SIX FEATURES & INTERVIEWS, 2011–2013
1/ Transforming Artists’ Books Research Articles: A research network exploring digital transformations in the creation and reception of artist books
2/ From Fluxus to iPad: A very short history of artists’ books
3/ TAKE.AWAY: Feeding the creative beast interview
4/ Honey for the Bears interview
5/ Art in the home of Gracia & Louise
6/ Let’s Art with Camila Galaz radio interview
1/
Sarah Bodman
Transforming Artists’ Books Research Articles: A research network exploring digital transformations in the creation and reception of artist books
February – August, 2012
Tate
(Published online) 22nd August, 2013
Artists have always had a fluid relationship with books and evolving technology. For Sarah Bodman the future is full of possibility for the artist book, but questions remain about how the physical and the digital might co-exist.
Artist books are strange beasts. In terms of form they are currently flitting between paper-based and digital platforms, or as the writer and artist Radoslaw Nowakowski has put it, between ‘p-paper and e-paper’.[i] In terms of content they explore a vast range of ideas and subjects, from social commentaries to self-reflexive critiques about what they mean in the digital age.
Since the Centre for Fine Print Research’s AHRC-funded project was completed in 2010, the field has moved swiftly following the development of iPads and other tablets, while artists and commentators continue to debate what an artist book can be, or even should be, today.[ii]
Artists are continuing to produce dynamic and fluid works of art in and around the book, whether these are one-off, hand-produced works, paper-based books, print-on-demand, free downloads, or other digital formats such as e-publications or online video works. What has changed is the amount and availability of digital software that can be used to make and view books, such as Book Creator applications, and the renewed interest in paper-based productions that has arisen from a desire to defy the limitations of the increasingly mainstream outputs of e-publishing. These are interesting times in the history of the book and the artist book.
....
Artists have always used modern technologies to make new artworks, from lithography to photocopiers, Polaroid film to screenprinting, typewriters to letterpress. So the fact that artists are using digital tools to make book works that might be experienced through screen-based media – including iPads, tablets, phones and computers – should not come as much of a surprise.
Having said that, artists do also still like working with paper, and the main argument against using digital tools is that they work against the physical. Just as the mainstream and small publishers mentioned above are looking at ways to present the physical book, so are established and younger generations of artists. Many artists create handmade books because they have an inherent desire to produce physical artworks, whether these are unique editions or sculptural books (such as Fred Rinne’s hand-painted books, The Caseroom Press’s Fairy Tale, Robert The’s Book Guns, Su Blackwell’s cut books, Reassemble’s Never The Same Book Twice), or small editions (such as Ann Tyler’s Souvenirs, Tim Mosely’s Make Like An Eskimo, Clemens-Tobias Lange’s Ghiacciature I, Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison’s bookworks, Otto’s screenprinted books, Dmitry Sayenko’s 'medieval’ books, Ampersand Duck’s letterpress books), or experimental books and publishing (such as Seekers of Lice, Information as Material, Sharon Kivland, Sara Ranchouse, LemonMelon). This list could go on, but it is safe to assume that paper-based books are not going to disappear any time soon.
....
As artists we also need to learn how to make good use of the technologies available. While we have been offered many new ways of working digitally, we still need to work out what we actually want to do with these tools. Do we want to use them just to try and replicate the experience of the physical book? Probably not. Yet we can use them to produce related works that bring our existing knowledge, love and experience of the physical book into the broader digital artists’ publishing arena: a place where e-paper and p-paper can sit comfortably beside each other, each with its own values and qualities. Now that is an exciting prospect.
Sarah Bodman
Sarah Bodman is Senior Research Fellow for Artists’ Books / Programme Leader, MA Multidisciplinary Printmaking, Centre for Fine Print Research, UWE, Bristol.
The Transforming Artist Books research network held a series of workshops in 2012 to discuss the potential of the digital to change the understanding, appreciation and care of artist books.
Referenced Notes:
[i] Radoslaw Nowakowski’s hypertext book END OF THE WORLD according to EMERYK is a ‘hasarapasa hypertext tale about what may happen one hot summer’s day in a few or in a dozen of years when p-paper is finally replaced with e-paper’. See http://www.liberatorium.com/emeryk/emeryk.html, accessed 18 April 2013.
[ii] The AHRC-funded project was concerned with the following question: in an arena that now includes both digital and traditionally produced artists’ books, what will constitute the concepts of artists’ publishing in the future? The published outputs from the project, including A Manifesto for the Book, are all available as free downloads from the project’s homepage http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/canon.htm, accessed 18 April 2013. For ongoing debates see http://artistbooks.ning.com/group/21stcenturybook, accessed 18 April 2013.
2/
Sarah Bodman
From Fluxus to iPad: A very short history of artists’ books
Cassone: The International Online Magazine of Art and Art Books
July 2011
The contemporary artist’s book has emerged gradually from the French livre de luxe tradition of the mid-19th century, where texts by authors — including the Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–98) — were published in exquisite editions featuring images by artists such as Henri Matisse (1869–1954). Matisse produced many livres de luxe, and in 1947 published his well-known paper-cut collage book, Jazz.
In the 1960s, as a freer society emerged after two world wars, artists explored alternatives to traditional means of producing and exhibiting artworks, moving away from more established gallery shows towards more public interaction. The period from the early 1960s to the late ’80s saw the emergence of movements such as Fluxus, an international group of artists who wanted to explore multiple art forms. These groups embraced art in the form of books, pamphlets and scores, published by hundreds of artists including Alison Knowles, Dick Higgins, Joseph Beuys and Emmett Williams. Over the last 40 years, Fluxus’ philosophy of collaboration and documentation has been inspirational for many artists, who quickly began to publish their art as affordable book-works using offset lithography, photocopying or screenprinting. It was as a result of this trend that the contemporary artist's book became frequently referred to as a ‘democratic multiple’, the idea being that anyone could afford to buy work by an artist.
More recently, artists have been using developments in technology, from desktop publishing in the 1990s to electronic books and publish-on-demand (POD) in the 21st century. The British artist Tom Phillips began his altered bookwork A Humument in 1966, scoring into the Victorian novel A Human Document by W.H. Mallock after reading about William Burroughs’ ‘cut-up’ technique. Phillips has continued to create and publish variant versions of the book since the 1970s, and launched his A Humument, App for the iPad in November 2010, introducing it to a new generation 45 years later.
Advancing technology has also allowed many artists to design books on their computers, uploading them for print and distribution through websites such as lulu.com and blurb.com, building upon that 1960s tradition of the democratic multiple through affordable, unlimited editions, now printed to order. Paradoxically, many of the cheap books produced in editions of 1000s in the 1960s and ’70s are now very collectable, and expensive, items today. A seminal example of this is the American artist Ed Ruscha (b. 1937) who has produced several editions of book works since the early 1970s. His definitive style, seen in titles such as twentysix gasoline stations, has been referenced and copied by many artists making books today, so much so that an exhibition, ‘Follow Ed (after Hokusai)’, of about 100 examples, curated by Tom Sowden and Michalis Pichler, is currently touring venues alongside some of Ruscha's original books.
Artists around the world produce books as art through many concepts and formats, from unique works or small editions of handmade books, to commercially printed large editions, such as Stephen Fowler’s Home Made Record Sleeves. This book series is currently on its third volume, celebrating the artist’s collection of record sleeves found in charity shops, each sleeve lovingly made by the record’s previous owner, with designs ranging from collages cut from magazines to scribbled felt tip pen drawings. Fowler collects these records, DJs with them and photographs them as a documentary tribute to the homemade. On a similar recycling theme, Lara Durback of No No Press has begun a series of books with Greg Turner, produced entirely from found materials, in honour of what some people might call rubbish. The first in the series Garbage Research 1: Hoarders and those resembling Hoarders, was produced in an edition of 100 with collage and writing over reused papers for the Dusie project, where artists swap their books.
In Australia Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison have been producing individual and collaborative books and zines since 1999. Many of their books are produced as small editions in response to their real travels or imaginary flights of fancy. In 2010 they visited London and from this Jennison created Quadrupeds drawn from London’s Natural History Museum collection. A recent one-off book, In Padova, Looking for You, produced by the two artists for the Loved & Lost Society in Melbourne, Australia, was created from an old tourist souvenir album. It has been beautifully embellished with collages of exotic wildlife, and pencil text additions by Haby and Jennison. As it is a unique piece, the artists have made a charming short video, Over My Shoulder, which takes you through the whole book online.
This is really just a tiny taster of artists’ books, to explore further do visit one of the regular exhibitions, fairs or festivals that take place around the world. Some upcoming fixtures include The London Art Book Fair, at the Whitechapel Gallery, 23–25 September 2011, The Small Publishers Fair, Conway Hall, London 11–12 November 2011, and the Printed Matter NY Art Book Fair in November 2011.
Sarah Bodman
Cassone magazine: The International Online Magazine of Art and Art Books
Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison, In Padova, Looking for You (detail), artists book
3/
Interview: Gracia & Louise
TAKE.AWAY: Feeding the creative beast interview
10th November, 2011
This week TAKE.AWAY are honoured to have another interview with one of our faves; the whimsical and inventive duo Gracia & Louise. We’ve been coveting their zines and artists’ books for awhile now so we jumped at the chance to grill them on the inspiration behind their collages and drawings. Gracia & Louise generously shared a bit of the process behind their work and collaborations and whats lies ahead this dynamic duo.
Where did you guys meet and how did you start working together?
We met at art school, at RMIT, where we were both studying painting. This was a long time ago now.
What are the benefits to working together, what do you each bring to the mix? Any secrets to successful collaboration?
Working together on the one artists’ book or image allows us to each bring something of our own aesthetic to the fore and together let both elements grow into a composition not possible without the other. This is something that has come about slowly. We have been collaborating on artists’ books, zines and prints for over ten years now. It is something we are both very comfortable with and there is a sense of knowing what the other will bring. Our collaboration is one of harmony, for want of better word. And perhaps one of reliability too.
Louise leans towards a light palette, and works with pencil and watercolour, whilst I favour collage (both by hand and digitally created), and my palette is a little darker and muddier. I like backgrounds and narrative, a stage, if you will.
You guys are seriously prolific! Any exciting projects in the pipeline? What are you guys working on at the moment?
Thank-you. We enjoy making our work, and one always has ideas. It is perhaps for this reason that we fell into making zines/small publications: somewhere to house those collages and drawings and ideas. Something to share, too.
We are currently working on three unique state artists’ books for two different group exhibitions. One exhibition is in Sydney (Shelf Life, Delmar Gallery) and the other is closer to home, in Melbourne (In Suspense, Hand Held Gallery). We are also working towards an exhibition of our work at Latrobe Regional Gallery early next year (February 2012). The next few months will be deliciously busy as we work in our studio all summer long.
We’re totally besotted with all the curious little creatures that pop-up in your works, how would you describe the themes behind your work?
We enjoy making our work, said the broken record, and hope a sense of this play comes through. We see our animals as our protagonists and create a scene for them to run through, hide in or carve out as their own. We like to leave these scenes open-ended, and use the title to further this sensation. Some people may see the works as humorous, some might find them sad, or both. Some people may not at first glance even see the animal or bird that flies through.
Your work is an eclectic mix of collage and delicate hand-drawn/watercolour elements, do you use much digital or is it mostly done by hand?
Both. Sometimes a collaborative collage work is digital. A drawing by Louise is scanned, cut out and collaged digitally. Sometimes to the page featuring Louise's drawing, collage pieces cut by sharp pair of honeybee scissors will be added.
Sometimes the collage comes first, sometimes the drawing. Sometimes the background comes first, other times the character or characters on the stage. Sometimes this is a quick process (the composition falling into place) and other times it takes awhile.
In short, it varies so that the dance steps we make are not always the same.
The pieces seem quite carefully composed yet still really playful and experimental. Do you start from a concept or a just general whim? Is it different approaching a commissioned work as opposed to say one of your own artists’ books or zines?
Our work begins with an idea. A thought. It is made in response to something seen or something read. Or a prickly feeling. From this, a work evolves and a stage appears, we need only to turn on the light. We are drawn to the narrative so this is the pull for us.
As to commissioned work, the process is a little different and begins with visual research before the ideas are gathered and assembled. Then it is best to cast this to one side, set to work unhampered, and see what comes.
The work seems really intricate and considered, kind of like visual poetry really. Where do you find inspiration and all the wonderful vintage source materials for your collages?
Thank-you. Our use of imagery from long ago is in one sense nostalgic, but as we did not live through the early 1900s (and sometimes earlier), this nostalgia is misplaced. Our use of imagery from periods long ago (coupled with those more recent, be it drawn or otherwise) is desirable to us because it is so freeing. We bring no personal association to the image from many decades ago. To us, it is an image that we can add to and manipulate. It is an image that brings only a small suitcase, not great baggage. We know something of it from history and reading, of course, but it is not from our day-to-day. If we were to cut out imagery from a magazine or book recently published, we might actually know something about the image or film or event that would in turn restrict how we used it within a composition. We sometimes find when working that it is best to know as little as possible about the source material so that we can make up own narrative.
Of course, in saying this, sometimes the reverse is true and it is what we know about the image/event/moment in history that is precisely why we seek it out and select it. There are always exceptions to every rule.
Are art and life inseparable? Where do you find the time for so many creative endeavours and how does this practice feed itself into your everyday lives?
They are certainly intertwined. You can see something for a potential collage walking about, reading the paper, in a film. You stumble over ideas out walking the dog or whilst making the bed. In that sense, they are inseparable and agreeable companions, Life and Art.
We find the time because we enjoy doing what we do, and because we are aware that one day this may not be the case. We are seizing what is in front of us whilst it appears in focus.
And lastly where can our readers buy some of your beautiful (and extremely affordable) little pieces?
Through our online store you can find our work, from the smaller prints through to zines and greeting cards (with our work).
Check out more of their amazing work for yourself at their site Gracia & Louise. While your at it check out their gorgeous blogs: Elsewhere (Louise) and High Up in the Trees (Gracia), get the latest from Gracia & Louise on twitter and with Christmas around the corner don’t forget to peruse the Gracia & Louise online store.
Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison, collage from Whose lights were now seen glittering, a zine for Milly Sleeping and LookStopShop, 2012
4/
Interview: Gracia Haby
Honey for the Bears: Matthew Asprey
17th October, 2011
I conducted this brief Q&A with the Melbourne artist and writer Gracia Haby by email after buying a limited edition copy of one of her small books at the recent Melbourne Emerging Writers’ Festival. She frequently collaborates with Louise Jennison.
When did you begin creating zines and limited edition books? What was the attraction?
A quick glance at own web site tells me that I have been in the business of creating zines and limited edition artists’ books since 1999. As long as that? Yes, as long as that. Or as little, depending upon your viewpoint. As with most things, it feels both for a very lengthy period and to have flown by.
The limited edition artists’ books, made chiefly with Louise Jennison, sprang from a love of paper as a medium flexible and adaptable and affordable. A love of books in many guises, too, I've little doubt, led to us ambling down the artists’ book pathway. These things, these loves, plus ignorance in the best sense. We knew very little of artists’ books and even less of binding. The unknown side of things made for the appeal, and so we plunged in not overburdened by knowledge. A bookbinding course in Ascona, Switzerland opened the eyes and showed us the world we knew little about. A book is a familiar form to any reader, a sketchbook to any fan of the jotting and recording, but to actually make one — ah! This was a new arena.
The labor involved with making a book, both the book’s physical makeup and those images that creep and sometimes shimmy across the page, is long and involved. This is part of the love affair with the medium, for me. This lengthy process of detail, precision, reworking and more, pulled back the curtain on the notion of zines. Quick, immediate, simple and done, the allure of the zine was this. Zines are also good to be able to giveaway to loved ones and friends, something that we had initially thought of doing with our artists’ books.
So far, an interest in making both remains and so far, they sit well together. Both still enjoyable and challenging, as all things ought be.
Give me an example of how you create a new book. Where do you find your postcards and collage materials? How does it come together?
It begins with an idea. A suite of imagery. A series of characters or scenes that belong together. A tale to be told. From there, a structure is worked out. How could such a thing be bound? Namely, how can we bind this ourselves? Like many, you imagine what you would like to make if you had access to all the materials and imagery you desired, and then work back to what you actually have, what you can afford. There are many things I would like to try, letterpress components on a lithographic offset page for example, but would prove too costly to justify. Is it necessary this time round, or can something else be done to describe desired effect or idea? But I like these restrictions and particulars that force you to decide what is the most important element. I like to have to think up ways around something. It is similar to the exhilarated rush of working towards a deadline. No matter how organised, there will always be the all-nighter at the last dash.
So, we plan how to fit the most on the page before it is printed and later guillotined to size. We return to the library and borrow more books than can carry. We scan a tremendous amount of imagery and file for later use. It is ongoing.
As to the postcards, I have a very good source, but am afraid it is a secret only a few know. Perhaps I will tell you next time.
Have you found the independent publishing scene in Melbourne an encouraging environment for creativity?
I am sure it is. Certainly so. But, as with all my endeavors, I approach from the outside looking in. All of our artists’ books and zines too are self-published numbers. Louise and I are delighted that we’ve had so many chances to display our books in various exhibitions and that they are part of many collections. It is gratifying and humbling to think that somewhere in an archival box sits a collection of our zines at the Tate Library.
Is Melbourne an affordable city for somebody working in the arts? Is it becoming more difficult?
For me, I would say it is affordable, but then I will always live in a city that is foremost near to my family and friends. I could not really imagine living in another country from my parents; I would miss them too much. Seem to have fallen off track here, yes to affordability. The recent Melbourne International Film Festival was of particular affordable highlight when you translate all the inspiration and joy to ticket price.
Tell me about your current exhibition in the Netherlands.
Louise and I were most flattered to be invited to draw together a series of recent works for SOLV’s art programme.
The drawings and collages in Our Boat was the Lightest Feather come largely from our most recent zines. (Louise’s The interloper, and my three foldout postcard collage ones, Looking and almost never finding, It was quite a wilderness, and That in the moon did glitter.) In this collection, you can expect to find a few of our collaborative works alongside a coral-billed ground cuckoo, a Swedish balancing act in a public arena, and a bear pursued by the moon in London. Yes, all as it should be there. Here’s to the next!
Matthew Asprey
Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison, Moscow’s Bread Factory No.5 was the envy of all others for its form, efficiency and baked goods, 2008, collage from the artists’ book And we stood alone in the silent night
5/
Bloesem : Art in the home of Gracia & Louise
Bloesem Living
1st June, 2011
A: Art means… something indefinable. It is beyond any definition either of us is able to conjure here.
R: Reading books is a way to learn and forget the self; reading blogs, a pleasurable way to chat with friends and share those tiny daily joys; leafing through magazines, a delicious way to spend time as a coffee cools on nearby table and a pet snoozes on one’s lap.
T: Trends we see in art or graphic design are many in number.
A: Artists we admire are... both currently practicing and from long ago; are celebrated and relatively unknown; and are often those who make for their own enjoyment. The list, if complied, would be near to endless.
N: Never will we tire of time spent doing exactly as one pleases. Reading a book until mid morning, pottering in the garden with hands in the soil, tinkering on some project, strolling without clear purpose. At liberty to decide the path one will take is it in a nutshell.
D: Dreams for our own work are about... making something that will communicate something to another.
P: Projects we are currently working on are... centered on paper, animals, curious juxtapositions, and the unfamiliar.
R: Relaxing we find essential to sanity.
I: Interesting art-places online are... in the hundreds. Mark Lazenby, the Lille Métropole Musée d'art moderne, d'art contemporain et d'art brut, and those we visit from our list of many links is a good start.
N: New in our home is... an elderly dog by the name of Percy.
T: Tomorrow we like to go to... the café where Percy is treated like a canine king, served a complimentary bowl of chicken freshly cooked.
S: Studio, our studio is... warm, busy, crowded, populated by pets, private. It is home.
Irene Hoofs
Art in Your Home series
﹏
RELATED POSTS,
IN A NUTSHELL THIS EVENING
HOUSE SPARROW
6/
Let’s Art with Camila Galaz radio interview
Episode #9
Radio Valerie
Wednesday 9th of November, 2011
We chat about collage, collaborations, honeybee scissors and Diana monkeys over cider one warm Wednesday afternoon with Camila Galaz on her show Let’s Art on Radio Valerie.
﹏
RELATED POST,
THREE-LEGGED RACE
