An Exhibition of Artists’ Books

27 April - 9 June 2013

PHOENIX BRIGHTON

Exploring Books A journey through the spaces & between the pages of Press & Release

By Wendy Ann Greenhalgh

Ulises Carrión’s The New Art of Making Books begins: “A book is a sequence of

spaces.” His words encourage us to view books, not just as a series of lines or images

on a page, nor as two dimensional storage for narratives or ideas, but as places that

can be occupied and explored imaginatively, intellectually and physically too.

Phoenix Brighton’s exhibition of artists’ books, Press & Release, actively celebrates

the book as space, with an inviting, interactive installation that creates a series of

immersive environments in which to explore the books on display.

In the main gallery, sculptor Ben Thomson has reinvented the museum plinth and

vitrine so that they become sculptural objects in their own right. Each installation

responds to the individual books they contain, creating a series of spaces that engage

visitors physically, requiring them to stoop, bend, peer and stretch. They heighten

readers’ awareness of the book as a physical object and of reading as a function of the

body; of hand, arm, shoulder, back and legs and not just eyes and brain.

This isn’t a library where books just sit on shelves; it is indisputably an art space.

Here, the delicate spines of books have their own concertina shaped cradles to rest in,

torches must be shone through holes, books about birds dangle from perches and

containment chambers and glove boxes mediate visitors’ interactions with the books

within. The act of exploring the space of the gallery is enticing, mirroring the delight

readers find in becoming immersed in the spaces of narratives, the place between the

pages.

Exhibition curator Karin Mori has assembled an extraordinary

collection of book art; handmade or one-off volumes,

sculptures, zines and micro-libraries; books by artists using

printmaking, bookbinding, illustration, sculpture,video and

performance. “I haven’t imposed a theme or format,” says

Mori, “but rather orchestrated the various components in order

to allow the books to do the talking.”

Andi McGarry

And what the books talk of is the incredible diversity of artistic practice in this field

and the sensory and tactile qualities of the book as art object. The pure, sensual

pleasure of handling books is matched by the imagination, inventiveness and vision of

the artists who make them, so that what emerges from the experience at Press &

Release is an exciting interaction between readers and artists, with the book itself as

the go-between.

Andi McGarry’s books chronicle his obsessions with birds, boats and girls. Richly

illustrated one-offs like To The Blaskets are painted onto rough edged card, the pages

turning stiffly, like children’s picture books. The obsessiveness of McGarry’s practice

comes through in the thick layers of paint and the irregular scrawls of text and yet

there’s a lightness of touch too, a freshness and immediacy in the loose black lines of

his drawings, that renders the leap from boat to dock, the curving lines of a bay, a dog

swimming – with an energy that is infections and joyful. In the six tiny volumes of his

Blackbirds books, which hang from a perch, simple ink drawings lovingly chronicle

his relationship with a visiting blackbird. Words are carefully chosen in this volume:

“This yellow beak sings a song of saffron”, highlighting the crucial relationship

between text and image in the artist book.

Nowhere is the text/image relationship more significant than in Jackie Batey’s books

and zines. Here, obsessions appear less as personal preoccupations and more as

campaigning zeal, with her text - rich FUTUREFANTASTeek zines documenting and

commentating on the modern world. “I love the fact that I can take an idea through to

resolution single-handedly,” says Batey. “The format of the book lends itself to

thematic concepts, each book for me is a different idea.” The sequential nature of

books allows Batey to develop ideas in ways that she can’t in single illustrations, and

her love of books is clear. “I delight in the intimacy of the book format, it’s nice to sit

down and read -- one person, one book.”

The intimacy of the act of reading has correspondences too, with the intimate act of

drawing, of hand and pen on the page. Drawing on the train during her weekly

commute, Batey published the first FUTUREFANTASTeek in 2008, “a visual rant”

on everything from celebrity endorsements to broken machines. With its hand drawn

typography, collaging of advertising slogans and newspaper headlines, spikey

drawings and cartoons, it references a range of visual and media styles to comment

and satirise, whilst still retaining its photocopy aesthetic. Her latest volume, entitled

Unexpected Item in Bagging Area, features a pantomime horse on the front cover

with the caption “Lasagne was 100% horse” and inside, Batey satirizes modern social

media culture. It’s clear that in the five years since she began her zine, they’ve lost

none of their bite.

Lee Shearman also uses found texts and images in his Micro

Libraries. “The scale and format of the book is endlessly

fascinating,” Shearman says, “allowing for continual

experimentation, perhaps where space to work is limited.

The Engineerium Micro Library was designed in such a way

that I can easily construct copies of the book while traveling

by train, as the materials and tools needed fit into a small A4

sized case.”

Jackie Batey

There’s a strongly sculptural aspect to Shearman’s books that reflect his roots with

large-scale installations. The pages of his miniature Engineerium series fold out

concertina style, trailing across the reader’s palms, with their silhouetted images of

machinery. Other works evoke the scientifically explainable world of the 1950s and

60s. The highly coloured, dated illustrations cut out from children’s encyclopaedias

have been collaged into detailed pop-ups or mounted into Perspex cubes that can be

viewed from all sides, turning the world of science and empiricism into playthings.

Sarah Bryant’s books also display an encyclopaedic eye for detail and pattern. To

view them, visitors climb into a low ceilinged cubicle where Bryant’s books are

slotted into small recesses above a shelf. Fold out the leaves of The Index, and the

pages will expand, until a print of an almost life sized human skeleton is laid out

before you. An index of the parts of the body forms a shadowy outline beyond the

sensuous colour of flesh and bone.

“Books are a natural seat for work that incorporates text and image, work that is

concerned with the communication of information,” says Bryant.“It’s a very direct

way of communicating, I want people to handle my books, look at them carefully and

have the chance to form an impression up close.” The enclosed space of Ben

Thomson’s installation showcases the intricate design of Bryant’s books and allows

visitors to enter into an intimate relationship with the object in their hands.

Sumi Perera’s highly tactile book art also celebrates this reader/object relationship; “I

love the multi-sensorial response books evoke,” says Perera. “The smell, the sound of

turning pages, how your eyes and mind are guided through the narrative. I’ve been

known to lick books, and could easily eat some!” This sensorial delight is evident in

the rich textures of her work. Death of the Author has embroidered pages and

embossed texts that run not just horizontally but zigzag, taking over the space of the

page. Quotes by famous writers trail off the edge, ending in a tangle of threads as if

the ideas themselves have become just loose ends.

If Death of the Author focuses on the line then Building Blocks, based on

architectural drawings, draws our attention to the space of the page and of narratives

themselves. “The narrative is held within an enclosed space – not obvious at first

glance.” Perera’s textured, sensual books, subtly invite us on a physical journey

through the architecture of the book, revealing the meta structure s of line, space and

margin that underlie all books and our relationship to them.

For many artists making books is part of an artistic practice

incorporating other disciplines, and Press & Release reflects

this in its broad curatorial approach featuring work by, amongst

others, Carolina Diaz, whose A Living Reading Room

incorporates video and dance, and Xelís de Toro, whose Shoot

Reading, a performance with gun and books, is documented in

the gallery.

Sumi Perera

Iain Paxon abandons the space of the book object altogether in The Story of Prince

Volume, a live performance that combines music, narration and illustrations

projected in a series of slides.

“I’m not that interested in stand alone pictures,” says Paxon, “more in a series of

images that are forced to relate, by the very fact that they are joined together. The

same with music. The reader/listener can rebel if they like, rewind, skip, read the

ending first, but there's something to be said for a bit of straight-forward narrative.

The illustrations for The Story of Prince Volume were drawn slide-sized, but are

projected larger scale, revealing the grainy textures of ink and paper; they’re

accompanied by the artist singing and playing the piano. Paxon’s performance can be

seen live at Shaking the Shelf, a night of performing books during the Press &

Release exhibition. His new installation, The Window & The Tree, also deals with

story sequences as he uses the length of a corridor to take the reader on a physical

journey through narrative, encouraging them to make links between the illustrations

on the wall and the text which is provided in a separate volume.

The people mentioned here are just a few of the many local

artists who feature in the exhibition alongside their UK and

international counterparts. The geographical range reflects

Phoenix Brighton’s intention to use Press & Release as a

focal point for artist book activity in the area and to assist in

developing an infrastructure and network which connects

book artists across the world. It is Mori’s wish “that this

feeds into ongoing activity and future exhibitions around

artists’ books. During the exhibition we’ll be encouraging

Iain Paxon people to delve more deeply into the world of artists’ books

by offering talks, hands-on workshops, resources, and networking opportunities.”

www.phoenixbrighton.org

Talking Books Press & Release curator Karin Mori talks with

writer and artist Wendy Ann Greenhalgh.

John Bently

Wendy: What is it you find so interesting about artists’ books, and why have an

exhibition dedicated to it?

Karin: It's a really intriguing and vibrant area of the visual arts, and lends itself so

well to cross-disciplinary, collaborative and outside-the-box ways of thinking and

working, which appeals to me. And book artists are such an unusual and interesting

tribe. The people I meet at book fairs are usually passionate, even obsessive about the

ideas they’re exploring through the book form and eager to communicate and share

their vision. The artist book is their platform. And the artists are kind of subversive --

they’ve devised an art form that can circumvent the gallery system and allows them to

have more control over the way the work is disseminated. Many books are dense in

content, yet inherently flexible and portable, making it easy for them to travel. So I

admire the way they can have a life out there in the world, but I also want to bring

them back into the gallery and create an environment where people can experience

them in new ways.

W: That’s where Ben Thomson came in? He’s created a really extraordinary

installation – the books seem like elements within a larger sculptural art-work – much

more than they seem on display. I wanted to wind in and out, explore, not just sit.

K: Yes, I wanted to create an immersive experience of books in the gallery space, but

couldn’t work out the logistics of presenting them outside of the hermetic glass case.

Ben’s a brilliant sculptor and carpenter, so I handed over this huge pile of books to

him, and he scratched his head and started doing some sketches. Then I locked him in

the gallery for a month with some sheets of mdf board, and he came up with this

amazing and unusual concept and construction. He’s created a very intimate

environment, where you come into close proximity to the books. Some of the spaces

are almost claustrophobic, and you have to squeeze into them or crouch or peer

through holes. There are ‘incubators’ where you have to put your hands through

sleeves in order to handle the books, and ‘cradles’ which protect the spines of the

more delicate ones, and even a bird feeder with books hanging off of it. Interestingly,

he designed the space so that most of the work must be viewed at wheelchair height,

and so in order to experience the books a standing person is literally brought to their

knees; their body must engage with the work on a different level.

W: Something else that interests me is the slightly anachronistic nature of artists’

books, in these days of blogging, e-Books, e-Readers. Electronic media is

increasingly dominant. Does the artist’s book take on an added significance because

of this?

K: I think that’s what’s really exciting about this exhibition, because I suspect that the

book as a physical object is unquenchable and it will continue to thrive and propogate

in spite of, or even encouraged by, the general trend towards electronic media.

Perhaps it’s hard-wired into our species to enjoy the tactile, sensory qualities of a

book; turning the pages, experiencing the unfolding of the image, text or narrative in a

physical way. And in doing so we are in some way making contact with the artist who

made the book and touched its pages, and all the other people who at some time were

in contact with the book. The general emphasis of this year’s exhibition is on hand-

made, limited edition and unique books, but having just sung the praises of the

‘objectness’ of the artist’s book, I think that setting up any sort of dichotomy

between physical and digital formats will only send us into a tailspin. I think that both

traditional and new media can happily co-exist and enrich one another, and there are

some fascinating hybrids of the two approaches within the canon of the artist’s book.

Artists are usually very adept at utilising different media as it suits them, so it will be

interesting to see how they continue to incorporate new media as a tool to serve rather

than dominate their creativity.

W: What is an artist’s book to you? How have you defined it for this exhibition?

I think I’m fairly open to persuasion – if anyone wants to make something and call it a

book and can make an elegant case for it, I’m up for it. Perhaps I’m more

interested in the artist’s desire or need to deliver an idea into the world on their own

terms, and if they can create a vehicle for delivering it which resonates with me, then

that’s more important than any fixed criteria - I see this as an important motivation

behind self-publishing. In this exhibition we have artists who use bookbinding,

printmaking, painting and digital processes in their work exhibiting alongside those

who ‘perform’ books, alter or transform existing books into sculptural objects, record

the sounds around books, shoot them with guns, imprison them inside tree trunks, etc.

So it’s a fairly wide-ranging exhibition, and I haven’t imposed a theme or format onto

it, but rather orchestrated the various components in order to allow the books to do the

talking.

-------------------------------------------------------

Writer & artist Wendy Ann Greenhalgh runs interpretation activities & participatory

projects with galleries and cultural spaces in the South East & blogs at

www.storyscavenger.com

Favourite Books

We asked some of the Press & Release artists what books

or which book artist’s work they admire.

Lee Shearman: My vote’s for Branches by Chisato

Tamabayashi

bookleteer.com/blog/2010/05/chisato-tamabayashi-book-artist

Sarah Bryant: Today I choose Inge Bruggeman and her book

Unable to Find Each Other, Let Alone Ourselves (but

tomorrow there might be another answer.

www.ingebruggeman.com

Jackie Batey: The work of Brian Dettmer. He makes sculptural one-off books, very

different to how I work, but I love what he is able to produce from altering books.

briandettmer.com

Sumi Perera: It has to be Angela Lorenz.

www.angelalorenzartistsbooks.com

Iain Paxon: I found a load of self-published comics about Mr What and Mr Why a

few years ago. They’ve lovely feint pencil drawings photocopied onto A4 paper. I’m

sure the artist never dreamt his life’s work would end up on a 50p table at a jumble

sale. I can relate to this cultural irrelevance and it is quite touching.

Carolina Diaz

ARTISTS’ BOOKS RESOURCES

Centre for Fine Print Research www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk

Sussex Book Art Collective

www.bookartsinsussex.blogspot.co.uk

Booklyn (USA)

www.booklyn.org

Ink Spot Press, Brighton

www.inkspotpress.co.uk

London Centre for Book Arts

www.londonbookarts.tumblr.com

V & A Artists’ Books

www.vam.ac.uk/page/a/artists-books

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to everyone who helped to realize this exhibition through advocacy,

support, hard work and creative inspiration, including the exhibiting artists, Ben

Thomson, Jon Pratty and Arts Council England, Donna Close and Brighton & Hove

Council, Sue Gollifer, Belinda Greenhalgh, Mike Stoakes, Clare Hankinson, Carol

Quinn, Angela McKay, Louise Bristow, Phil Cole, Kirsten Norwood, Roisin Cull, Lee

Shearman, Jim Sanders and our team of studio members and volunteers.

Sarah Bryant

Cover image:Lee Shearman

10 – 14 Waterloo Pl.

Brighton BN2 9NB

www.phoenixbrighton.org