,
a
schoolgirl who had disappeared leaving behind an accumulation of
drawings and letters, was in fact a beautiful fake, all created by
himself; the name of the girl being an anagram of his name, just as
Christa Harris has turned her name into Sarah
Richirst.
While it is clear that while Shovlin makes his work to deceive and
seem completely believable, Harris' work states at the start of the
book that the piece is a falsity, a fictional deceit, but it is one
that is easily found out. This truth suggests you should take the
content of the book with a pinch of salt, perhaps the artist is
trying to make a comment on the real non fiction books of it's kind,
a jab at the way reviewers write and how they portray the artists and
their work on a glossy page of a magazine or coffee table book.
The
exhibition as a whole seems a little close but then with so many
students in one
building
it would be very hard to find adequate space for such a show. Despite
the space
situation
I think the artists have found both ingenious as well as wonderfully
simple ways
of
displaying what can be very intimidating art objects to exhibit. I
saw a fantastic level of
viewer
participation during my visits to the show which is a truly
encouraging thing to see
in
an exhibition dominated by book art. As an exhibition of highly
conceptual works of art
it
feels that this postgraduate course is most definitely following the
path of book art
theory
and artistic practice. Rather than concentrating on the craft of
binding books it
seems
to concentrate on the discussions surrounding what a book is now, its
function, its
role.
I look forward to seeing more from these artists in the future, I am
sure their names
will
continue to pop up; keep your book art eyes peeled!
You
can find out more about the artists mentioned here as well as the
others in the show
on
their collective website: http://www.wearebookarts.co.uk/
i
See the book “Out of the Ordinary: Spectacular Craft” by Laurie
Britton Newell, V&A Publications, 2007.
Published
to coincide with the exhibition of the same name.
ii
See the website constructed for the exhibition in 2005 by Jamie
Shovlin:
* This review will also appear in the November issue of the Book Arts Newsletter *
