A SERIES OF FOUR ARTISTS’ BOOKS, 2009
1/ Gracia Haby
Before all colour faded (Ricordo di Genova)
2009
Artists’ book, unique state, featuring collage elements and pencil across the pages of Ricordo di Genova: Twenty vedute artistiche a colori, Genova, Italy
An artists’ book nineteen pages in length, made especially for the exhibition A key to help make your own world visible (2009), it features collage and pencil across the pages of Ricordo di Genova: Twenty vedute artistiche a colori. Peel back the blue cover with its faded gold lettering and prepare to amble about Genova, meeting ducks port side, and perhaps sighting a school of colourful fish at L’Acquasola if you pass through at correct time. Washing lines make great pathways for the nimble of foot who are not afraid of heights, and mind you don’t disturb the kangaroo quick to temper at the Palazzo Doria. Travel well.
(Though the original title of this book boasts twenty views there are actually only nineteen in this copy.)
This artists’ book was later exhibited as part of By This Unwinking Night (2012).
2/ Gracia Haby
Many tiny potentialities (Københaven)
2009
Artists’ book, unique state, featuring collage elements and pencil across the twelve pages of Københaven
An artists’ book featuring collage and pencil across twelve scenes of Copenhagen, in which stars, like those previously explored in the zine Tumble & Fall (2009), and animal collide.
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RELATED LINKS,
ADVICE FOR THOSE CURIOUS, EXHIBITION TEXT FOR A KEY TO HELP MAKE YOUR OWN WORLD VISIBLE
THE ARTIST AND THE BOOK, MATERIALITY, NUMBER 1: BOOK, PINKNANTUCKET PRESS, 2012
INSTALLING AT CRAFT VICTORIA (CLOG: CRAFT VICTORIA'S BLOG, 2009)
AT EVERY TURN (CLOG: CRAFT VICTORIA'S BLOG, 2009)
3/ Gracia Haby
A view gleaned through looking-glass (London)
2009
12 page artists’ book, unique state, featuring collage elements and pencil across London Postcard Views of Note
Prepare to scamper from Tower Bridge fish a-leaping to the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens, but, as you play the tourist, be ever mindful that these postcard views are detachable in this artists' book.
4/ Gracia Haby
Looking only for you (Der Rhein)
2009
28 page artists’ book, unique state, featuring collage elements and pencil across the pages of Der Rhein (Von Mainz bis Köln no. 524, Karlund Bremer & Co, Köln A.R.H)
This artists’ book was made for and exhibited as part of A key to help make your own world visible (2009), and is now in the collection of the State Library Victoria.
On the pages of my collaged artists' books there feature many animals, many birds. My tailed or feathered protagonists often out of place, oft too large for their present surrounds. They scale rooftops, climb cathedral spires; perch high in treetops do my central characters. Sometimes they saunter nonchalantly past a city square. Sometimes they tiptoe or creep. And all the time they afford me chance not just to play with scale and humorous, I hope, foreign juxtapositions, but to convey feelings of awkwardness and oddness. They are out of place, not just in urban environment or strange land (the mountain lions home range is not Brussels), but also in feeling. Being animals, in form, they are easier to relate to. One is not distracted by the dissimilarities because there are so many. I am not covered in fur, with claws for fingertips and a tail to serve as rudder on mountain climb. I am so different that I look only at what the animal is doing in its new environment. It is on the sidelines, watching. It is looking for a safe place to curl. It is passing undetected. It is slinking through the city unseen. It, like me, feels the odd one out.
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RELATED LINK,
OVER MY SHOULDER (III)
A LITTLE SCENE PLAYS OUT ON THE DRAWING BOARD, THE THIRD OF A HANDFUL OF TINY MOVING VISUALS CAPTURED WITH IPHONE'S AID FOR YOUR AMUSEMENT. WITH THANKS TO OMAR THE SIAMESE CAT FOR MAKING APPEARANCE. MUSIC CREDIT: BANDONEON ANTERO JAKOILA,
FROM THE FILM THE MAN WITHOUT A PAST ('MIES VAILLA MENNEISYYTTÄ') BY AKI KAURISMÄKI.
