(Wonderful, but too difficult to photograph adequately. I saw one book, by Ellen Ziegler, made of tar paper pages. Many book artists use non-traditional materials to construct their ideas. Repurposing books about him she has spun their pages into new artist books giving specific form to his work and meditation. Susan has taken spinning as the main metaphor in the life and teachings of Gandhi. Susan Porteus “Gandhi: A Pictorial Biography” “Gandhi on Non-violence” “Past Masters: Gandhi” “The Essential Gandhi” “Lead Kindly Light: Gandhi and the Way to Peace” While Doug is creating his “versatile codex” Susan Porteus is doing something completely else. Further, it is a visual commentary on territorial borders and leads one to thoughts of our current immigration woes. Presumably one can adjust the book to many formations. In “Border Crossing: in the War Room” Doug Beube has taken pages from an atlas and sewn zippers on them. Doug Beube “Border Crossing: in the War Room” But some artists like to just redefine bookness. The most common undertakings are constructing a book and altering or repurposing a book. In other words, the two books reinforce each other and lead the viewer to new considerations.īook artists use a variety of approaches. Additionally, in the conversation of the two books we come to hear the individual in the throng that brought down a tyrant, and we consider the universal loss of a parent. It speaks to the intensity of the underlying emotions in each case. But take just one metaphor common to both - burning. There are many more parallels and telling differences. Arabic Kufic script (The People Want to Bring down the Regime) is laser cut into each page and it has a burned look. Islam Aly’s work begins in the public and the political, the uprising in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in 2011. In what becomes a ritual floating in timeless light and shadow, she uses incense to burn the Korean text (Until we meet again, I will be trying to find the one way) into 1080 small pieces of Okawara paper. Sun Young Kang’s book/installation begins in the personal - the death of her father. For example, Sun Young Kang “To Find the One Way” (detail) Islam Aly “The Square, Al Midan” And the group speak is more that the sum of the parts. And that points to one of the beauties of this show: that the works are chosen and arranged so that they can speak in chorus as well as individually. Sandra told of her conviction that the books talk to each other. (Don’t worry, Oola is well trained and she resisted her inclinations.) If you click on the pictures, you will get enlargements.Ī good number of the other books in the show were practically jumping off their perches begging “touch me, turn my pages”. If you click on the names in the captions, you will be taken to pages that show more of these remarkable works. I love Casey’s wry commentary on our current world: “It’s a big ocean out there, and we should all learn how to play nicely with each other.” All this overlaid on books on ship protocol and “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. To grasp the meaning of Casey’s book, it is essential to turn the crank to activate the waves and the swimming shark. And as Sandra pointed out, most Artist Books are to be interacted with, touched, manipulated in some way. A bad thing about this show is that it is in a museum, with most of its items under vitrines. Now one good thing about this show is that it is in a museum, giving gravitas and credibility to a movement little understood in current culture. The current show at the Whatcom Museum “Unhinged, Book Art on the Cutting Edge” is a curatorial effort to demonstrate the wide variety of approaches to making Artist Books. Sandra Kroupa, Book Arts & Rare Book Curator at the University of Washington, said in her lecture - “Breaking Boundaries: the Hand as the Cutting Edge of the Mind” - that she refuses to define “Artist Books”. Rules - there are probably a lot fewer rules than there are definitions because frankly, my dear, the artists don’t give a damn. There are as many ways to define Artist Books as there are people (artists, curators, collectors, critics, librarians, lovers of art…) involved in the Artist Book phenomenon.
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