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Artist’s Book Yearbook 

2003-2005

Artist’s Book Yearbook 2003-2005 

Published by Impact Press at 

The Centre for Fine Print Research 

University of the West of England, Bristol 

September 2003 

ISBN 0 9536076 9 0 

© 2003 publication, Impact Press 

© 2003 images, individual artists 

© 2003 texts, individual authors 

Editor: Sarah Bodman 

Associates: Tanya Peixoto and John Bently 

Design: Sarah Bodman 

Design Advisor: Keith Jones 

Cover Design: Tom Sowden 

The views expressed within the Artist’s Book 

Yearbook 2003-2005 are not necessarily those 

of the editor or publisher. 

CENTRE FOR FINE PRINT RESEARCH 

Impact Press 

Centre for Fine Print Research 

UWE, Bristol 

Faculty of Art, Media and Design 

Kennel Lodge Road 

Bristol 

BS3 2JT 

Tel: 0117 32 84747 

Fax: 0117 32 84824 

www.uwe.ac.uk/amd/cfpr 

Sarah.Bodman@uwe.ac.uk 

Back issues of the Artist’s Book Yearbook are still 

available. For the 2001-2 issue please contact: 

Impact Press at our address. 

For the years: 1994-1995, 1996-1997 and 

1998-1999 please contact: 

Tanya Peixoto 

Bookartbookshop 

17 Pitfield Street 

London 

N1 6HB 

Tel: 020 7608 1333 

www.bookartbookshop.com 

info@bookartbookshop.com

Contents 

Artist’s page Genevieve Waller facing page 1 

Introduction Sarah Bodman 1 

Cooking the Books: Ron King and Circle Press 

at the Yale Center for British Art, USA 

Elisabeth Fairman 3 

Ten Books on my New Bookshelf; a review 

John Bently 11 

Artist’s page Otto 15 

Memo: This is not an Artist’s Book: a New 

Zealand Collection Elizabeth Eastmond 17 

The Battle of The Books / TNWK 

Sarah Bodman 27 

Some Reformations Susan Johanknecht 33 

Artist’s page Lucy May Schofield 38 

Booklyn: describing an artist defined aesthetic 

of artists’ books Marshall Weber 39 

Size Matters Dr Stephen Bury 47 

Yes it’s True; Artists Make Books 

Andi McGarry 51 

13+: Contemporary Book Art From Germany 

Ulrike Stoltz 53 

One year of bookartbookshop 2002 - 2003 

Tanya Peixoto 66 

An Essay About Reading An Artist’s Book 

About Reading Sarah Jacobs 67 

Our art goes in multiple artists’ (chaps) books 

Artgoes 71 

Cut out and keep Chap Book Artgoes 75 

The Special Books Collection of The Scottish 

National Gallery of Modern Art 

Ann Simpson 77 

Artist’s page Alec Finlay 81 

Gli Italiani - The Italians Carrie Galbraith 83 

Artist’s page Kate Farley 89 

ARCHIVE: a race against the instant? 

Chris Taylor 91 

Making Books Emma Hill 95 

Artist’s Book Publishers 103 

Bookshops and Galleries in the UK 105 

International Bookshops and Galleries 107 

Artist’s Book Centres 110 

Book Arts Collections/Archives UK & Eire 113 

International Archives and Collections 117 

Visual Studies Workshop Press and Archive, 

USA Sarah Bodman 121 

Book Arts Organisations 125 


Book Arts Websites 128 

Artist’s Book Website Review Guy Begbie 130 

Artist’s page Paul Laidler 132 

Artist’s Book Fairs 133 

Book Arts Courses 134 

Short Courses, Workshops and Summer 

Schools in Book Arts 137 

Artist’s page Steve McPherson 140 

Print Studios and Print Facilities 141 

Materials Suppliers 144 

Bookbinders 145 

Magazines and Journals 146 

Reference and related publications on the 

book arts 149 

Reference and Contemporary Exhibition 

Catalogues 150 

Artist’s page Kristen Merola 152 

Artist’s Book Review Andrew Eason 153 

Artist’s page Andrew Lanyon 165 

Artist’s page contributors 166 

Listings of Artist’s Books 2002 - 2005 167 


End page Tom Sowden 216

Introduction 

Welcome to the 2003 – 2005 issue of the Artist’s 

Book Yearbook, which has quietly grown by about 

100 pages since the last issue. This is due not 

only to an extended number of contributing 

artists and writers, but also to the everincreasing 

number of artists out there 

making books (the listings entries never 

seemed to stop coming!), all of which is very 

encouraging. There also seems to be a good 

number of artist’s book fairs going on this year 

(see page 133), more evidence, if any was ever 

needed that artists’ books are here to stay. 

Talking about the growth of artists’ books 

would not be complete without also offering 

congratulations to Tanya Peixoto for a hugely 

successful year of artists’ books promotion, 

exhibitions and events at the Bookartbookshop 

in Hoxton, London (see page 66 for details). 

In this issue we have tried to show more 

examples of international book arts, with essays 

on artists’ books and their makers from 

Germany, Italy, New Zealand and the USA as 

well as the UK and Eire. I would like to thank 

all of the writers who have given their time so 

generously to write essays and reviews for this 

issue; Elisabeth Fairman (Yale Center for 

British Art), John Bently, Elizabeth Eastmond 

(University of Auckland), Susan Johanknecht 

(Gefn Press / Camberwell College of Arts), 

Marshall Weber (Booklyn), Dr Stephen Bury 

(The British Library), Andi McGarry, 

Ulrike Stoltz (Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste, 

Braunschweig, Germany) Sarah Jacobs, 

Artgoes, Ann Simpson (The Scottish National 

Gallery of Modern Art), Carrie Galbraith 

(Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, Venice, 

Italy), Chris Taylor (University of Leeds), 

Emma Hill (EMH Arts / Eagle Gallery) and 

Guy Begbie (Herefordshire College of Art and 

Design). Many thanks are also due to Andrew 

Eason for all his thoughtfully written, in depth 

pieces for the new section of artists’ books 

submitted for review. 

Thanks are also due to the artists who have 

kindly contributed a page of artwork, 

in order of appearance; Genevieve Waller, 

Otto, Lucy May Schofield, Kate Farley, 

Alec Finlay, Paul Laidler, Steve McPherson, 

Kristen Merola and Andrew Lanyon. 

1 

All of the information sections have been 

updated and include organisations and centres 

listings. Some of the organisations listed will 

appear more than once as they come under 

more than one category (i.e. places to study / 

collections / print studios) and it seemed 

sensible to list them in each so that they would 

not be missed by a casual flick through the 

book. There are more listings for the USA as I 

had the opportunity to visit the Visual Studies 

Workshop in Rochester last year and gathered 

some new addresses whilst I was there. All the 

contact telephone numbers have been listed 

with UK dialling codes. 

The book arts listings sections are compiled 

from the information we discover or receive, 

if you know of more organisations, collections, 

book fairs, centres, bookshops etc. that you 

think should be included then please get in 

touch so we can add them to the next issue in 

2005. If this is the first time you have come 

across the Artist’s Book Yearbook and would like 

to list your books in the next issue, then please 

contact us to be added to our book arts mailing 

list so we can keep you up to date. 

Thanks are also due to; Neil Crawford for his 

type suggestions, Paul Laidler for help with 

slide scanning and opening rogue image files, 

Tom Sowden for scanning countless slides and 

(with his family) for the cover and end page 

designs, and thank you to my mum for proof 

reading the entire issue. 

I would also like to thank the Centre for Fine 

Print Research and the Faculty of Art, Media 

and Design here at UWE, Bristol for allowing 

me the pleasure of working on the Artist’s Book 

Yearbook as part of my job. Without this 

essential support it would not be possible to 

produce each issue. 

I hope you enjoy reading this issue of the 

Yearbook as much as I have enjoyed putting it 

all together. 

Sarah Bodman

Ron King, photograph: F. A. Parisod 

Banners advertising the Circle Press exhibition 

at the Yale Center for British Art, hung from 

lamp posts all over New Haven during the 

summer of 2002. The banner includes a detail 

from The Left-Handed Punch (1986) 

photograph: Richard Caspole

Cooking the Books: Ron King and Circle Press at 

the Yale Center for British Art 

Elisabeth Fairman 

Housing an astonishingly diverse collection of 

approximately 30,000 volumes, the Department 

of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Yale 

Center for British Art focuses on material 

relating to the visual arts and cultural life in the 

United Kingdom and former British Empire. 

The collection depicts all aspects of British life, 

customs, scenery, and travel, from the 16th century 

to the present. It includes artists’ manuals, 

sporting books and 

manuscripts, works on costume, the military, 

entertainments and theatrical events, 

transportation, natural history and popular 

science, and illustrated children’s books and 

games. Private press books - such as those 

produced by William Morris at his Kelmscott 

Press - complement a growing collection of 

contemporary artists' books acquired over the 

past twenty years or so. 

One of the most significant of the book artists 

represented in the Center’s holdings is Ron 

King. He and his Circle Press have been 

making innovative and creatively significant 

books for the past thirty-five years. Since 1967, 

when he formed Circle Press to ‘draw together 

a circle of like-minded people’ to make books, 

King has worked with over one hundred artists, 

writers, and poets, including Ian Tyson, John 

Christie, Julia Farrer, Birgit Skiöld, Roy Fisher, 

Kenneth White, and John Berger. The resulting 

works are made from an extraordinary range of 

materials - paper, wood, metal, stone, glass, and 

wax - that stretch the concept and definition of 

the book to its limits. 

The generosity Ron has shown to young artists 

and first-time bookmakers over the years is 

remarkable and continues to this day. There 

are always one or two students working in his 

studio in Notting Hill. Everyone who has ever 

worked with him mentions his open 

handedness. Artist and filmmaker John Christie 

offers this recollection: ‘One of the great things 

about Circle was that it welcomed ideas and 

energy. I remember very well my first visit to 

the studio (in 1975, then in Guildford)…. 

It was like a magical place for me. Light and 

3 

spacious with worktables, racks full of paper, 

printing machines. A place full of possibilities 

that de-mystified so many technical processes. 

Ron King showed me how to set type, print 

letterpress, and silk-screen - I learned many 

skills and was introduced to a great many other 

artists. It was a very open and generous 

situation.’ 

Happily, Ron’s generosity even extends to 

institutions such as ours. I first met him in the 

fall of 1996 in London at the opening of an 

exhibition of Circle Press at the National 

Theatre, curated by writer, critic, and oral 

historian Cathy Courtney. Through the Looking 

Book was a perfect introduction to Circle Press 

(as was her catalogue of the exhibition). 

The sheer number and variety of the works was 

striking. 

It was a year later, during one of his periodic 

trips to the United States, that I was able to talk 

at length with Ron about Circle Press. He 

showed me some marvelous books. 

(I remember particularly the delight he took in 

presenting both the intricate pop-ups of 

Bluebeard’s Castle and the gorgeous blindembossed 

prints done by his wife, the sculptor 

Willow Legge, for An African Folktale). We 

arranged to acquire everything that Yale did 

not already have - what in the end turned out 

to be nearly 100 titles. 

In January of 1998, Ron wrote to us: ‘Our aim 

is to establish a fully comprehensive permanent 

collection of Circle Press dating back to its 

inception in 1967 until the present time, 

available for handling and study.’ At the same 

time, in a remarkably generous gesture, he and 

Willow offered to donate the archive of the 

Press to the Center, thinking it would 

complement the collection of printed materials 

as well as provide important primary material 

for students and others interested in the book 

arts. The extraordinary collection includes 

drawings, plans, experiments, prototypes, texts, 

correspondence, posters, critical reviews, 

linoleum blocks, cutting and creasing forms 

and some wood and metal type, all relating to 

projects created by or for Circle Press. The 

archive offers a unique opportunity to study 

and understand the creative process. One can 

trace Ron’s idea for a project from his first

doodle in a spiral-bound notebook, through its 

various permutations and its eventual 

emergence as a work of art. We see how he 

‘cooks the books’ (the title of the Center’s 

exhibition), carefully working out the details of 

every publication before production begins. 

As Ron says, ‘My mind is like a cauldron. 

There’s a great stew of things going round and 

round. In the end I serve up a dish.’ 

Researchers can read correspondence between 

Ron and his many collaborators. A revealing 

example is Ron’s collaborations with the poet 

Roy Fisher, during which the two of them rarely 

met in person; their frequent written exchanges 

demonstrate the richness and complexity of 

their partnership. 

Fisher has said recently that his collaboration 

with Ron on The Half-Year Letters (one of a 

number of projects exploring folded and cut 

letters that Circle Press has published over the 

years) was of a ‘musical nature. Ron already 

had a very dogmatic master text, so I thought I 

would have a voice and a disposition muttering 

along with his letters.’ 

This is interesting of course, but it is in the 

original correspondence that we find the 

details of the project. Roy Fisher wrote to Ron 

in February of 1983: “This enormous text has 

taken a long while and has grown like a sack of 

potatoes from small beginnings. What I’ve tried 

to do is establish a fairly vague text … which 

doesn’t dramatise your letter forms in any 

obvious way. My reactions to them are 

submerged in my text….’ 

For The Half-Year Letters Fisher took a random 

starting date from his own diaries and extracted 

events and observations from a twenty-six week 

span. From this list, he constructed the poetic 

text: ‘The actual images have their starts in 

notes, diary dates, lecture titles & memoranda 

and anecdotes picked out of a sequence of 26 

weeks a while back (i.e., half a year - which 

might give us a title or part of one) - but I’ve 

tried to leave them loose enough for you to 

inhabit. Plain point, though, is that this is a 

maximum text, from which you can use 

whatever chunks & slivers are of use, and 

discard or downgrade (design-wise) the rest.’ 

4 

The archive, together with copies of all the 

published books, make the holdings at the Yale 

Center for British Art the most comprehensive 

collection of Circle Press in the world. Ron says 

that their ‘most ardent support has always come 

from the U.S., without which we never would 

have been able to survive as an independent 

self-supporting “workshop”… all this, as it were, 

under a British roof in a very fine building on 

American soil, couldn’t be more appropriate or 

gratifying.’ 

In a poignant tribute, Ron and Willow are 

giving the archive in memory of their son 

Daniel, who died of cancer at the age of fifteen 

in 1972. It will be known as the Daniel King 

Circle Press Archive, to be kept in perpetuity at 

the Yale Center for British Art and open to all 

for research. Ron describes Daniel as “an 

extremely bright, intelligent young man with a 

highly developed social conscience, a good 

draughtsman, and a keen stamp collector. 

I didn’t realise the full extent of his collection 

until after his death; I actually based some 

prints on his penny blacks, penny reds, and 

two-penny blues and dedicated them and the 

portfolio Neighbours, We’ll Not Part Tonight to his 

memory, but as we have no headstone or 

plaque for him, an archive in his name, made 

available mainly to young people, seems a 

fitting alternative and one of which he would 

approve.’ 

The exhibition Cooking the Books: Ron King and 

Circle Press opened in June 2002 at the Yale 

Center for British Art. It celebrated both the 

gift of the Daniel King Circle Press Archive and 

the thirty-fifth year of the Press’s existence. 

While there have been other exhibitions of 

Circle Press books, this was the first time that 

preliminary drawings, original collages, 

linoleum blocks, experimental letters, and 

correspondence were on display along with the 

finished projects - the ‘recipes that led to a 

dish,’ as Ron put it. The exhibition’s 

provocative title attracted some media attention 

(the exhibition happened to open just as a 

nation-wide accounting scandal was unfolding), 

but as Grace Glueck from the New York Times 

wrote, the exhibition ‘has nothing to do with 

corporate chicanery and everything to do with 

the wonderfully imaginative publications of 

Mr. King, a maverick British publisher.’

Mr Punch from The Left-Handed Punch (1986) Screenprints and articulated puppets by Ron King; verse by Roy Fisher 

Log Book (1995) one of a series of one-off books made from sawn logs

Other critics mentioned Ron’s preoccupation 

with the alphabet, a ‘basic ingredient of the 

book-making recipe.’ William Zimmer, also 

from the New York Times, was intrigued by the 

way that ‘various letters seem to appear and 

retreat via the pop-up cutting and folding 

process,’ remarking on Ron’s treatment of the 

alphabet as ‘something that is at once familiar 

and mysterious.’ Critics and visitors alike were 

delighted by one of Ron’s most challenging 

projects, The White Alphabet (1984), shown fully 

extended in a long wall case. A reading area at 

the end of the exhibition provided visitors with 

the opportunity to actually handle a number of 

Circle Press books. 

The published catalogue serves as a 

comprehensive record of Circle Press 

publications, from its start in 1967 with the 

publication of Chaucer’s Prologue, to the latest 

project issued in 2001, King’s Tabernacle: Hole, 

Horse, & Hell-box. It includes an insightful essay 

by Andrew Lambirth as well as fascinating 

commentary and complete bibliographic 

information on the individual works by Ron 

himself. Handsomely designed by Thomas 

Manss and Kathrin Jacobsen of Thomas Manss 

& Company, London, the limited-edition work 

includes a cover and special inserts designed by 

King. 

Judith Hoffberg, editor of Umbrella, wrote in 

the December 2002 issue of that journal: 

‘This book is a joy to behold, not only for the 

typography, but the images…. The catalogue is 

a labour of love, a gift to us the readers, a gift 

to those who revere Ron King, and a gift to 

generations from now who can document this 

amazing book artist.’ 

Elisabeth Fairman 

Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at 

the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 

Connecticut, USA 

6 

Elisabeth Fairman is responsible for the 

acquisition and care of the Center’s collection 

of artists’ books. Contact her by e-mail at: 

elisabeth.fairman@yale.edu or write to her at: 

Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts, 

Yale Center for British Art, PO Box 208280, 

New Haven, CT 06520, USA. 

For further information on the Yale Center for 

British Art, consult their web site at: 

www.yale.edu/ycba 

Copies of Cooking The Books are still available 

from the Center’s Museum shop (e-mail the 

manager for details: lizbeth.oconnor@yale.edu) 

or directly from Circle Press. 

Consult the Circle Press web site for details of 

the catalogue, as well as other works that are 

still in print, at: 

http://www.circlepress.com/circle_press/pilot/

Dolly: Edition Unlimited (1997) by Karen Bleitz. 

Pop-up jigsawed bookwork on the theme of the (recently deceased) cloned sheep Dolly 

Crab from An African Folktale (1979). An Efik Ibibio folktale illustrated with 

blind-embossed intaglio designs by Willow Legge 

7

Exhibition at Yale Center for British Art, showing a selection of preliminary drawings and collages for Neighbours We’ll Not 

Part Tonight (1976) by Ron King: verse by Roy Fisher. The floor case contains collages and works by John Christie, including 

A Walk Along the Shore (1977). Photograph: Richard Caspole 

Poster from Tabernacle: Hole, Horse and 

Hellbox (2001). Bookwork project using 

a seven-drawer cabinet, celebrating seven 

generations of printing in the King 

family; includes magnetised and rubber 

stamp letters for printing

Exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art, showing different alphabet projects on the wall and in the display cases on the 

left. King’s portrait of fellow book artist Ken Campbell may be seen in the background. Photograph: Richard Caspole 

Reading area of exhibition with Circle Press books available for visitors to handle. The wall on the left shows proof sheets 

and cutting and creasing forms for Alphabet I; on the right are three monoprint collages from King’s stamp series. 

Photograph: Richard Caspole

Ten books on my new bookshelf; a review. 

John Bently, 11th April 2003 

Recently I moved into a new flat. Space being 

in short supply, I spent a morning scavenging 

in skips for enough discarded planks to build a 

bookcase for the toilet. Into this bookshelf, 

adjacent to the toilet paper holder, I have 

rearranged my favourite books. After much 

deliberation, I have composed small reviews of 

my ten most treasured: 

Twitching and Shattered 

Frank Key, Malice Aforethought Press (1989) 

Frank was one half of the notorious and 

lamented Malice Aforethought Press, taking his 

pen name from a photo in a local newspaper of 

a rundown hardware merchant. I first met 

Frank and his distinctively cheekboned 

colleague, the esteemed Maxime Descharne 

Dcsd. at the inaugural Small Press Fair at the 

Conway Hall in 1986. Their stall was filled with 

stapled pamphlets, all of them disarmingly 

anarchic and quite unlike anything produced 

before or since by mainstream publishers. 

Twitching and Shattered is a compilation of the 

best of these, chronicling an unnerving and 

ludicrous parallel universe. There are maps, 

biographies, diagrams, found photos, histories, 

geographies, drawings and much more. Even 

now, many years after acquiring this book, I still 

can’t categorise it. It isn’t surrealism, it isn’t 

satire, it’s just not like anything else. 

Many of the pamphlets chronicle the fabled 

land of Hoon, a deranged and startling literary 

creation, visited frequently by the author, 

remaining, despite its thorough mapping, as 

mythical and distant as Atlantis: 

“Summoned to Hoon in 1836 by the ecclesiastical 

court, (Slobodan) Gubbins gathered about 

him an army of vagabonds and laid the town 

under siege. Circumnavigating the town walls 

astride his tubercular horse, he kept up the 

spirits of his gruesome band by smearing their 

scalps with ambergris and teaching them simple 

conjuring tricks.” 

11 

The names of the characters in Key’s ‘stories’, 

as much as their endearingly pointless exploits, 

are so vividly memorable. Punter Windigo, 

Maud Glub, Canute Hellhound, Claud 

Factotum, and my favourite, Father Todge: 

“I was pleased, however, to note, that I had 

been provided with a couple of stern devotional 

tracts - Prayer and Spittle, by Father Todge…” 

This book has become a particular favourite of 

mine after an evening spent in the company of 

prunes. 

The Final Party 

Andi McGarry, Sun Moon and Stars Press 

The first book I bought from my favourite book 

artist. In the 1980’s and early 90’s, Stephanie 

Brown used to review artist’s books in her 

highly influential Publications Supplement in 

AN magazine. It was here, through her words 

that I discovered a whole new world of diverse 

characters making art with pages. I sold 

hundreds of my own books through those 

reviews, and occasionally bought work from 

other artists, such as this. 

All of McGarry’s books in those days had 

printed text, but with every single illustration 

painted in on top by hand. Although I own 

about ten of them now, this first purchase 

remains my favourite. 

Disarmingly simple, his poetry, perfectly 

imbedded into the illustrations, celebrates life 

lived in the moment like almost nothing else in 

contemporary art. 

The text here is ostensibly a mere list of who he 

would invite to the Final Party: 

“…Also invited are the Dawn Chorus, Buskers, 

especially bagpipers, foghorns, hump back 

whales. Also howling winds, rustling leaves, 

anyone wearing wellies or who uses a bicycle. 

A volcano display, at least one streak of 

lightning, and a glorious feeling I can’t quite 

put into words…” 

A dark day is brightened by a minute’s visit to 

this book.

The Beano Annual (1966) 

Any Beano annual, actually… But this is the 

one that for me is the standard by which all 

others are judged. It came out when I was eight 

years old and still believed in fairies, bogeymen 

and Father Christmas. I also believed that all 

the characters in the Beano were really alive. 

I got my first Beano annual in 1960 and have 

collected them ever since…40 copies in total, 

donated last year to Arthur, my eight year old 

son. 

For those of you not in the know, the Beano 

is a coded anarchist manifesto encouraging 

young people to a lifelong struggle against all 

forms of authority. It offers instruction in the 

creation of home made weapons of mass 

distraction; the cattie, the pea shooter, the 

water pistol and the soap box cartie. Authority, 

bullying and spoilsport, is symbolised by the 

parentally wielded slipper. Here are the most 

famous anti-establishment heroes in British 

history: Minnie the Minx, Billy Whizz, Dennis 

the Menace and my own personal favourite, 

the eternally conniving, devious and cunning 

Roger the Dodger. The first books I ever made 

were my own hamfisted reconstructions of 

Roger’s famous Dodge Books. 

I wrote to Roger for his autograph. An artist 

sent me back a hand drawn cartoon of his Dad, 

ears steaming, swishing his ever ready slipper. 

The speech balloon read “ I asked Roger to 

sign this , but he’s dodged it!” On a more 

serious note, many years later, studying some 

early English illuminated books from the 13th 

century, I was struck by how similar they were 

in structure, if not content, to the Beano, 

speech balloons and all. 

A Book Of Fig’s 

Guy Begbie 

At the 1997 London Artists Bookfair at the 

Barbican, this was the only book I bought. 

It encapsulated for me something you can do 

in a book that you can’t do in any other 

medium. It contains what seems to be a series 

of scribbles on each page (fig’s 1,2,3 etc). 

12 

Intrigued, I asked the artist if they were a form 

of writing. He said, no, they were drawings of 

writing. Wow! That question has intrigued me 

for years - how do you actually draw writing? 

Rarely has the symbiosis of text and image 

been so neatly encapsulated than in this little 

handbound treasure. I show it to students 

constantly… 

N. B. Since writing this, I took the book to 

show some students and it didn’t come home, 

presumed lost. Any more copies hanging about, 

Guy? 

Samizdat Les Bicknell & Derek Humphries, 

Oblivion Boys Press (15th October, 1985) 

I swapped this with Les for one of my own 

books Actually, I asked him for one of his 

expensive one-off metal and wood masterpieces, 

but he tactfully sent me this instead. 

I remember seeing the book in 1985, not long 

after it had been made, and feeling quite 

jealous, as it contained all the elements I was 

myself using in the early Liver & Light’s 

manifestos, but done more elegantly and 

effectively. It has rubber stamps, found text, 

tip-ins, photocopies and so on. 

It sums up for me the post punk period of 

innocent inventiveness, owing much to the 

fanzine underground, when computers were 

only found in banks and the photocopier 

was a new frontier ripe for exploration: 

“Derek Humphries and Leslie Bicknell are the 

proud parents of Samizdat, conceived whilst 

enjoying the life of the idle poor in the early 

summer of 1985, nurtured through difficult 

times and finally executed on 15th October 

1985 in a severely limited edition of 20 

copies…” 

Poetic and personal, knowing no rules, 

straining at its own boundaries, I stole the 

techniques, made them work for me and 

moved on…

Noggins 

Mark Pawson (October 2001) 

This book was recently bought for me by a 

close friend. She is now my wife. These things 

may or may not be related. It is the antithesis to 

all those dumb list books which now seem to be 

the staple of any publisher who wants to seem 

fashionable or artistic. Like a lot of Pawson’s 

books, this one stems from an enthusiasm, no, 

make that mania, for collecting, in this case 

Noggins - his name for the profusely hirsute 

wooden Viking dolls that proliferated in 

Scandinavia and beyond during the seventies. 

No mere list, though. Noggins is imbued with 

a heartfelt pseudo scholarliness and the 

fragmentary tale of a modern day Saga - the 

author’s epic search through the boot fairs and 

charity shops of contemporary England in 

search of golden fleece and holy grail; shape 

shifting, pillaging - a blood-eagle to the classpox 

of so called high art. Pawson’s best work is 

a window into a personal world that has 

relevance for a great many people. One day 

one of his books will sell a million copies and I 

will deserve to be bought a drink. 

The Warlock of Love 

Marc Bolan, Lupus Music (1969) 

Marc was my first hero and I found this book 

in a junk shop in 1971 during the height of his 

fame. 

It appears to be a privately printed (in wonky 

letterpress) volume of his Tyrannosaurus Rex 

era poetry. 

If you think his lyrics are baffling nonsense, 

you won’t appreciate this, but his childlike 

wonder for the pure musicality of words has 

been an inspiration to me for most of my life 

(as has his dress sense, unfortunately): 

13 

Dance you devilled dale of green, 

tolled and witching in the flight of wishing, 

for the bells of winter stark 

and cannoned under the crunched 

willet wonder of her lancing smile. 

Puckoon 

Spike Milligan, Penguin Books (1963) 

No, no…Spike was my first hero… I went to 

see him with my dad. He had a tailor’s dummy 

on stage and he attacked it violently with a 

Samurai sword if we didn’t laugh loudly 

enough. He swung maniacally from sad 

diatribes against pollution and saving whales 

to a wild physical humour so surreal and so 

wilfully lo-tech (broomsticks as false moustaches 

and sandwiches hastily improvised as wigs, 

etc.), that I actually wet myself. 

I started buying his books with my pocket 

money and they remain a great ideal for me. 

They look like they’ve been hand written in 

biro in the pub and delivered by barefoot 

urchin, uncorrected and smeared with jam, to 

the horrified printer. Puckoon was his first 

attempt at a ‘novel’, although actually, like

most of his work, it is totally uncategorisable. 

Sad, funny and a work of genius. The book is a 

world in itself in which the reader somehow 

disappears: 

‘Legs? Legs? Whose legs?’ 

‘Yours.’ 

‘Mine? Who are you? 

‘The Author’ 

Author? Author? Did you write these legs? 

‘Yes.’ 

‘Well I don’t like dem. I don’t like ‘em at all. 

I could ha’ writted better legs meself. Did you 

write your legs? 

‘No’ 

‘Ahhh. Sooo! You got someone else to write 

your legs, someone who’s a good leg writer 

and den you write this pair of crappy old legs 

for me, well mister, it’s not good enough.’ 

‘I’ll try to develop them with the plot.’ 

The Great Liberty Riot of 1780 

John Nicholson, Bozo press (1985) 

Like Malice Aforethought Press, I met John 

Nicholson at the inaugural Small Press Fair 

at the Conway Hall in 1986, not long after this 

book’s publication. In great detail, it 

reconstructs the events surrounding ‘one of the 

greatest moments in our history’- the great 

14 

‘Liberty’ Riot of 1780. The book describes, in a 

chilling parallel with current media coverage of 

the war in Iraq, the way in which, through a 

process of literary misinformation, the 

significance of the riot has been rubbed out 

from history. 

It begins with a quote from William Blake, a 

notable witness to the rioting: 

“Nothing can be more contemptible than to 

believe public records to be true.” 

How is it that we are not taught in school about 

“ the largest civil commotion in England since 

the Monmouth rebellion;…more people were 

killed or executed than during the Luddite 

outbreaks, the Reform struggle, or the various 

Chartist episodes.”? 

Nevertheless, this is no mere conspiracy theory. 

It is beautifully written in the author’s 

inimitably passionate style. Like all the other 

books in this list it is another world into which 

we are inextricably drawn. It is also definitely 

not, either in style or construction, like any 

other history book written by a historian, that I 

have ever read. 

A seminal work filled with dangerous ideas, 

owning the book gave me a chilling sense of 

being watched. I lent this copy to a friend 

studying Criminology at Hull University. 

Two weeks later her flat was burned down. 

She managed to rescue it, miraculously; one of 

her few possessions not totally obliterated… 

It nestles, charred and damp stained on my 

shelf; a monument to the truth that can’t be 

burned. 

John Bently is a genius as yet unrecognised by 

the world at large. Once his museum is 

complete the world will know. He is currently 

applying weekly for lottery funding to start the 

building work, but as yet his numbers have not 

come up...Liver & Lights will celebrate 20 years 

of prodigious obscurity next year…

Voyage into Matter: Four Mylar and Mirror Books Lesley Kaiser, artist’s collection, Auckland, 1990 

Lei for George Westbrook Niki Hastings - McFall 

(hymn-book, seeds) Auckland Museum; 

Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, 1997

Memo: This is not an Artist’s Book: a New Zealand 

Collection 

Elizabeth Eastmond 

A five hour drive south from Auckland in 1998, 

towards Taranaki’s snow-tipped triangle, took 

me to a gallery with six hundred and fifty 

artists’ books. 1 This extraordinary exhibition 

came from Germany, with just some of the ‘B’s 

including Beuys, Boltanski and Buren. Two 

hundred and fifty were ‘hands-on’. With ‘never 

any time’ in Auckland, it was necessary to steal 

some. To steal some in order to lose myself in 

some, some artist’s book-time: a time which is 

also a place, structured by artists, with the book 

in mind. In this exhibition as elsewhere narrow 

definitions of ‘the artist’s book’ were redundant 

and they also fail to apply to all the works in my 

sampling here from New Zealand: hence the 

‘memo’ in my essay’s title. 

That such a specialised touring exhibition, 

covering thirty years of European artists’ books 

generated considerable interest demonstrated 

the extent to which New Zealand audiences 

were familiar with this phenomenon. Hardly a 

year has passed since the mid nineteen - 

seventies without a local show or an offshore 

import, with 1997 (when the six hundred and 

fifty started touring) also featuring Paging the 

Book, a major exhibition with forty-seven New 

Zealand artists, and Unbound, curated as a small 

but telling aside to accompany the German 

show, its focus local book-related installation 

works. 2 

But it was American-generated rather than 

European contacts and exhibitions that helped 

nourish earlier stages of this country’s 

contribution. A Duchamp exhibition in 1967 

which included Green Box and Box in a Valise 

presented possibilities, while Franklin Furnace 

books showed in 1978, a Rusha exhibition with 

a full complement of his books the same year, 

and a 1978-9 touring show of one hundred and 

eleven artists’ works curated by Jacki Apple 

included, of the ‘A’s this time, Acconci, 

Anderson and Aycock. 3 By 1990 in a significant 

shift in curatorial practice Judith Hoffberg of 

Umbrella curated CrossCurrents: Bookworks 

from the Edge of the Pacific, which profiled 

17 

together works from both New Zealand and 

America, as have a number of other recent 

‘Pacific rim’ art exhibitions. 4 New Zealand may 

now have radically shifted position from the 

‘edge’ to the centre of the world (The World, 

Pacific Centred, as my Bartholomew’s map of 

2000 has it), and we may enjoy the benefits of 

simultaneous co-existence in cyber-space with 

other places, but transporting works of art from 

them still involves negotiating the Pacific’s 

‘encircling seas’. 5 In paradoxical fashion it may 

be precisely these two factors of ‘instant’ time 

radicalizing communication, along with the 

enduring problems associated with distance 

(physical space) which have contributed to the 

relative prominence here of this generally 

smaller-scale form of art practice. 

As elsewhere, the agendas originally informing 

what were later called artists’ books have shifted 

over the years: like installation art they are now 

often part of the mainstream, if not partially 

institutionalised. Tertiary and other institutions 

have run courses in book-making, in ‘artists’ 

books’, (some in disk form only), and in history 

of the book arts, from the 1980s, while paged 

material accompanying exhibitions – sometimes 

functioning as exhibits themselves - slither back 

and forth confusing pedantic distinctions 

between catalogue and artist’s book by both 

replicating and resisting the catalogue’s 

conventional codes. Memo: these in particular 

are the slippery customers that lie behind my 

essay title ‘this is not an artist’s book’. 

Another shaping factor in the earlier years of 

the New Zealand artists’ book movement was 

the women’s movement of the 1970s and ‘80s. 

In 1977 Joanna Paul organized the touring A 

Season’s Diaries, the works exploring cultural 

feminism’s concern for issues associated with 

the ‘personal as political’. 6 In fact, in New 

Zealand, the convergence of an emergent type 

of art practice (artists’ books) with a newly 

politicised art community (feminist women 

artists) resulted in a cluster of exhibitions of, or 

related to, artists’ books, by women artists, as 

well as exhibitions curated by women, from the 

late 70s through the ‘80s. The Auckland 

Association of Women Artists’ 1990 Cover to 

Cover was the last of these gender-specific group 

exhibitions. 7

Paul’s Unwrapping the Body from 1977, drawing 

together a woman’s personal experiences with 

conceptual art-related practices, remains a 

significant early contribution. Its format, 

requiring unpacking the wrappers, operated as 

a metaphor for its theme, the examination of 

the dead body of the child. Bleak photographic 

images accompanied text obsessively naming 

parts of the body with associated terms ‘head 

…caput… cup’, the cool pseudo-scientific style 

intensifying if anything the horror of the 

subject-matter. Like other such projects here 

and elsewhere, the book also operated in 

conjunction with an installation and performance, 

so providing both a counterpart to and a 

record of an event. 8 

Unwrapping the Body 

Joanna Paul, Progress Print, Dunedin, 1977 

Two women artists and artist’s book makers 

curated another notable two-country exhibition 

in 1985. 9 In conjunction with ANZART (a once 

regular series of Australian and New Zealand 

artists’ exhibitions/conferences), it involved 

well over one hundred artists. Looking back at 

my review of it – nearly a generation on – I see 

something of my taste at the time: a resistance 

to a number of overly precious, highly crafted 

objects, a preference for ‘hyper’ sculptural 

pieces if the sculptural was the tendency being 

explored, and a decided liking for a small, conventionally 

formed cheque-book sized book 

called Blazing Shoes, cover by Drunk Persons, 

published by Open Dammit Books. 10 

Also from that exhibition was Jeff Thompson’s 

amusing documentation piece Mail Boxes 1982- 

85. It recorded this artist’s roadside art project 

involving constructing corrugated-iron 

sculptures of sheep for rural letterboxes. This 

project both celebrated and, paradoxically, 

parodied a significant strand of New Zealand 

art practice: Regionalism, a largely landscape - 

based practice, a vital component of the 

18 

construction of a pakeha (a New Zealander of 

European descent) national identity from the 

1930’s to the 1970’s. 

This lop-sided notion of ‘national identity’ has, 

unsurprisingly, been critiqued on various 

fronts. In particular it has been countered by 

the tangata whenua: Maori artists, in work 

which explores tribal identity, which 

foregrounds issues around colonisation, the loss 

of ancestral land, of language. In Jacqueline 

Fraser’s Pakurangarahihi, The Martyrdom of Pigeon 

Mountain, the artist (of Kai Tahu, Kati Mamoe 

descent) uses the book format to rhythmically 

interleave drawings of green fern fronds on 

transparent pages which appear to gently fall 

across, caress, photographs of her life-size wire 

figures representing those lost in the 

suburbanisation, the ‘mutilation’, of this sacred 

mountain. As linear sculptures the figures 

appear as fine line drawings on the pages of the 

book above the accompanying text in Maori 

and English. The central double-page spread’s 

verso reads ‘Ko tenei te tangi o te Iwi Maori’, its 

recto ‘This is the lament of Maori people’. 

Pakurangarahihi, The Martyrdom of Pigeon Mountain 

Jacqueline Fraser, Fisher Gallery, Pakuranga, 1997 

limited edition of 200 

Colonisation is also clearly the theme in Niki 

Hastings-McFall’s Lei for George Westbrook (see 

image on page 16). Here the lei, the Pacific 

Islands peoples’ traditional expression of 

welcome, the gift of a necklace of fragrant 

frangipani, or other flowers, is formed instead 

by the pages of a hymn book. In the method of 

its construction - the fragmentation and so 

destruction and transformation of the book – 

this ‘gift’ signifies the refusal and return of the 

oppressive teaching of the missionaries. By no 

means a book, but certainly a book at the 

hands of an artist, an ‘artist’s book’. 

While the notion of exile within one’s own land 

characterises work by some indigenous artists,

other artists have used the book format in 

relation to other notions of exile and its 

accompanying experiences of dislocation and 

pain. Page by crackling page Gail Haffern’s 

The Book of Exile investigates connections 

between the narratives of loss and of quest of 

the tribes of Israel, in dialogue with quotations 

from feminist texts on identity and absence. 11 

The surface of her Mappa Exsilium, with its 

usage of Biblical exile narratives, is formed by 

curling, turning, persimmon-scented pages, 

metaphors of irrevocable shifts in time and 

place. Like Hastings-McFall’s work, this may not 

be an artist’s book in the sense of being able to 

leaf through it, but nevertheless a work 

thoroughly informed by the book. 

Mappa Exsilium Gail Haffern (persimmon paper, mixed 

media) private collection, Auckland 1992 

Other New Zealand artists have investigated 

other possibilities of an architecture of the 

book: Lesley Kaiser has made superbly 

constructed kinetic, revolving books. Her 

Voyage into Matter, Four Mylar and Mirror Books, 

1990, allied scientific theory and the naming of 

quarks with impeccably intricate engineering 

(see image on page 16), while a number of 

artists, Haffern, Violet Faigan, Patrick Pound 

among them, have produced complex largescale 

book-related installations. 

Work in artist’s book-related format can be 

seamlessly integrated with other aspects of 

artists’ work. A ‘centre of artistic production’ 

known by various names: et al, Lillian Budd, 

Popular Productions, P. Mule, J. (Arthur) Craig 

and Sons, (among them), have made films, 

designed billboards, inscribed texts on blinds, 

displayed altered, unopenable books as part of 

installations, made one-off and multiple artists’ 

books, painted a book-like daybed opening to 

reveal maggots, title Selected Writings, (pre- 

19 

dating a certain Bed), arranged rooms of wonky 

tables, made catalogues which double as 

‘artists’ books’ complete with fishy interviews 

with the artist…and produced an almost straight 

catalogue for the wonky table exhibition, 

except for that scungy, masking tape binding, 

the one effectively perverse sign of the artist’s 

hand. 12 

Selected Writings Br-mf and P. Mule, exhibited in 

Gaining Interest, Artspace, Auckland, 2001 

The addition gives each copy the oxymoronic 

state of being at the same time multiple and 

unique. These artists can ‘tamper’ with earlier 

works – intervene and alter – as part of their 

practice, something of a challenge to librarians, 

booksellers and collectors. But a not 

inappropriate act, perhaps, in relation to the 

arts of the book. For books of course have 

attracted numerous interventionist acts. 

Arguments for immortality, et al, catalogue cover design for 

the exhibition abnormal mass delusions? Govett-Brewster Art 

Gallery, New Plymouth, 2003 

The catalogue cover (shown above) for an 

upcoming major survey exhibition by these 

artists may well not be quite as it is now at the 

time of printing next week, and as it will appear

later in the year. Although careful perusal may 

well reveal that even now all is not what it 

might seem. Not an artist’s book, yet, it is only 

the ‘cover’, and, in the illustration only the 

design for it. But the chances are it is in danger 

of becoming a ‘cover’ for one. 

In common with other countries, artists’ books 

produced in New Zealand have lent themselves 

particularly productively to collaborations 

between artists and other artists, artists and 

writers. The artists Bill Culbert (resident in 

Britain) and Ralph Hotere (Dunedin), for 

instance, produced a catalogue-cum-artists’ 

book with poet Bill Manhire: Fault. In a 

beautifully simple booklet format, texts by 

Manhire on the theme ‘fault’ and on this 

‘Fault’ frame the centrefold, a dramatic doublepage 

spread photograph of the visual work 

‘Fault’. This consisted of two neon ‘fault’ lines 

threading diagonally up across the blackened 

windows of the façade of the City Gallery in 

Wellington (a capital city founded on a 

geological faultline). The central double spread 

displays the effectiveness of the work’s uniting 

two key concerns of these two artists: Hotere’s 

use of black and the blackened window, 

Culbert’s use of neon and other lighting 

techniques. 

Fault Bill Culbert and Ralph Hotere, 

Wellington City Council, 1994 

The unassuming booklet format of this work is 

echoed in expatriate artist Alexis Hunter’s selfpublished, 

ring-bound Full of Sweet Dissolution 

(see opposite page). Quotations from various 

historical poets, Virgil, Dickenson, Keats – the 

latter the source for the title - are placed on 

recto pages to accompany the artist’s versos of 

‘The Drinkers Series Drawings’ (of inhabitants 

of the land of ‘El Blotto’), in a whimsical and 

tongue-in-cheek take on ‘the artist’s book’. 

Richard Killeen, a prominent New Zealand 

artist known for his ‘cutouts’, (multi-part wall 

pieces), has also produced numerous ingenious 

20 

book-works through his Workshop Press. 

A number of these involve other artists and 

writers. Although apparently straightforward in 

format – again no self-consciously ‘artists’ books 

‘ these – they continue to play out seemingly 

endless subtle variants of the book. One may 

work with a pre-existing text by a writer, with 

arrangement and images by the artist, as in 

Voyage, 13 another may be a visual collaboration 

with another artist as in Knot (John Reynolds) 

(below), while another sequences a mock - 

narrative on rent-book pages (Walk the Black 

Dog). 14 

Knot Richard Killeen and John Reynolds, 

Workshop Press, Auckland, 1994, limited edition of 200 

Objects and Images from the Cult of the Hook 

(a ‘fully referenced study’) parodies the systems 

of identification and classification endemic to 

academic archaeology in almost convincing 

fashion. 15 Closer to the livre d’artiste is The 

Presence of the Dew (see opposite page). It 

comprises an academic’s short scholarly essay 

on the cultural significance of dew for Maori, 

and it includes haunting tangi waiata (laments). 

Designed and printed by the artist, the texts are 

effectively accompanied by his crisply eloquent 

choice of images. Another book is totally 

dependent on an earlier production – but 

critically different. The ‘ground’ for the later 

work is a Workshop Press-produced catalogue 

to an exhibition of the artist’s cutouts, titled

Full of Sweet Dissolution Alexis Hunter, The Drinkers Series Drawings, London, 2002, 1st edition of 30 

The Presence of the Dew Margaret Orbell (text) and Richard Killeen (images) Workshop Press, Auckland, 1996

Sampler, with an essay by art historian Francis 

Pound. 16 Copies are used (eight years later) to 

accompany an exhibition of mainly earlier, 

figurative, work by the artist. 17 By applying 

labels over the ‘original’ title, photographic 

labels over the ‘original’ illustrations, and 

running a new text on labels over the earlier 

text – while leaving some of Pound’s text as a 

kind of frame around the new essay – 

productive cross-references emerge, and 

conventional notions of the artist’s 

‘development’ and of time are challenged. The 

particular way this artist can use the archives of 

his own practice (and its criticism) as fertile 

ground for his current practice are particularly 

cleverly exposed and further constructed in the 

form of the book itself. A ‘catalogue’ – of 

what, when, and which works, exactly? The 

ingredients of two exhibitions of work 

produced at different times are all there, in the 

‘same place’, ‘at the same time,’ even if some 

is only partly visible: a particularly provocative 

conflation – and confusion - of catalogue and 

‘artist’s book’. 

So understated it’s easy to overlook is Julian 

Dashper’s small, grey, simply titled Reviews. 18 

It contains twenty-seven reviews of solo shows of 

this (internationally exhibiting) neo-conceptualist 

artist’s work from 1981 – 2001. The reviews 

are all by the same critic. They are all pretty 

negative. Some very. ‘The objects in the 

Dashper exhibition are blindingly dull.’ They 

make for hilarious reading. Not an artist’s 

book? But, as a collection published by the 

artist, together, in book form, they shift the 

writing from its original, occasional, newspaper 

context into a domain which has the effect of 

productively interrogating the role of the critic, 

and exposing the role of this particular critic in 

relation to a strand of recent New Zealand art 

practice. So framed by the artist, this little book 

of rather poor critical writing, becomes, 

ironically, a rather good…artist’s book. What 

else? 

That things are not quite what they seem is 

almost an axiom of some artists’ books. 

At first glance A Little Book of Relics teases, it 

seems just like itself: a child’s school exercise 

book, opened out flat (see opposite page). 

Anne Noble, better known for her photographs 

of places and people, uses here a photograph 

22 

of the book’s cover as the outside of the package 

of ‘pages’ – photographed double-pages – 

from the book she retained from Form III. 

The delicacy of the work is partly achieved by 

the reduction in scale from the original and it 

nicely matches their intimate secretions: pages 

with little tufts of hair, collaged pictures of 

saints. It is an autobiographical work delving 

into childhood memories, which while directly 

based on a book, is not one. But it is of course 

an ‘artist’s book’. Tom Kreisler’s Private and 

Confidential also is and is not what it appears, 

with its ‘ready-made’ plastic ‘Note Pad’ cover 

(see opposite page). It also explores the 

viewer’s curiosity regarding the ‘secrets’ 

concealed within the ‘book’, here the ‘secrets’ 

of an artist’s mind at work in his notebook, the 

general concept reminiscent of Oldenburg’s 

Notes in Hand. But Kreisler’s photographed 

pages of pages are concerned with the playful 

layerings of meanings possible through 

combining these with surprising additions, all 

within the tacky plastic cover. Not quite a 

reproduction of a notebook, so it must be that 

something else, then. Something private, 

confidential…and available to the public in 

multiple copies. 

Also apparently not an artist’s book is Megan 

Jenkinson’s hardback Under The Aegis, The 

Virtues. In conventional academic format, here 

is a book of scholarly essays by various writers, 

Marina Warner among them, on the theme of 

the Virtues in western art, with illustrations. 19 

Under The Aegis 

Megan Jenkinson, Fortuna Press, Auckland, 1997 

Yes, superbly produced, but what makes it 

appropriate to this essay? A number of factors, 

as the reader may guess. Firstly the 

‘illustrations’ in the centre of the book. These 

constitute forty pairs of images, forty double - 

page spreads. They are taken from an 

exhibition of the same name.

A Little Book of Relics Anne Noble, Brat Press, Wellington, 1998, limited edition of 250 

Note Pad, Private and Confidential Tom Kreisler and Company Ltd., Waikato Museum of Art and History, Hamilton, 2000

But in the context of the book, what had been 

in the gallery a vertical pairing is now 

transformed by its book arts context into the 

different dynamic exposed by a series of double 

page-spreads, with additional texts in Latin. 

The photographs and texts are not illustrations 

of, they are the work. And the essays on either 

side of the images? Each was commissioned by 

the artist, who also selected the editor, and 

designed the whole project, including of course 

the cover. The book was also self-published. 

And, over many ‘lunch’ times, it could be 

added, packaged and self-distributed. What 

could be more of an artist’s book? While 

looking so properly like…an art history book? 

A book published in March 2003 brings my 

essay to a close. Power, by Patrick Reynolds 

wholly confounds those early agendas of the 

artist’s book movement. Knowingly. 

Power Patrick Reynolds, Waikato Museum, Hamilton, 2003 

Power is very big, its cover seriously black. 

It appeared in a prestigious gallery, and was 

funded by a major energy company: Mighty 

River Power. Its dramatic black and white 

photographs (some 500mm x 500mm) show 

parts of the power station constructions, their 

poles, turbine halls and pipelines, within 

regional, largely primaeval, landscapes. Quite 

appropriate for the board of directors. And 

yet… it is an artist’s book, in its concept and 

layout. Accompanied by critical essays and 

poets’ writings, both offshore (Eliot) and local 

(Leigh Davis), with its first nation’s landscapes 

and its first world industry, the project inhabits, 

in a sense, a world of global regionalism. 

On the double-page spread illustrated you can 

see the watchful presence of a Maori ancestor 

carving staring across the gutter of the book at 

the Mokai pipelines. The image serves as an 

24 

effective reminder of this land’s intertwined, 

but also different and often conflicting 

histories. If Aotearoa (New Zealand) is a book, 

it is still formatted in terms of unequal power 

sharing, as is proclaimed in the different scales 

used and the resulting dynamic tellingly 

constructed in this double-page spread. 

and 

And? And artists’ pages. Not artists’ books. 

Although pages are their bottom line, they 

power them. As with book-related installations, 

there are simply too many artists’ pages to 

include in this brief essay. They flourished 

particularly in a cluster of ‘little’ magazines 

(not all little) in the ’80s and ’90s: Monica, 

Midwest, Splash, ANTIC, AND…and they 

continue to settle into, and unsettle, and sprawl 

through, various contexts. Page power. 

Just a second for one, ‘though: a blank page, 

paginated only, in AND, among ninety-three 

densely packed pages of poetry and criticism. 20 

All black and white. That is except for pp. 47-8. 

It is pink. The table of contents lists it as Gift. A 

breathing-space. A pause. A moment in time. 

Elizabeth Eastmond lectures in Art History at the 

the University of Auckland, New Zealand, 

teaching papers on women artists, the book 

arts, and self-portraiture and identity 

construction in New Zealand art. She has 

published on Frances Hodgkins, New Zealand 

women artists, and on medieval illuminated 

books in New Zealand collections. 

Exhibition curation includes: 

Alexis Hunter: Fears / Dreams / Desires, and 

Landscape / Painting, Landscape / Writing: Frances 

Hodgkins's Late Landscapes. 

She was co-editor of the journal ANTIC.

notes 

1. Artists’ Books, An Exhibition in Ten Chapters, 

curator Dr. Michael Glasmeier, Govett-Brewster 

Art Gallery, New Plymouth, 1998; City Gallery, 

Wellington and The Fisher Gallery, Pakuranga, 

1997. 

2. Paging the Book, Lopdell House Gallery, 

Titirangi, 1997, curator Kate Darrow; Unbound, 

The Fisher Art Gallery, Pakuranga, curators 

Rhoda Fowler and Rebecca Lal. 

3. Marcel Duchamp, the Mary Sisler Collection, 

78 works 1904-1963, Auckland City Art Gallery, 

1967; Graphic Works by Edward Ruscha, curator 

Andrew Bogle, Auckland City Art Gallery, 1978; 

Artists’ Books, Franklin Furnace, New York, 

curator Wystan Curnow, 1978; Artists’ Books, 

touring, curator Jacqui Apple 1978-9. 

4. CrossCurrents: Book works from the Edge of the 

Pacific, University of California, Santa Barbara, 

curator Judith Hoffberg, 1990. 

5. M.H.Holcroft, Encircling Seas, Caxton Press, 

Christchurch, 1946. 

6. A Season’s Diaries, curator Joanna Paul, 

Victoria University Library; University of 

Waikato; Christchurch Society of Arts, 1977-8. 

7. Outreach, Auckland, curators Elizabeth 

Serjeant, Claudia Pond Eyley. 

8. Of several other artists’ books relating to 

performances, one of the earliest is Bruce 

Barber’s: On the Stocks, Auckland City Art 

Gallery, 1975. 

9. ANZART – Artists’ Books, curators Carole 

Shepheard, Christine Hellyar, Auckland City 

Art Gallery, 1985. 

10. Elizabeth Eastmond, ‘ANZART ’85 Artists’ 

Books Show, Auckland City Art Gallery’, 

ARTLINK 5, 3+4, August – September 1985, pp. 

15-16. Blazing Shoes by Ken Bolton, Adelaide, 

limited edition 200. 

25 

11. Gail Haffern, The Book of Exile, 1992, Elam 

School of Fine Arts Library, University of 

Auckland. 

12. Et al, simultaneous invalidations, second 

attempt, text Jonathan Bywater, editors Robert 

Leonard and Stella Brennan, designers Maria 

Wall and et al, Artspace, Auckland, 2001. 

13. Francis Pound and Richard Killeen, Voyage, 

1989, Workshop Press, Auckland, limited 

edition of 100. 

14. Richard Killeen, Walk the Black Dog, 

Workshop Press, Auckland, and Peter McLeavey 

Gallery, Wellington, 1997, limited edition of 50. 

15. C.M.Beadnell, Objects and Images from The 

Cult of the Hook, Papers of the Hook Museum, 

foreword Richard Killeen, Vol. 38, No. 2, 

second ed., 1999, Workshop Press, Auckland, 

limited edition of 100. 

16. Richard Killeen Sampler 1967-1990, essay 

Francis Pound, Workshop Press, Auckland, 

1990. 

17. Richard Killeen Interiors, Paintings 1968-1969, 

essay Anna Miles, Workshop Press, Auckland, 

limited edition of 100. 

18. Julian Dashper, Reviews, Art School Press, 

University of Auckland at Manukau Institute of 

Technology, 2001. 

19. Megan Jenkinson, The Virtues, Under the 

Aegis, ed. Peter Shand, essays: Marina Warner, 

Elizabeth Eastmond, Dougal Blythe & Tom 

Stevenson, Marcus Wilson, Denis L. Drysdall, 

Laurence Simmons, Fortuna Press, Auckland, 

1997. 

20. Billy Apple and Wystan Curnow, Gift, 

AND/2, eds. Alex Calder and Leigh Davis, 

English Dept., University of Auckland, 

February 1984, pp. 47-8.

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American Government Of System The Of Dolls House Quotations Familiar And 

Draftsmen Descriptive Students Direct Method For The Engineers Geometry 

Engineering Architects Great Tragedies Eight Chatterly's Lover Lady Her People 

Her Culture Her Scenery Austria To Draw Things New New Testament Bible 

English The To Draw Things In Fairyland Lessons The Given On Evidence Being 

Extracts From Animals Committee 1921 to 1922 Select Performing Spotlights 

Before Of Architecture Matter Of The Tragedy Lear King Of The Blue Of Nursery 

Rhymes Book A Lavendar's Facts English Of The Pan Astronomy Of Book The 

Time Passing Stakes Power Of The With Paper Creating Bummel On Men Men 

Boat And Three A In Three The Geography Students Certificate For Physical 

Approach Second Part Latin To The School Biology General Of Acquiescence 

America Growth And In Age Coming Common Science Of Sense The New Fourth 

Edition Chemistry Certificate A Collector The England Tudor Introduction 

Government American To An Dictionary Computers Of A Guinness Records Of 

Book The Afraid Woolf Virginia Of Who's Cookery Fondue Pocket Teacher Yoga 

Eighth Crosswords Of Book The Junior Book Puzzle 5th Hamlet Relativity Spring 

Snow Cleaver Writings And Speeches Prison Post Eldridge And That All 1066 

Irresistible Buck The Hardy's Wessex From Tales Thomas Sundering Flood The 

Nibelungenlied The Trips And Space Time Through 7 Frightening Newly 

Discovered Novel A Talent The Encyclopaedia Fishing Baits Coarse Of Pocket 

Earth Colony Royal Pardon The Forest And Of Wildlife History Its Epping Batsford 

Sewing Of Book The 12 Manual Owners Renault A Z London Star Horror No 2 Of 

Book The Bazaar To Country Pleasures Handbook A Country Bionic Identity 

Double Woman The Bodies Women's Health Collective Boston Ourselves Our 

Colour Familiar Flowering Shrubs To Guide A Ulysses H.M.S Pocket Dictionary 

Oxford The In Countries Four Love Vegetables Fruit And Growing Kochbuch 

Salzburg Aus Das Brides Book The Which Investing Of Saving And Book ? The 

Wives Hollywood Hardcore Bodybuilding Women's Superpump Hawk Winter 

Losses Necessary Fate Decide Let Berlin Writings The Wall Peace At The On The 

Wall And Holocaust Story Of The The Ashes Smoke Germans They Now? Are Who 

The Story The Of And Dr Josef Mengele Flames The Of Of The Children Untold 

Twins Auschwitz Remarkable 100 Women Artists Of Lives The Cyberspace Lexicon 

The From Crowd Madding The Far To 3 HTML Use How Heiress Stolen Driving 

First Time Pass Test The 2000 Millenium Year Guide To The Rough A The For 

Detailed Method The Cangjie Input Of Study A Chinese Crown Olive Wild Of The 

And Rose Rose Possibly Script? Arabic Illegible' 

The 101 titles of The Books, 1999

The Battle of The Books TNWK 

Sarah Bodman 

101 discarded books have been used as the 

starting point for a series of evocative and 

complex works giving a new purpose to the 

unwanted and unvalued, The Books have been 

shaped by Kirsten Lavers and Cris Cheek, two 

artists / writers /collaborators, working 

collectively as TNWK. The Books as a series of 

“occurrences,” reappear, change, are added to 

and subtracted from; they are a chameleon and 

-you get the feeling- an obsession. Sometimes it 

is hard to know who is controlling their 

transformation and subsequent appearances, is 

it TNWK or is it The Books themselves? Their all 

consuming spirit, the coincidences where they 

just happen to fit the requirements, it is as if 

the 101 books have conspired amongst 

themselves to be reborn as singular entity: a 

one-off gathering of the unwanted has amassed 

the life force of the phoenix, forever able to 

return, and each time it is in a new and 

vigorous form. The Books are not a simple 

repetition of the same artwork, they are the 

source of an ever mutating, reflective and 

reactionary collaborative force inspired by 

language and most importantly by discourse 

(and this collaborative force can be read as 

between TNWK and the books, not solely 

between TNWK as individuals). 

The Books (as we the viewers have come to 

recognise them) first appeared in public in 

1999, as an installation in a theatre school 

classroom in Utrecht where they were shredded 

and bagged, with pages 99-100 and 101-102 

27 

respectively removed from each book prior to 

shredding and rebound into two separate 

volumes. 

The 101 books had been collected by the two 

individuals of TNWK over the years, kept as 

items that may be useful for future inspiration 

(but which had ultimately not been) and then 

supplemented by purchases from charity shops 

to build the books up to the required amount 

for the project. The books do not seem to have 

been selected as a review of the century or to 

be representative of any particular cross-section 

of publishing history, they were simply books 

that had been classified as not worth keeping 

by their previous owners, or by TNWK 

themselves. 

Scenes from the installation at Utrecht Theatre 

School show the two new books sitting on a 

classroom table, surrounded by the tiny 

haystack heaps of the remaining shredded 

pages which grew as the 101 books went 

through the portable shredding machine. 

The blackboard is full of text; the titles from 

the 101 books, reworked into a vast and all 

encompassing “shre(a)d(d)ing” title for the new 

work. As the heaps of individually shredded 

books started to fill the floor TNWK noticed 

that they had become distinguishable through 

differences in the paper, images and type. The 

shre(a)d(d)ing title also played in the classroom 

as a vocal version of the title text spoken by the 

built in SimpleText voices on their Macintosh 

laptop. In the final stages, the shredded pages 

are mixed together and bagged, the dust from 

the books is collected up into a jar, the blackboard 

is cleaned and the whole ensemble is 

ready for transit and the next “occurrence.” 

In March 2000 the books regroup at Dartington 

Arts Gallery where fine tapers from some of the 

shredded pages are woven into a Retrospective 

Screen. The screen combines the visual and 

verbal; shreds from the books interspersed with 

cut shreds from reels of film. The warp consists 

of (amongst others) Fantasia, Taste the Blood of 

Dracula and a Kung Fu Movie, interwoven with 

the weft of the shredded pages. TNWK were 

concurrently weaving, reading and writing with 

texts from The Books, instructions and messages 

to each other and random snippets of conversations 

between TNWK and gallery visitors that

were added, coded, reworked and projected. 

Film and paper became one screen for the 

projection of the day’s writing as the weaving 

continued. 

As the screen was woven over a ten-day period, 

the edition of the Scrap Books One Hundred 

evolved from the scraps of shredded pages that 

fell to the floor. The shreds were bagged up 

from the gallery floor with an ISBN to be sold 

as a limited edition of 100. When I first saw 

these bags on the TNWK stand at the Artist’s 

Book Fair at the Barbican in 2001, they all 

looked so beautiful with their random scraps of 

texts and colours that I couldn’t decide which 

one I liked most and ended up buying six. 

I gave some of them away later and I wonder 

how many other things have also come about 

from just that one instance of a chain reaction 

to the books. If you look at the contents of any 

of the bags, different slices of shredded text 

pop out, like some kind of readymade Dada 

poetry; if all the shreds from each of the bags 

were assembled into more books, imagine how 

many Babelesque texts would evolve. 

Scrap Books One Hundred TNWK, 2000 

The Liminal Institute, Berlin, 2000 (for “Acts of 

Language”) Doc 1-1; fragments from the 

discarded appear in another guise. This time, 

eleven pages from the books were reunited in 

live (recorded) readings in eleven sites across 

Berlin. The Doc 1-1 title was inspired by the 

28 

Dock 11 of the event’s hosts, and so 11 places 

in each of the two books (99-100 and 100-102) 

were book-marked with the intention of making 

a work that would reunite the two disparate 

books. By chance (or was it more than that?) 

the random selections included texts on 

Germany, the Holocaust and the fall of the 

Berlin Wall, the texts were formatted into 

fly-posters with images taken from each of the 

sites of the recorded readings and flyposted 

around the streets of Berlin. 

The books also contributed to the event / 

installation OURNOVEL24HRS at Norwich 

Gallery in April 2000, and were used as acrostic 

text sources for The Enduring Freedoms Mystik 

Writing Pad, published in November 2001 and 

named after the Pentagon’s “Enduring 

Freedom” mission in Afghanistan. 

Pages from the books were also used as sources 

for a series of riddles written for text, a 

residency in Exeter in May 2002. The riddles 

were the response to the Anglo Saxon riddle 

book held in the Cathedral, the book has worn 

away over the years with some 20 of the riddles 

now unreadable and therefore indecipherable. 

TNWK created a new series of riddles, each 

referencing site-specific clues within the town, 

although having written 19 they left one riddle 

missing. The riddles and visual clues can be 

viewed via the TNWK website, or at the direct 

site: www.missingriddles.co.uk 

Missing Riddle No. 78 also appears (with one 

other) in a slightly different fashion in Book 2: 

The Legacy: 

“The construction is simple strong and 

convenient. 

I am two in one and one in two; the first and 

the second mostly. Scratch my face, I am 

already part of a collection fed by hands. 

My number is unlucky, my day never ends. 

I’m full of seals but remain unsealed. I have a 

red body and flat black feet thought to 

symbolise the whole. 

What am I ?”

As the books continued their transformations, 

the Millennium Collection also accumulated. 

TNWK invited 1,000 people to contribute an 

item to the collection and the reason for it 

being not worth keeping. The contributions 

formed the basis of a touring exhibition Not for 

Sale that travelled around various car boot sales 

in the UK by London Taxi Cab, before 

completing the journey at The End of The Line 

where the items were exhibited in a skip 

outside the Platform Gallery in London from 

21st - 31st May 2001. Once the skip had been 

unveiled, the next five days were continually 

recorded on CCTV as items were dispersed or 

added to the collection by visitors or passers by, 

up until the last day when the skip was driven 

to the local tip and the contents disappeared 

into the ether of London’s debris. 

One entry from the Millennium Collection, TNWK, 1999 

The physical record of the Millennium Collection 

is a publication of the 160 page, catalogued 

selection of items submitted and the reasons 

for their inclusion. Some of the submissions 

and their reasons for being not worth keeping 

include: “a small, bird shaped plastic whistle 

(which does not whistle)” “an old key (no idea 

what it opens)” “one Barbie shoe measuring 

30.5 mm (it is too poignant a reminder of the 

loss of the other)” “a five pence piece (useless 

for a phone box call, buys nothing)” “a Free 

Nelson Mandela badge (because he is free)” 

and my favourite entry; “a Space Pen (it is 

heavy, hard to grip…a pencil would be more 

convenient. It is also unlikely we’re going to 

space, or need to write with it underwater).” 

Images of submitted items can also be viewed 

via the Millennium Collection link at the TNWK 

website. 

All of the events inspired by and developed 

from the books demonstrate the infinite 

possibilities of their interpretation at the hands 

29 

(and minds) of TNWK. The next incarnation 

appeared on 13th April 2002 with the first issue 

of the subscription series titled The Books. Each 

instalment is presented in the same format; 

20 x 20 cms, with a plain white cover and the 

title: The Books, nothing is given away until you 

read on. 

Reading The Books is the visual equivalent of 

stepping into a library and hearing each book 

give you a line from its text – all at the same 

time, some shouting, some whispering. Some 

things can be read instantly, others take a little 

while as the text pieces overlap and intersperse 

themselves through the pages. The texts within 

the books are live discussion pieces, streams of 

consciousness pouring out from single starting 

points, and reading through these is similar to 

eavesdropping on someone else’s conversation. 

A blow-by-blow analysis of The Books could be an 

impossible task, 101 individual stories, each 

from the unwanted have transformed into a 

new engagement and conversation with others. 

Detail from: Book One: The Gathering, TNWK, 2002 

Book One: The Gathering this time we go back to 

the beginning, the books have been “read,” the 

images and text from all the appearances to 

date are reappraised, the discussions have 

explored all of this and more; the pact is sealed 

and the story begins to unfold anew. 

This is more than a documentation of how 

The Books came to be; this is the start of their 

united, translated voice about to be heard, the 

first whisperings of a battle of Frankenstein 

with the minds of their new creators.

Book 2: The Legacy continues onward from the 

meeting (of the books and the pact of TNWK) 

in The Gathering, and moves on to their first 

appearance in the classroom in Utrecht, 

covering the aforepromised: “Anyway there’s a 

nasty surprise coming, followed by a reversal of 

fortune.” The nasty suprise of an unproven 

“suicide” verdict of the shredded books in the 

empty classroom is duly investigated. 

Nurse Trash’s private diary entry from Book 2: The Legacy 

TNWK, 2002 

The narrator, Nurse Trash tries to solve the 

suicide riddle only to realise, as she tracks the 

shredded texts down, breathlessly searching for 

pages 99-102, that they have already been 

packaged up and posted back to England for 

their reversal of fortune, a rebirth in another 

guise. At the end of The Legacy the text reads: 

“Writing in the words of Lord Byron, ‘when 

shall we three meet again?’ We leave until the 

next chapter the question of control (led 

experiment). The show as they say has to go 

on.” 

We three: is it (the two of) TNWK and The 

Books or is it TNWK, The Books and the reader? 

I am inclined towards the former, and would 

like to imagine that it is The Books that are 

asking TNWK this question. 

Book 3: The Double Binding the two siblings arise, 

these two are the new books 99 - 100 and 101 - 

102, each made from the correspondingly 

numbered pages of the 101 abandoned books. 

The “shre(a)d(d)ing” title appears once more on 

page 9, this time in the guise of an ancient 

30 

codex or manuscript that has lain dormant, 

waiting for centuries and now appears, out of 

the darkest void, ready for its moment of 

glorious recognition. This book is the visual tale 

of the books’ transformation and resurrection 

as everything goes in, like the Ark, two by two. 

The Books are only a third of the way through 

their odyssey, as TNWK have written in Book 3; 

“The Books are critical, borne away by waves 

and wind, lost in darkness and distance, they 

shape us by the resistance they offer when we 

try to impose our form on them.” 

Each page merges visual and written references 

to ideas and places mentioned within the 

original shredded texts, The Books are retelling 

(or reinventing now that they have a new lease 

of life) their own history as the monolith 

shapes itself from the shreds of the discarded. 

The will of The Books versus the will of TNWK, 

which of the two will triumph in the battle to 

impose their will upon the other is hard to 

predict, all we can do is be ready and waiting by 

the letterbox to find out what happens in the 

next instalment. 

TNWK have an extensive website with detailed 

documentation of their work in relation to 

The Books and other ongoing projects at: 

www.tnwk.net 

For further information, or to subscribe to 

The Books (including back issues) email: 

thebooks@tnwk.net 

The Millennium Collection, Scrap Books One 

Hundred and The Enduring Freedoms Mystik 

Writing Pad are all available to order, see the 

listings section for contact details.

Detail: Book 3: The Double Binding TNWK, 2003

Love Karen Reimer (writing as Eve Rhymer) 

Sara Ranchouse Publishing, 1996 

White Trash Cooking Ernest Matthew Mickler, Ten Speed Press, 1986 

White Trash Cooking Ernest Matthew Mickler, 

Ten Speed Press, 1986

Some Reformations 

Susan Johanknecht 

The reforming of existing material and 

structures is a strategy I would like to look at in 

relation to some artists’ books. In particular, 

how when a given context is changed, 

subverted or deconstructed, new meaning / 

readings arise which still retain an aura of 

(or tension with) their sources. Just as a poet 

might ‘write into’ an existing text, artists can 

work into existing book formats. This process 

engages with a reader’s expectations and 

understandings of cultural codes. Examples 

from my book shelf revealed a reformed 

romance, cookbook, trade manual, church 

pamphlet, school notebook, and philosophical 

essay. I found reformed visual and textual material 

where a single image was expanded into a 

sequence, sound transcribed into words, text 

taken from found objects. 

Love Karen Reimer (writing as Eve Rhymer) 

Sara Ranchouse Publishing, 1996 

Love by Karen Reimer writing as Eve Rhymer 

(Sara Ranchouse Publishing, 1996) is a 

reformed romance. ‘Legendary, lexical and 

loquacious’, this is ‘an adult romance for the 

post structuralist woman’ the book jacket tells 

us. The size of this book, the papers used, and 

the design, all conform to those of a cheap 

paperback romance. Which is what you expect 

when you first pick this book up. Inside, it is 

organised into 25 chapters, one for each letter 

of the alphabet except ‘x’. Rhymer has taken all 

the words out of an actual romance and 

reordered them alphabetically. The plot is 

irrelevant because we know it, or can guess it. 

What we are given is the visual texture of words 

on pages, or a text as sound poem. 

33 

“ninth nipped nipping nipple nipple nipple 

nipple, nipples nipples nipples nipples nipples, 

No No No No No -” 

There are six full pages of the word ‘and’. We 

can deduce the heroine is called ‘Anastasia’ as 

this covers five pages, there are seven pages of 

‘her’ and nine of ‘the’. We are led to question 

how words as units relate to the novel as a 

whole, and notice how limited the vocabulary 

actually is. Knowledge of the genre informs our 

understanding and enjoyment of this artist’s 

book, which in turn operates as a literal 

deconstruction of the Romance. 

Sara Ranchouse is in a sense a reformed 

publishing house, publishing artist’s book: 

Westerns, Adventure & Mystery series, as well as 

Romances and magazines, all made to look like 

the ‘real’ thing. Sally Alatalo’s attention to 

detail, in production values which exactly 

mimic the look of familiar genres, is necessary 

to successfully put across the analysis, humour, 

and critical edge of these publications. 

Another reformed format is White Trash Cooking 

by Ernest Matthew Mickler published by Ten 

Speed Press in 1986. I purchased this book 

from a stand in a Birmingham, Alabama airport 

shop, where it was perfectly and subversively 

camouflaged among other cookbooks. The 

same size, spiral binding, layout, and paper as 

the others but different. Its recipes use 

ingredients such as Oleo & Crisco, processed 

cheese, condensed milk, Jello, and Reddi whip. 

Below the individual recipes are comments 

such as: ‘Mammy said: “If you got a yappin’ dog 

or a hungry man this ought to shut’um up.” 

Is this one even a recipe? “High Calorie pickme-up: 

‘Pour a small bag of Tom’s peanuts into 

a cold Pepsi. Turn it up and eat and drink at 

the same time.” 

Yet there are recipes in this book I remember 

being taught in my (northern) American high 

school home economics class, such as apple pie 

made without apples. Mickler is working from a 

base of cultural/culinary reality. In a sequence 

of photographs at the centre of the book he 

creates a visual narrative of place and poverty 

in the rural South; dilapidated sheds, 

unrecognisable food frying, still-lives inside 

the refrigerator, battered utensils on the

drainboard. This is a reformed cookbook of 

food you wouldn’t want to eat, depicting 

poverty and ignorance, haunted by the spectre 

of the Klu Klux Klan and racist violence. It is a 

(cook)book of social criticism finding a non-art 

world audience through camouflage and a wide 

distribution network. 

Destructions published in 1995 by Melissa Price 

and Sandy Suffield, appropriates the product 

manual format, usually used to understand 

technical functioning or to assemble flat pack 

commodities, to deconstruct cultural 

conventions. The title page tells us what the 

book depicts: 

“Samsonite Traveller Deluxe suitcase 

(packed) laterally dissected into 13 sections 

using a Midsaw S7016 bandsaw.” 

The contents’ page lists what the suitcase held; 

khaki wool socks, soap (in plastic bag), white 

polyester shirt, pink cotton hankie, etc. 

The book, paginated fig.1 - fig. 26, shows 

photographs of the sliced suitcase sections with 

red diagrammatic lines and numbers which 

refer back to the objects listed on the contents 

page, prompting the reader to find out what 

the grey textured areas represent. 

Destructions Melissa Price and Sandy Suffield, 1995 

34 

The ‘fig’ or ‘figure’ system of labelling was 

commonly used in 18th & 19th century 

scientific texts and museum displays. In the 

1960’s & 1970’s Marcel Broodthaers assigned 

objects in his films, installations and books, with 

‘fig’ labels, foregrounding the idea of the 

museum as an annotated and levelling 

‘collection of the world’. He wrote about the 

objects bearing ‘Fig.’ numbers as taking on 

“an illustrative character referring to a kind of 

novel about society.” 1 

Destructions Melissa Price and Sandy Suffield, 1995 

Price and Suffield’s cross-sections of suitcase 

reference medical sectioning of animal or 

human bodies, violence done for the purpose 

of knowledge. The sliced objects in the suitcase 

are visually transformed, made unrecognisable 

by the tight packing and subsequent cutting. 

Sliced rolled teeshirts resemble fat tissue, 

shampoo bottles resemble bone, only a book 

and camera retain their visual identity through 

the sequence of dissection. Contexts and 

emphasises for meaning shift with time, and by 

2003, the surveillance system ‘readings’ of 

luggage to reveal hidden weapons, and the 

social acceptance of this visual slicing / loss of 

privacy, takes precedence. The book ends with 

a performative reference to the cutting process; 

a photo of Bob Gammond, Mechanical 

Engineering Technician, Imperial College, 

standing beside his bandsaw ready for action. 

The Half-Muffled Clappers by Tony Kemplen 

1997, is the documentation of a more public 

event. Kemplen taped the sounds of Lady 

Diana’s funeral; the horse’s hooves, applause, 

half-muffled bell clappers, and fed these 

sounds into a computer voice recognition 

programme. The text generated from this 

non-verbal input is oddly coherent. Kemplen 

writes:

‘The computer ‘guesses’ at which word may be 

being spoken, but each word is not taken in 

isolation, the speech recognition engine has a 

database of words which may occur in close 

proximity, together with the probabilities of this 

happening. The result then, is not quite a series 

of random words, but of guesses taking into 

account the chances of certain words coming 

together. This of course is a culturally specific 

database, and so seemingly meaningful phrases 

occur quite frequently.’ 

Kemplen concludes, ‘Phrases such as “Amazon 

vested illusion, fashioned fulsome person” and 

“glistening home consumption commander” 

are thrown up by the computer, programmed 

to search for coherent juxtapositions of words, 

using a lexicon reflecting society’s language use 

at the end of the 20th century. The software 

inadvertently critiques the society that spawned 

it.’ 2 

Left and below: The 

Half-Muffled Clappers 

Tony Kemplen, 1997 

Here sound is reformed into language and 

poetry is created by a technological process 

which ‘echoes’ the text generating systems of 

Oulipo. This technology was also used by Aaron 

Williamson in Hearing Things (Book Works, 

2001) where speech-recognition software 

translated the noises from Williamson’s 

performances into text. The Half-Muffled 

35 

Clappers has a sombre black frame on the cover 

and pink paper inside. This simple structure, 

two sheets of paper folded and stapled, has a 

cheap, spontaneous look that references 

pamphlets handed out in churches with text to 

be read aloud, shifting it back into sound. 

The Table Leaked It’s Object Tertia Longmire, 

Magpie Press, 1998 

The Table Leaks its Object by Tertia Longmire 

(Magpie Press, 1998) documents different 

social transcription. The title page/poem sets 

out its contents: 

‘transcriptions 

from graffiti 

found on 

thirty 

school examination desks 

abandoned 

in 

south london 

during 

1996’ 

This book is printed on lined school paper and 

stapled into a blue card cover like an exercise 

book. Each page contains graffiti from one 

desk. The justified text blocks have close line 

spacing and little punctuation, visually 

referencing claustrophobic school days and 

class rooms. The 1970’s, ‘80s, and ‘90s are 

intermixed with sex, pop star names, and exam 

musing in equal measure, transcribed verbatim 

into dense slang poetics.

I imagine that the carved and graffitied 

wooden desks are probably beautiful objects in 

themselves, and that a gallery installation of 

them would be quite a different statement 

about school days than this book. 

The Table Leaked It’s Object Tertia Longmire, 1998 

Longmire’s title: The Table Leaks its Object locates 

the writing itself as presence or object, away 

from the physical desk. “Stop reading the table. 

I was here but now I disappear. Stacy S. loves 

Martin S. Rushna 4 Rohim Mohammed has a 

buckhead Oasis Bitch Beware maths exam is 

hard....” There is little nostalgia here. 

From Kandinsky’s 

Drypoint 

Ti Parks, 1997 

From Kandinsky’s Drypoint 1997 by Ti Parks, is 

the expanded reformation of a two 

dimensional image across the sequence of 

twenty-four pages. Short lines in isolated 

groupings are transcribed from a drypoint by 

Kandinsky, as the title and colophon inform us. 

As with Longmire’s abandoned school desks, 

the reader must imagine or search out the 

original which gave impetus this sequence, it 

is not shown here. Lines are drawn with pencil 

and the pages are bound by hand in a limited 

edition of ten. 

36 

Ti Park’s books often utilise plain A4 paper 

folded at the fore-edge, with the pierced holes 

and binding cord of immaculately executed 

stab bindings, functioning as tactile point and 

line. This book can be handled like a flip book, 

animating lines in time and space. The objectness 

of this book is in contrast with its origins 

as a two dimensional image. 

From Kandinsky’s Drypoint Ti Parks, 1997 

Reforming through an act of expansion shifts 

to that of editing in Reality (1972) by Jaroslaw 

Kozlowski. This is a reformed textual work 

without the text, only its punctuation. 

Dotted across each numbered page like 

constellations on deep white space are 

parentheses, semi-colons, quotation marks, 

commas, and full stops. 

Reality Jaroslaw Kozlowski, 1972

Not until the end of the 24 page book, do you 

find printed ‘Immanuel Kant “Critique of Pure 

Reason” (II, I, II, III)’ indicating that this was 

the text removed from its punctuation. 

In Eve Rhymer’s Love the alphabetised words 

kept their punctuation, attached like decorative 

accessories, even though function was lost in 

the listing format. In ‘Reality’ empty white 

space is punctuated, and the process of reading 

is again questioned. Here the marks become 

notation - a new text. Kozlowski’s work is within 

the tradition of Polish conceptual artists whose 

work utilises ‘poor’ or cheap materials to 

distinguish itself from the more glossy ‘official’ 

art and government publications. The green 

cover of my stapled copy of Reality has already 

faded to yellow at the edges. 

Reality Jaroslaw Kozlowski, 1972 

The loose theme of ‘reformations’ has been 

an excuse to revisit some artists’ books on my 

shelf. Considering that all content is reformed 

and negotiated through the process of 

becoming a book, it has also been an 

opportunity to focus on strategies artists employ 

to derive new meaning from existing cultural 

constructs, processes which will continue 

reforming. The strength of these artists’ books 

is in simultaneously existing in their own right 

as well as prompting a reassessment, or new 

reading, of their sources. Walter Benjamin 

speaks of this relationship to the original in his 

discussion on translation, where he refers to an 

‘afterlife - which could not be called that if it 

were not a transformation and a renewal of 

something living - the original undergoes a 

change.’ 3 

37 

Susan Johanknecht is an artist and publisher 

under the imprint of Gefn Press. She recently 

co-curated the writing instructions / reading walls 

project with Redell Olsen, for which there is a 

forthcoming book. She is Subject Leader of the 

MA Book Arts course at Camberwell College of 

Arts, London. 

notes 

1. Marcel Broodthaers as quoted in Dirk 

Snauwaert ‘The Figures’ in Broodthaers: 

Writings, Interviews, Photographs, Cambridge, 

Mass: MIT Press, 1988, p. 129. 

2. Tony Kemplen in a note to the author, 2001. 

3. Walter Benjamin Illuminations, London: 

Pimlico, 1999, p. 73.

Booklyn: describing an artist defined aesthetic of 

artists’ books. 

Written by Booklyn 

Dedicated to Studebacker Hoche, our granpa! 

Booklyn logo, designed by Dylan Graham and Mark Wagner 

Basic 

Booklyn is a non-profit, artist run organisation 

located in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York. 

Our mission is to promote artists’ books as an 

art form and an educational resource, to 

provide the general public and educational 

institutions with programming involving 

contemporary artists’ books, and to assist artists 

in exhibiting, distributing and publishing 

artists’ books, prints and related 

interdisciplinary art internationally. 

Booklyn originated from the Bookmobile, the 

distribution vehicle of Christopher Wilde’s 

Artichoke Yink Press (AKA–AYP, see: 

www.artichokeyinkpress.com for more details) 

originally located in Madison, Wisconsin. In 

1997 the paucity of distribution resources for 

AYP’s innovative publications prompted Wilde 

and accomplice Shon Schooler (entymologist 

and proprietor of Blue Barrel Press) to drive a 

trailer load of artists’ books around the United 

States. They put this artwork directly into 

astounded librarians’ and curators’ hands. 

Bookmobile logo, designed by Dylan Graham 

The Bookmobile was an instant success; 

artists suddenly had a nationwide distribution 

network directed by a respected publisher, 

artist and curator of artists’ books. Librarians 

and curators could now make one efficient 

appointment with the Bookmobile and see the 

work of numerous artists and presses. For all 

concerned a visit from the Bookmobile was 

vastly preferable than having to organise and 

suffer through dozens of potentially 

uncomfortable individual meetings. 

39 

In 1999 two years after relocating in New York 

City the Bookmobile outgrew the car and 

ramshackle trailer that Christopher and Shon 

had toured throughout the United States. AYP 

then spawned Booklyn, which started as an 

informal association of about ten artist / staffmembers 

running the organization in New 

York and ten other represented artists from 

across the United States. In the next two years, 

as its reputation for both financial and 

curatorial integrity grew, Booklyn expanded to 

over thirty associated artists and eighty affiliated 

institutions, with various programmes serving 

thousands of people every year. 

Why? 

Booklyn flourishes because there is a basic need 

in the book arts field for an organisation 

committed to serving the public and 

professional artists. Booklyn is possible because 

there is an enthusiastic group of publishers, 

artists and institutions committed to the 

maturation and expansion of the field and 

medium of artists’ books. Artists’ books have 

recently re-entered the validated palette of 

media used by contemporary artists as defined 

by the artworld and academia. This validation 

has prompted a renewed enthusiasm for artists’ 

books by colleges, their students, and public 

and private libraries. Artists’ books are the rare 

books of the future and librarians appreciate 

the form as a valuable tool for both reactivating 

their collections and as bridges to the future of 

the library as a multi-media depository of 

interdisciplinary knowledge. 

Although the book has always been a 

ubiquitous media for artists globally, recent 

interest in artists’ books has re-conceptualised 

the form as a dynamic new integrated art and 

literary medium. Artists’ books now share the 

same cache of other new genre media 

(including digital, installation and performance 

art) while still maintaining a historical 

alignment with book craft, literature, printing, 

and photography. It is the ability of the artist’s 

book to integrate both new and traditional 

media that makes it such an exciting medium 

to work with at this time. We have just entered 

another liberating, art historical moment 

similar to the one when painting and drawing 

were liberated from documentary work by the 

advent of photography. The book and printing

press have been freed from their literary and 

imagistic constraints by the ease and access of 

digital reproduction and a hungry artworld 

seeking new media. Printers! - you will never 

have to print another wedding invitation again! 

But you may have to get a day job and work 

with cranky artists late at night; every 

techno-cultural transition phase comes with 

plusses and minuses. 

Style 

Taking full advantage of the above described 

new found freedom Booklyn staff and 

associates interests range from traditional 

bookforms to the semiotics, performative and 

interactive aspects of the book. ‘Book’ can 

mean arranging the planting of people in the 

ground as a part of an exhibition pairing 

antique and contemporary botanicals (as in the 

Vegetable Mind performance of the Parallel 

Botany exhibition). 

Marshall Weber performing in Vegetable Mind 2000, 

University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Photo: Mark Wagner 

Parallel Botany exhibition at Bryn Mawr College, 

Pennsylvania, 2001, showing: Valerie Wagg’s, Root and Flower 

1999, Erasmus Darwin, and William Blake’s The Botanic 

Garden 1791, and Balm: the Flower Folio 1999, by Kurt 

Allerslev, Christopher Wilde, Marshall Weber, 1999. 

Photo: Kurt Allerslev 

40 

Or ‘book!’ can mean poet Jen Benka reading 

the entire text of her A Re-visioning of the 

Preamble of the Constitution of the United States. 

(one poem for each of the 52 words in the 

Preamble) at the book’s publishing party at the 

Bowery Poetry Club in NYC. 

Cover of A Re-visioning of the Preamble of the Constitution of the 

United States Jen Benka, 2003, book design by Mark Wagner, 

published by Booklyn. 

While Booklyn has no rigid curatorial 

guidelines, the staff, board and associated 

artists have a vague consensus regarding 

Booklyn curatorial prerogatives. 

Below are nine flexible guidelines: 

1. No dead people. We love dead artists and 

writers, some of our best friends are dead. But 

we feel that enough people in the field deal 

with the dead. So it is rare that you will see art 

or writing by dead people in Booklyn books. 

We’re here for the living, hopefully to extend 

their state of existence as long as possible. 

Exceptions will be made for: recently deceased 

associates (a rare and tragic but unfortunate 

necessity); appropriate use of dead people’s 

work in exhibitions, research, scholarship; and 

with art and writing about historical subject 

matter (especially with previously unpublished 

material by dead people as used by living artists 

and writers.) 

2. Be fresh! Booklyn likes new art, books and 

writing and while we are proud to be multigenerational 

and loyal to associated artists, 

Booklyn focuses on new work and is committed 

to assisting emerging artists and writers enter 

the field.

3. Commit to the codex. Booklyn likes all kinds 

of art and books, but we are most interested 

in books that follow the codex form because 

this form is the most appropriate for the 

integration of art and literature that sparks our 

fuses. Exceptions, yes of course, for instance - 

we love Robert The’s lathe cut books and we 

love Xu Bing’s giant scrolls and etc. etc. 

Gun Bible and Grenade Bible 

Robert The, 2001, open edition, lathe cut 

Book from the Sky Xu Bing, 2001, installation of wood block 

printed books (detail below) 

41 

4. Use fusion. Many Booklyn artists are using 

interdisciplinary approaches to explore ways to 

create books where form reflects content. 

Booklyn is very interested in the interface 

between traditional and new media. 

For example combinations of handmade paper, 

magnetic paper, video books, illuminated 

manuscripts, digital printing and letterpress, 

are of vast interest to Booklyn curators. On a 

similar note some Booklyn artists continue to 

be fascinated with doing odd things that 

destroy copy-machines (please note that this 

comment does not imply the advocating of 

copy-machine abuse). 

House of Ghosts design by Christopher Wilde, poem by 

Marshall Weber, 2000. The text is printed backwards on 

found architectural pencil drawings then folded over so 

one reads the poem through the page. Published by 

Booklyn 

Coherent and harmonious integration of 

material, subject, structure, and technique 

within the generous paradigm of the codex is a 

typical Booklyn mantra. We like a good look-see 

and a good read and we like our hands to feel 

and think and see as well.

For many Booklyn artists the book is a cultural 

or material reference point explored in various 

related art media. Booklyn supports work in all 

media (such as performance, installation, 

photography, printmaking, video, digital 

imaging and internet projects) if it expands or 

is concerned with aesthetics, form, literature, 

reading, writing and other subject matters 

relevant to book art and history. 

5. Down with anti-intellectualism. Booklyn is 

not about modernism or material fetishism. 

Unlike much of the moribund book arts 

scholarship of the last century Booklyn is not 

fixated on reducing artists’ practice into clever 

categories. I’m going out on a limb here 

because there is no solid theoretical consensus 

within Booklyn but there is a distinct postmodern 

tendency for Booklynites to think 

about the artist made book as a personal 

antidote to mass spectacle. To hope that the 

artist’s book can be an intimate and tactile 

alternative to the vaporous (and too often 

virtue-less) virtual (un)reality of consumer 

culture. Booklyn imagines that the book 

provides the individual with a combination of 

aromatic, cinematic, graphic, literary, and 

theatrical perceptions that cohere in an 

emotional, intellectual, sensual, and visual 

experience which then catalyses a strange mix 

of affective and cognitive processes in the 

readers brain! In this (con)fusion of neurological 

activities, where the semiotic codes of written 

language intermingle with the abstract perceptions 

of imagery, sound and touch exists the 

potential for the most vivacious aesthetic experience 

(thank you Elaine Scarry, Reading by the 

Book, Farrar, Strauss, Girard, 1998). 

6. It’s the content stupid! (Sorry ’bout that.) 

Booklyn has a rigorous editorial practice in 

regards to literary form and content and 

subject matter in general. Booklyn depends on 

the input of artists, editors, musicians, 

photographers, and poets and other writers. 

Get Your War On 

David Rees, 2002 

edition of 1,000 

visit: www.mnftiu.cc 

42 

We see content and form as inseparable. 

A great book must have good, mature writing of 

literary value and subject matter that is either 

urgent to our times or timeless in its urgency. 

7. Let’s be honest. Though Booklyn is not a 

political organisation either legally or culturally. 

With just a few (and welcome) exceptions the 

political ideology of the associated artists spans 

the leftist rainbow from neo-liberal to 

anarchistic (and I mean anarchy in a good 

way). This is not as much of a political goal as it 

is curatorial prerogative. [Secret note for the 

fine art press people: Booklyn is the place you 

go when the content of your work has become 

too radical for your (former) dealers and 

subscribers!] In term of non-fiction Booklyn 

curators are primarily interested in books about 

feminist (and feminine) literature, history, 

political and social critique, social science and 

poetry. In terms of fiction the curatorial 

prerogative focuses on personal narratives 

(i.e. ’zine diaries) and poetry. Of course 

Booklyn is very interested in writing and art 

that dismantles the whole fiction / non-fiction 

dichotomy. As a small independent publisher 

we advocate for freedom of expression and 

freedom of the press and we are committed to 

supporting dissenting, provocative and 

controversial literature. 

In terms of realpolitik Booklyn does have 

specific social goals. We are committed to 

expand the diversity of our board, staff, 

associates and audience in terms of race, class, 

ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation. We 

embrace the global movement for civil, human 

and environmental rights and we support art 

and literature that benefits that movement. For 

example, we are now donating the net proceeds 

from the sale of artist’s proofs from David Rees’ 

infamous Get Your War On book to the Adopt 

- A - Minefield programme of the United 

Nations. We look forward to expanding our 

participation in these types of projects.

Current Events Maureen Cummins, 2002, edition of six, 

screenprint on the New York Times. 

Booklyn has somewhat of a reputation of 

having a dark palette, of presenting books that 

deal with personal tragedy, social upheaval, 

ecological disaster, war and the struggle for 

peace. Perhaps in part this is true. However it 

should be mentioned that Booklyn also 

supports beautiful, fun, happy work as 

exemplified by Liz Roth’s delightful portraits of 

her co-workers at her dead-end job at the 

Wisconsin Department of transportation… 

umm…uh… well you know what I mean. 

Cheeseburger Soup Elizabeth Roth, 2003 etchings, edition of 10 

8. No navel gazing. Booklyn creates multi-media 

exhibits about real world topics that might 

actually interest the public (see exhibitions 

listed). We use innovative installations to 

provide a total environment that is punctuated 

by intimate reading spaces where the audience 

can handle the books exhibited. 

9. Encourage populist tendencies: a report from 

the field by Booklyn board and staff-member 

Amy Ferrara. “Sara and I participated in the 

World Water Day activities on Saturday in 

Bryant Park (yes, at the exact time and one 

block away from the start of the Anti-War 

March!) and worked with some really cool kids 

43 

on making books!! It was so much fun. We 

created 3 different pieces about water (two fun 

pieces with collage & very little text, and one 

hard-facts text piece with some illustrations) for 

them to colour and fold. I think we had about 

10-15 kids stop by in a couple of hours and 

many of them had just been in the park with 

their parents who had been at the anti-war 

gathering. One kid (maybe 5 or 6 years old) 

had already chosen his profession as "book 

maker" according to his father. Others just kept 

on colouring and chatting, and they all got a 

free clown nose for participating. We had a 

sheet of instructions for kids who were walking 

through but couldn't stop to work, so they 

could take the papers home and work there. 

We had Booklyn brochures available too. I told 

the bookmaker kid's father to look us up for 

future kids workshops!! 

I'd like to continue this project in the coming 

months - if you know of any special events in 

which we could participate, let me know. It's a 

great way to promote Booklyn, provide activities 

for kids at maybe otherwise boring (to kids) 

events, and it gets parents involved too.” 

Endpage 

While Booklyn both desires and continues to 

expand we realise that there are logistical limits 

to the organisation’s size. We would like our 

education programme to evolve into a year 

round book arts school (with a multi-classroom 

facility) instructing all ages and supplying 

curricula and programming internationally. 

What we would like is to represent 

approximately one hundred artists, and have 

two major exhibits touring worldwide at all 

times. We hope to create one new major 

exhibition every four years, both on our own 

and in collaboration with other organisations. 

Another goal is to publish at least four new 

Booklyn books every year in forms ranging 

from unique books incorporating experimental 

technologies (such as magnetic inks and video 

books) to innovative and inexpensive trade 

publications in large retail editions. 

Booklyn also aspires to look beyond itself and 

into the field. While we now work closely with 

many organisations in the field we look forward 

to increasing the level of interaction and 

collaboration. We would like to help create a

solid international network and database of 

artists, educators, book art organisations, and 

collecting and exhibiting institutions. At this 

time book arts organisations have no central 

association, Booklyn would like to initiate a 

dialogue exploring how such an association 

could form. 

Finally, in acknowledging Booklyn’s success, we 

want to be a model for how a group of artists 

can successfully take the means of education, 

exhibition, distribution, and production into 

their own hands. With that in mind we look 

forward to assisting other Booklyn style artists’ 

organisations to form and flourish throughout 

the world. Can we talk? 

Article distilled by Marshall Weber with assistance 

from Amy Ferrara, Emily Larned, Mark Wagner, 

and Eleanor Whitney 

Appendices 

Appendix 1 - Programmes: 

Available Exhibitions Committed to making the 

book arts accessible to a wider public; Booklyn 

curates and produces thematic exhibitions of 

artist books and related media for galleries, 

museums, libraries, schools, universities and 

other public sites. Exhibitions are modular and 

available in various configurations. 

…even the birds were on fire… 

A touring exhibition which features nine books 

created by New York City artists who witnessed 

and responded to 9/11 and its aftermath, with 

accompanying audio, installation, printed 

matter, performance artworks, community 

meetings, lectures, classes, workshops, and 

poetry readings. The exhibition features a fortyfive 

foot long and eight-foot high scroll collage 

of material related to 9/11 collected from the 

streets of New York in 2001. The exhibition has 

toured throughout the United States and will 

tour Australia in 2004. 

44 

The Scroll Marshall Weber & various, 2001, collage, 50’ x 8’. 

Parallel Botany/Vegetable Mind 

A collaborative / interactive exhibition 

consisting of the pairing of innovative 

contemporary artists’ books and prints with 

rare sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and 

nineteenth century botanical prints and books 

selected from the host library’s collections. 

The exhibition explores the resonance between 

contemporary and antique botanicals and is 

structured to illustrate the historical 

development of natural theory from the 

Enlightenment to the current philosophy of 

deep ecology. Originally part of the Parallel 

Botany exhibit, the Vegetable Mind performance 

is a simple yet striking, site-specific ecological / 

endurance piece involving planting people in 

the ground for varying amounts of time. 

Evidence of Creation; The Gabberjabs of Walter 

Hamady’s Perishable Press 

The Perishable Press has published one 

hundred and twenty-eight fine and awardwinning 

editions and will celebrate its fortieth 

anniversary in 2004. Hamady has published 

collaborations with various writers, including 

Robert Creeley and Allan Ginsberg, and artists, 

such as Warrington Colescott and Herman 

Zapf. This exhibit features the Gabberjab series; 

seven encyclopaedic, self-referential 

explorations of the book production 

accompanied by sketches, proofs, mock-ups and 

other materials that comprehensively illuminate 

the books’ creation.

Education (see separate entry under Short 

Courses, Workshops and Summer Schools in Book 

Arts) 

Publishing 

Booklyn has its own imprint and publishes 

artists’ books with a focus on collaborative 

multi-media projects. Recent titles include the 

previously mentioned Re-visioning of the Preamble 

to the Constitution and House of Ghosts as well as 

the ongoing Poets Quickie series. 

Collection Development 

Booklyn does hands-on presentations of artists’ 

books and prints, to libraries, museums, and 

universities in the United States and abroad. 

We keep information about artists and 

collecting institutions to aid in distribution and 

acquisition opportunities. And we also provide 

consulting and research services regarding 

artist’s book collection. 

Development 

Booklyn’s development department fundraises 

for Booklyn programmes and assists associated 

artists in fundraising and grant-writing. We also 

provide fiscal sponsorship for artists and other 

groups whose projects adhere to our mission 

and programming priorities. 

Appendix 2 - Active Associated Artists and Presses 

1. Arcadian Press, Caren Heft, Stevens Point, WI 

2. Artichoke Yink Press & Comics, Dylan Graham, 

Christopher K. Wilde, Brooklyn, NY 

3. Artnoose Press, Karen Switzer, Oakland, CA 

4. Harriet Bart, Minneapolis, MN 

5. Bird Brain Press, Mark Wagner, Brooklyn, NY 

6. bleed.inc.books, Kurt Allerslev, NY, NY 

7. Blue Barrel Press, Shon Schooler, Corvalis, OR 

8. Blue Moon Press, Jim Lee, Glastonbury, CT 

9. Beatrice Coron, NY, NY 

10. Doublevision Press, Alison Williams, Bisbee, AZ 

11. FiftyfootPineTreePress, MT Karthik, LA, CA 

12. Ken Campbell, London, Great Britain 

13. comPress, Marshall Weber, NY, NY 

14. Maureen Cummins, High Falls, NY 

15. Eric Drooker, Berkeley, CA 

16. Evil Twin Publications, Brooklyn, NY 

17. Filter Press, Sara Parkel, Brooklyn, NY 

18. FLY, NY, NY 

19. Philip Gallo, Minneapolis, MN 

45 

20. Robert Giard, Amagansett, NY 

21. Allyson Mellberg, Durham, NC 

22. Lois Morrison, Leonia, NJ 

23. The Perishable Press, Walter Hamaday, 

Mount Horeb, WI 

24. Pi Press, Jonathan Lill, Boston, MA 

25. Poote Press, Ruth Lingen, NY, NY 

26. Red Charming, Emily Larned, Brooklyn, NY 

27. Fred Rinne, San Francisco, CA 

28. SailorBoy Press, Jeffrey Morin, Stevens Point, WI 

29. Robert The, NY, NY 

30. Urst Press, Scott Teplin, Brooklyn, NY 

31. Maria Yoon, NY, NY 

32. Xu Bing, Brooklyn, NY 

Appendix 3 - Selected Associated Institutions 

Beinecke and Sterling Memorial Libraries, Yale 

University, New Haven, CT 

Boston Public Library, MA 

Brooklyn Museum of Art Library, NY 

Flaxman Library, School of the Art Institute of 

Chicago, IL 

The Getty, LA, CA 

Golda Meir Library, University of WI, Milwaukee 

Houghton Library, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard , 

University, Cambridge, MA 

Kohler Art Library, University of Wisconsin, Madison 

Library of Congress, Special Collections Library, 

Washington DC 

Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, NY 

Museum of Modern Art, NY, NY 

Newberry Library, Chicago, IL 

New York Public Library, Spencer and Ahrens 

Collection, NY 

Sackner Archive of Visual Poetry, Miami Beach, FL 

Smith College, North Hampton, MA 

Smithsonian Institution, Museum of American Art, 

Washington DC 

Victoria and Albert Museum of Art, London, UK 

Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN 

Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA 

For more information on Booklyn contact: 

Marshall Weber 

c/o Booklyn 

37 Greenpoint Avenue, 4th Floor 

Brooklyn, New York, 11222 

U.S.A. 

001 212 383 9621 

mweber@booklyn.org 

Please visit www.booklyn.org

Irene Chan’s The Book of the World Ch’An Press, 2000

Size Matters 

Dr Stephen Bury 

One of the curiosities of 2002 publishing was 

The Smallest Book in the World (Leipzig: Gestalten 

Verlag) by the German typographer, Josua 

Reichert – a 2.4 x 2.6 mm red leather bound 

book of 26 pages of alphabetical exercises, 

complete with wooden box and magnifying 

glass. It connotes the masterworks of medieval 

guild apprentices, those miniature stairs 

leading nowhere, tongue-and-grooved with 

minute precision, all form and no function, 

obsessive even. Why, for example, have a 

leather cover at all when it could not possibly 

protect the contents? Contrast this with Irene 

Chan’s The Book of the World (Ch’An Press, 

2000). At 1” by 1” it is not as small as Reichert’s. 

Nor does it claim the title of ‘smallest’: in fact, 

the contrast of titles is suggestive – Reichert’s 

book is the smallest in the world (at least for 

the moment), whilst Chan’s book is ‘of the 

world’ i.e. the whole world is contained in the 

book. Chan’s point of departure is John 

Dalton’s metaphor in his book on atomic 

theory, A New System of Chemical Philosophy 

(1808), in which he compares molecules and 

atoms to words and letters. The Book of the World 

extends this comparison, both the 26 letters of 

the Roman alphabet and the 90 atoms are 

combinable to make words and molecules, but 

not all combinations are permitted. A silver 

leperello structure holds the text, which 

surmounts images on transparent paper of 

Dalton’s ‘elastic fluid’ and gas. Both are 

contained in a ‘bug box’, the naturalist’s small 

clear container for samples – ants, moths, 

beetles etc. – with the lid’s convex lens acting as 

an inbuilt magnifying glass. This is multum in 

parvo, the world in a grain of sand. The natural 

world and the world of the imagination (where 

the reader can forget him/herself in the 

world/s created by the author together with the 

reader) are continuously substituted one for 

another. The simplicity in idea and execution 

of Chan’s project stands in stark contrast to the 

literally overwrought graphic design of the 

so-called smallest book in the world. 

Paradoxically, larger books are smaller. This 

may require some explanation. When I taught 

47 

an artists’ books workshop at Chelsea School of 

Art, I used to suggest that most things in the 

seminar room could be made into a book – the 

Venetian blinds, the doors etc. The Fluxus artist 

and who was also closely involved with Dick 

Higgins’s Something Else Press, Alison Knowles 

constructed The Big Book (1966-8). This had 7 

pages (including a fold-out one), a spine, a 

copyright notice etc. - some of the defining 

qualities of ‘a book’. But it was 8 feet tall, had a 

table, telephone line and a grass tunnel to 

sleep in, and it was meant to be a functional 

living space. Our expectations of intimacy and 

privacy from the bedroom or home are 

undermined, subverted in this public, 

transparent and collapsible (it literally did so 

on tour in California) space/book. 

Others have attempted an (almost) one-to-one 

scale matching of the book to the world, or the 

world to the book . Herr Mein in Lewis 

Carroll’s Sylvie and Bruno concluded, first 

published in 1893 boasts of his map on the 

scale of a mile to a mile: “It has never been 

spread out, yet. The farmers objected: they said 

it would cover the whole country, and shut out 

the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, 

as its own map…it does nearly as well.” I am 

also reminded of John Ruskin’s Examples, a 

separately published illustrated appendix to 

The Stones of Venice, double elephant folio sized 

etchings of the ‘details’ of columns and facades 

of Venetian palazzi and churches – in fact 

‘details’ is probably the wrong word, as they are 

life-size, the transference of the Venetian 

city-scape, one by one, into a doomed book 

project. 

This literal translation of the world into book 

underlies the 1966 project by Anthony 

Earnshaw, Patrick Hughes, Swift and Page. The 

450 ‘leaves’ of the book, The Sycamore Tree, in an 

edition of four, consist of the impressions of 

leaves from a specific sycamore tree in Leeds, 

10-14 August 1966. Similarly, Herman de Vries 

16m_: an essay (Bern: Lydia Megert, 1979), in 

an edition of 50, takes that area of ground and 

maps the findings and samples from different 

spots. All these projects suggest that this 

attempt to equate in a literal one to one way 

the world and the book can only ever be 

fragmentary: this type of ‘big book’ therefore 

being potentially smaller than the little book.

The size of a book has important consequences 

for the artist / author and reader relationship. 

Verdi Yahooda’s The Dancer (London: Yahooda; 

Coracle, 1984) is a 19cm (high) book with 

photographs in a black imitation photographic 

album. The book is wrapped in a sheet of black 

binding cloth with black elasticated string (at 

least I have always assumed that these were an 

intended part of the book): there is a real sense 

of intimacy as one unwraps the book and then 

follows through a private photographic album, 

looking at her deceased mother’s mementoes 

kept in a box on the dressing table. The size of 

the book insists on this one to one relationship 

– you, the reader, have been privileged to see 

inside this private cache, however factitious, 

almost as if you are a voyeur. Anselm Kiefer’s 

large and heavy lead-covered books are at the 

other extreme: they require the help of several 

assistants to turn the pages; you can only see 

what somebody else has decided what you can 

see – it is the page/spread as exhibition piece. 

The ‘average size’ book lies in the terrain 

between extremes. A sort of ergonomic – easy 

to hold or carry, not too heavy, easily shelved 

and retrieved – balance has been attained, a 

sort of bourgeois equivalent to the easelpainting 

that replaced large-scale tapestries and 

paintings, the domain of kings and princes. 

The large book is redolent of authority, power 

and authority: it is the authorised text of the 

Bible, lying on aquiline lecterns, read out by 

clerics to the laity; it is the book of audit and 

taxation – reinforcing Levi-Strauss’ equation of 

writing and oppression; it is the atlas of 

domination; it is the potlatch or symbol of 

conspicuous consumption of the medieval lord 

or rich merchant. One of the decisive moments 

in the history of the book is the movement 

away from speaking aloud – to an audience - 

to ‘reading’ words, silently, privately, as an 

individual. This was essential to the rise of the 

novel and its own project of realism, a 

recreation of the world in detail. 

Perhaps one of ‘largest’ books is that one 

detected by Paul Auster’s detective, Quinn, in 

The City of Glass. Commissioned by the younger 

Stillman afraid of what his father will do to him 

on his release from gaol, Quinn follows the 

elder Stillman’s perambulations through an 

area of New York bounded by 110th and 72nd 

48 

Streets, picking up and examining found 

objects, making notes in a red notebook. 

Translating these wanderings over the days into 

rough diagrams, Quinn, detects OWEROFBAB, 

which given four earlier days, is inescapably, 

THE TOWER OF BABEL. This is a gigantic 

book, the world as book – but it can only exist 

within the confines of Auster’s moderately sized 

book. Multum in parvo. 

Dr Stephen Bury 

Head of European and American Collections, 

The British Library

Above and below: The Book of the World Irene Chan, Ch’An Press, 2000

Above and below John Dilnot’s Ordinary Book and Artist’s Book for the 1996 

Wexford Artist’s Book Exhibition

Yes it’s True; Artists Make Books 

Andi McGarry 

There are ordinary books and there are Artist’s 

Books in the words and graphics of John 

Dilnot. The ordinary book is everything that 

the artist’s book is not. The definition about 

what these books actually are, throw up endless 

contradictions, some of which are quite 

entertaining. There is no safeguard or 

comfortable standpoint when it comes to 

describing/defining artists’ books; just imagine 

shifting sands! 

Around seventeen years ago I became involved 

in making artists’ books, I formed the Sun 

Moon and Stars Press and my mission 

statement was to “circulate organic ideas.” I 

have produced over 100 titles since then, in 

unique, limited and unlimited editions. I am 

one of hundreds, perhaps even thousands of 

artists who now make books as part of their 

practice. 

YES IT’S TRUE; ARTISTS MAKE BOOKS. 

Do all the books artists make constitute artists’ 

books? Surely it’s an artist’s book if an artist 

made it etc. There are no hard and fast rules in 

the artist’s book world, and this in itself is an 

attractive proposition. The punk rock 

revolution signalled exciting times for young, 

‘would-be’ bands. I remember quite well as I 

was part of that scene, and the artist’s book 

scene closely mirrors that garage band 

philosophy in many ways. There is a loosely 

based artist’s book community out there; 

groups networking with other groups, 

individuals networking and swapping, sharing 

opportunities, setting up gigs etc. 

Artists are increasingly finding their voice 

through the medium of the book if the 

proliferation of shows, fairs and new works is 

anything to go by. It is a different ballgame to 

the old canvas or limestone block; exploring 

through the book is more like making a movie 

than anything else, a flick book is in fact a mini 

movie! 

But it is more than that, there is a contract of 

sorts between the artist who makes books and 

the viewer who bookgazes, it is unwritten and 

based on shared intimacy, and one the maker 

exploits to the full. The added possibility of 

tactile and other surprises always exists and is 

51 

perhaps the hallmark or trait, and almost 

expected. 

In my experience there are not any huge 

profits to be made in artists’ books, most 

people are making them because they WANT to 

make them, NEED to make them, any sales are 

almost a bonus. That said, there are plenty of 

opportunities for the upwardly mobile maker, 

those include Frankfurt Bookfair which 

recently featured artist’s book sections, London 

Artist’s Book Fair and Halifax Contemporary 

Artist’s Book Fair at Dean Clough to name but 

a few. They do represent good opportunities 

but take a lot of time and money; they remind 

me of fishing or hitchhiking. 

Other outlets include institutions like Tate 

Britain and NCAD along with collectors and of 

course any personal contacts. The artist’s book 

shows come in all shapes and sizes: tri-annuals 

in Lithuania, bi-annuals like Pays Pasage and 

annuals like the Wexford Artist’s Book 

Exhibition (which it just so happens I 

conceived and co-curate). This eclectic 

gathering of the clans is a golden opportunity 

for the uninitiated to try their hand at the 

making of an artist’s book. Along with my 

colleague Denis Collins we offer a great ‘deal’ 

for the incoming artists. There is no fee to 

participate, it is open submission, we guarantee 

to exhibit your book, the accent is on userfriendliness 

- so the books are handled by the 

public. The show usually tours to a few 

different venues and is alternatively an 

International. This allows a bi-annual 

promotion of indigenous growth to take place. 

Purchases are made every year for the growing 

Wexford Artist’s Book Collection that is used for 

further artist’s book exhibitions, promotion 

and education. We have an annual purchase 

fund of around 1000 Euros. 

It is really great to get the chance to see so 

many wonderful books; I’ve certainly seen 

quite a few ‘beauties’ since these shows began 

eight years ago. Seeing the works of my 

contemporaries on a regular basis has enabled 

me to keep in touch with this anarchic 

community of makers along with other book 

gazers. 

If it is true that “Everything exists in order to 

end up in a book” as Mallarmé states then I feel 

that the artist’s book makers of the world are 

ideally placed to enact this prophetic line in the 

fullness of time.

Above and right:32 Superior Beauties of Buddha’s Person Veronika Schäpers 

Triumph eines Hosenverkäufers Veronika Schäpers / Heiko Michael Hartmann 

Open and closed above: Von der Kindsmörderin Marie Farrar Frauke Otto / Bertolt Brecht

13+: Contemporary Book Art From Germany 

Ulrike Stoltz 

Preface 

13+ is the name of a rather informal group of 

German Book Artists. The name 13+ is an 

indication of the fact that the number of 

members is not necessarily constant. Yet there 

is a sense of community among the members, a 

result of the group’s history so far. In the 

autumn of 2000, the Association Internationale 

de Bibliophilie (AIB) held its yearly colloquium 

in Berlin. On this occasion, Jean-Marc 

Chatelain from the Bibliothèque Nationale de 

France in Paris and secretary general of this 

worldwide association of collectors and 

institutions initiated a presentation of 

contemporary German book art at the 

Staatsbibliothek in Berlin. He asked Françoise 

Despalles to curate and organize the show and 

to edit a trilingual catalogue: 13 x Künstlerbücher 

Livres d’Artistes/Artists’ Books. 1 The deciding 

factor of selection was the AIB’s wish to see 

a representative cross-section of those book 

artists and publishers who have their focus on 

experiment and innovation. 

The members of 13+ have quite different and 

manifold artistic approaches and temperaments 

- as well as much in common. First of all, they 

share a longstanding, often exclusive, and 

professional preoccupation with the book as 

media. Their working field is mainly the same: 

they are book artists in the first place, some of 

them fine artists or authors as well, they are 

‘illustrators,’ type setters, printers, producers, 

maybe even book binders and - of course - 

publishers, that means organisers, distributers, 

book dealers all in one. 

The general idea is that the work of a book 

artist can be compared with that of a stage 

director or film maker. The underlying subject, 

theme, concept, image or text is being 

interpreted and put on stage, historic material 

is being questioned for its present meaning. 

Starting point of work is not necessarily a text 

by somebody else or even a text of so-called 

world literature. It could as well be a text by the 

author, or no text at all, but instead a concept, 

an idea for an image, or some other material to 

work with. The artist is author in every regard. 

53 

At the same time he or she is the one who 

actually does the work, who has to cope with all 

technical details and problems, who runs the 

whole business. The craft itself and the 

technical processes generate experience as well 

as ideas and can lead to special ways of 

production. Craft becomes a genuine and 

integral part of the art. There is no division of 

labour in this book art, and no limits. Today, 

we have come full circle: Aldus Manutius is our 

direct ancestor. We live in a time of technical 

progress and upheaval as hardly ever before. 

Maybe the book will again become the elite 

media as it once was. Apart from that it seems 

the time of the book as media of cultural 

memory is going towards its end. The book as 

such is questioned profoundly by this development, 

and it has to be re-thought thoroughly. 

The situation is comparable with that of 

painting after the invention of photography. 

There are no answers or recipes of general 

value. Each has to find his or her own solution. 

What finally counts is the single book, its 

contents, and the fulfilment of the criteria 

chosen by the artist himself/herself. Most of 

the books presented here are small editions, 

some of them one-of-a-kind. Depending on the 

project, all available techniques and crafts are 

used, be it woodcut, photography, scans, 

moveable type, laser printer, photocopier, or 

data transfer. 

While the book artists bring an idea into form 

(into being), while they experiment with 

typography, or binding structures, or material 

to print on, they always look for the possibilities 

and conditions of the book as a contemporary 

media and sensuous object. 

From the very beginning, Dr. Stefan Soltek, 

former curator for book arts at the Museum für 

Angewandte Kunst (Museum of Applied Arts) 

in Frankfurt am Main and now director of the 

Klingspor Museum in Offenbach, was part of 

13 + as author as well as consultant. After the 

AIB’s colloquium in Berlin, Dr. Wulf D. v. 

Lucius published an essay in the Bulletin du 

Bibliophile, introducing 13 + to a wider international 

audience of experts. 2 At the same time, 

works of 13 + were shown on the International 

Book Fair “Salon du Livre” in Paris 2001 as part 

of the presentation of Germany as the guest 

country. 3

As a result of all this the members of 13 + 

wanted to continue this ‘joint venture’ in some 

way or another. In a somewhat different 

assembling works of 13 + were exhibited under 

the title einblicke-insights at Takeo Showroom, 

Tokyo, Japan, in October 2002. This exhibition 

is documented on a web-site. 4 Further plans for 

exhibition venues include Philadelphia, USA 

(November 2003—January 2004); Lithuania, 

Estonia, Schwerin ... 

The following text goes back to a talk given at 

the opening of the exhibition einblicke-insights 

in Japan and at the Museum für Angewandte 

Kunst (Museum of Applied Arts) Frankfurt 

during the Frankfurt Book Fair 2002. It 

presents mainly those books that were on show 

in Japan and gives a general summary of each 

artist’s approach and work. 

The Artists of 13 + and their Work 

The first book presented is by Veronika 

Schäpers and has the title: 32 Superior Beauties of 

Buddha’s Person. It is printed from Zinc Clichees 

on Torinoko paper and painted with a special 

Japanese lacquer. The large format book 

contains geometrical signs and symbols or parts 

of these respectively. (I’d like to mention again 

that the Nazi Hakenkreuz turned the other way 

round and that the swastika is the older 

symbol.) 

Since 1997, Veronika Schäpers has been living 

in Tokyo, and it seems natural, that where you 

live does have an influence on what you do! 

This influence can show up in different ways. 

Here, it is the theme that comes from the Far 

East. Heiko Michael Hartmann describes in his 

text Triumph eines Hosenverkäufers the situation 

of a man who wants to buy a pair of trousers. 

He is being put under pressure by the salesman 

in such a way that he imagines himself to be in 

a fight. He just tries to escape. Veronika 

Schäpers transforms the two men into boxers. 

While turning the pages of her book, I can 

follow their fight and read the text line by line. 

The figures are printed as light shadows on 

clear foil and become visible only when the 

pages are turned over. With all the pages on 

top of each other they become a colourful 

mass, suggesting some movement. The book is 

bound with rubber strings that are reminiscent 

of a boxing ring. 

54 

The next artist introduced is Frauke Otto. She 

is a bookbinder and paper maker. In this book 

here she uses handmade paper. The text is set 

by hand and printed letterpress. Usually she 

chooses texts from classical literature for her 

books, here it is a text by Bertolt Brecht: Von der 

Kindsmörderin Marie Farrar. The book design 

reflects the emotional states which are evoked 

by reading these texts. Frauke Otto considers 

it to be important that not only does she make 

the idea and concept for the book, but also 

does all work herself (papermaking, type 

setting, printing and bookbinding). Most 

important to her is that the realisation of 

handcraft techniques has to support the clarity 

of the design - a point of view many artists of 

13 + regard as important. 

Susanne Nickel is next. Her ideas for books 

come from her growing collection of witty texts, 

descriptions of absurd scenes of everyday life, 

bizarre materials and interesting objects. 

Surrounded by all this, she mixes and mingles 

the ingredients into books which are often 

one-of-a-kind. In this book Susanne Nickel uses 

a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm Frau Trude, 

which she illustrates with drawings and collages 

on transparent foil. 

Above (closed) and below: Frau Trude Susanne Nickel / 

Brüder Grimm 

Veronika Schäpers, Frauke Otto and Susanne 

Nickel together form the group à 3. Under this 

name they appear on book fairs and exhibitons. 

À3refers, of course, to the fact that they are 

three – three quite different and individual 

approaches to the book.

Next, another group: 10 years ago, two women 

from Leipzig founded Carivari. The word 

Carivari means something like a happy disorder. 

As a collective for artists’ books, multiples and 

small edition prints, Christiane Baumgartner 

and Sabine Golde understand Carivari as a 

platform for a creative cooperation of text and 

image. 

Christiane Baumgartner has her focus on 

artists’ books, printmaking, and video. In this 

book, she takes the verses 1224 — 1237 from 

Goethe’s Faust and breaks them down to the 

geometrical elements of the letters themselves: 

horizontal and vertical lines and segments of 

circles. Screenprinted, the unreadable elements 

add up to readable letters because she uses 

translucent paper. 

Goethe’s Faust: Verses 1224 - 1237 Christiane Baumgartner 

Speed is a book that has obviously to do with her 

video work. 26 videostills are combined with a 

text by Paul Virilio. Christiane Baumgartner is 

here dealing with abstract landscapes, reducing 

them to a visual structure and thus translating 

from a natural to an artificial form. 

Speed Christiane Baumgartner / Paul Virilio 

Sabine Golde is particularly interested in poetry 

and music. Several times she has used work by 

John Cage as a starting point for her artist’s 

books. Here it is in 45 minutes for a speaker 

including a CD with an interpretation of the 

piece by the pianist Steffen Schleiermacher. 

Sounds are not just sounds, but letters as well, 

as Cage said. Sabine Golde’s typography tends 

to turn into images. In this book she interprets 

the poem Ebene by Johannes Bobrowski. Large 

letters are spread over the accordion book, 

leaving a lot of “empty” space to add to the 

55 

Above: 45 minutes for a speaker Sabine Golde / John Cage 

Ebene Sabine Golde / Johannes Bobrowski 

“sound” of the text. This corresponds with the 

“flat land” that Bobrowski talks about in his 

poem. Die Farbe der Leere (the colour of 

emptiness) contains fragments from poems by 

Vittorio Sereni set in Italian as well as in their 

German translation. Sabine Golde’s 

typographical compositions are dense and 

colourful. The text “illustrates” itself. 

Die Farbe der Leere Sabine Golde / Vittorio Sereni 

CTL Presse stands for Clemens Tobias Lange 

and his press, or, as he explains himself: “book 

different”. For over 14 years, the careful 

research for the poetic application of little used 

traditional, fine, or forgotten materials is as 

important for him as the choice and the quality 

of the text. He often collaborates with other 

artists. In this book with the title Mexico you see 

photographs by Stephan Köhler. It is a twovolume 

artist’s book. Each volume includes 33 

black-and-white photographs printed by 

Clemens Tobias Lange onto photo-sensitive 

handmade Kozo paper, combined with a text 

comprising letters to Stephan Köhler from 

friends in Mexico, set and printed by hand.

Editions F. Despalles was started 20 years ago by 

Françoise Despalles and Johannes Strugalla in 

Paris (France) and Mainz (Germany) as a 

printing, publishing and distribution house for 

graphics, paperworks and artists’ books. At the 

same time, Editions F. Despalles serves as a 

bridge between France and Germany, 

publishing authors and artists who might be 

quite known at home but would easily remain 

unknown in the other country. Bilingual 

editions are a speciality of Editions F. Despalles’ 

programme. In addition, Johannes Strugalla is 

an artist, typographer, and author himself. 

Ziemlich gedichtkopfkissen is a text by the Austrian 

author Friederike Mayröcker, published here 

for the first time, including the first translation 

into French (presque oreiller poème). The unusual 

images Friederike Mayröcker creates in her 

texts are accompanied by monochrome 

etchings by Monique Frydman that point 

towards what lies beyond words. The 

typography by Johannes Strugalla transforms 

the texts into visual structures – readable 

images that do not illustrate the text, but add 

another dimension. 

Zinnober/Cinabre is a book with images and texts 

by Johannes Strugalla. In a meditative mood, 

Johannes Strugalla reduces his visual 

vocabulary to black vertical lines, drawn with 

a bamboo pen, creating a certain rhythm and 

tension. These lines meet with pages of pure 

rich vermillion and yellow. The texts were 

written parallel to the visual work in French 

and German. Here the artist/author plays with 

linking different levels of reality. 

The next artist of 13 + is Barbara Fahrner. 

She has been working with artists’ books for 23 

years. She is an artist, an author, a philosopher, 

a scholar. To her, writing is drawing, drawing is 

writing. In her work, text and image cannot be 

separated. For Leuchte Barbara Fahrner took a 

text by Georg Büchner, Lenz and re-wrote it, 

using a method called “oulipo” (a term that 

refers to “Ouvroir de la littérature potentielle”: 

workshop for potential literature). In doing 

this, every word is substituted by another, 

following certain rules, and the new text 

generated creates another sense that sort of lies 

behind the original text. (The book includes a 

dictionary to re-translate to the original text.) 

56 

Leuchte Barbara Fahrner 

The project which Barbara Fahrner has realised 

during the last 5 years with the help of her son, 

Markus Fahrner, and his wife, Fitnad Aboudye - 

Fahrner, is as large as manifold. The title Zweite 

Enzyklopädie von Tlön (Second Encyclopaedia of 

Tlön) refers to a novel by Jorge Luis Borges, 

where he says: “In a hundred years time some 

one will find the hundred volumes of the 

Second Encyclopaedia of Tlön”. 

Zweite Enzyklopädie von Tlön Barbara Fahrner 

Barbara Fahrner’s Encyclopaedia shows the 

whole range of her thoughts, material, and 

artistic techniques she uses: little sheets of 

paper with notes and sketches, long texts 

written by herself, quotations from different 

authors throughout the ages, exquisite 

drawings and prints on precious papers, hand 

writing and type setting, all sorts of collage, 

kept in envelopes and document files. This 

encyclopedia does not pretend to include the 

whole world, although it shows the world’s 

complexity in every part. It is not a bibliophile 

beautiful book. Instead, it is a presentation of a 

concept of world perception, that asks and 

demands from the reader a new understanding 

of the traditional, re-reading what seemed to be 

well known, experimenting with the order of 

image and text.

Mexico Clemens Tobias Lange / Stephan Köhler 

Ziemlich gedichtkopfkissen/presque oreiller poème Editions Despalles / Friederike Mayröcker 

Zinnober/Cinabre Editions Despalles / Johannes Strugalla

In the GDR of 1982 Uwe Warnke founded 

Entwerter/Oder (e/o) an artists’ magazine only 

with original contributions. Currently, he 

publishes between 3 and 5 issues per year. 

In 1990 he founded Uwe Warnke Verlag in 

Berlin, where he publishes artists’ books, print 

editions, painters’ books and e/o - all in limited 

editions. Usually, artists contribute first to e/o 

before Uwe Warnke collaborates with them for 

a book or an edition of prints. Printing techniques 

to be found in e/o include etching and 

lithography, screenprint, copy art, drawings, 

photographs, even music cassettes or CDs. 

All contributions to e/o are first editions. Uwe 

Warnke is an author of experimental texts and 

visual poetry himself. 

Entwerter/Oder (e/o) Uwe Warnke 

Gerhild Ebel is an artist who mainly works with 

installations, objects, and concept art, including 

experimental literature and artists’ books. Her 

work is characterized by a certain stringency. 

CUT Gerhild Ebel 

The book CUT was made in context with an 

installation, where all the pages of the book 

were shown in frames on the wall. To Gerhild 

Ebel, her work has to do with communication 

at the end of the 20th century. She says: “The 

book is replaced by computer and electronic 

58 

media in a new dimension. The present 

information systems have become so extensive 

and complex that the one-dimensional form of 

the book can’t deal with their needs for linking 

and simultaneousness.” In 2002, Gerhild Ebel 

founded her own press: xlex-press. 

John Gerard’s dominant theme for his work is 

“paper as image”. His images and hand-made 

books are variations of the many sided 

possibilities of artistic expression within the 

medium of paper. The multitudes of thickness, 

inner structures, surfaces, its ability to assume 

subtle colour nuances, as well as the 

unmistakable tactile qualities are integral parts 

of his work. He has been making artists’ books 

for over 15 years. 

Der Schmerz John Gerard / Christa Wolf 

For the essay Der Schmerz (On Pain) by Christa 

Wolf, John Gerard made ten paper paintings, 

using the motif of a belt of fire. The text was set 

and printed by hand in collaboration with 

typesetters in Leipzig (Haag-Drugulin) and a 

printer in Hamburg (Klaus Raasch). This book 

is a first edition. The paper-pulp painting 

Cyclone gives an idea of the technique of paper 

painting: wet coloured paper-pulp is poured 

onto the freshly made sheet of paper, pressed, 

and left to dry. 

Cyclone John Gerard

Ein Cartesischer Hund John Gerard 

The double page spread from the book 

Ein Cartesischer Hund is made with the same 

technique. 

Dr. Dorothea Eimert, director of Leopold- 

Hoesch-Museum (Düren) writes: “John Gerard 

is both a systematic thinker and romanticist. 

His images are based on solid research and 

skilled knowledge in the medium of paper. ... 

The line becomes a poetically filled expression 

of the spontaneous act of movement.” 

Leporello Verlag in Aachen is a one-woman 

publishing house spanning more than 12 years. 

Karin Innerling understands the book as a 

medium which creates a synthesis of text, 

image, and overall form comparable to a 

theatre production in which text, actors, 

choreography, sets and costumes contribute 

towards a common theme. Karin Innerling 

therefore likes to work with texts that were 

written to be performed on stage, but she 

rarely gives the whole text, she rather uses 

fragments of the text in combination with 

Lichtwechsel Karin Innerling Leporello Verlag 

59 

images, often photocopied, and collages, but 

also drawings, and sometimes fragments of 

other texts to “illustrate” the main text. The 

book Lichtwechsel deals with the piece Play by 

Beckett and also plays with different materials 

like Thai paper, cellophane envelopes, punch 

cards, etc. 

Anja Harms has been making artists’ books for 

15 years. Her favourite printing techniques 

are linocut and woodcut, often used in 

combination. She also likes to use rich colours. 

Texts are always set and printed by hand. 

In Durchbrüche/ Durchblicke Anja Harms printed 

poems by Paul Celan, set so that they sort of 

melt into the picture, a line of text is treated 

like a line of drawing. The wood blocks were 

brushed to show the structure of the wood 

when printed. 

Durchbrüche/ Durchblicke Anja Harms / Paul Celan 

In Dachbewohner the poems by Paul Celan are 

put at the beginning of the book, thus leaving 

the images by themselves. The title (“roof 

inhabitants”) refers to antennae on roof tops, 

although some of the images become quite 

abstract. The accordion fold book has one dark 

side with white images and one light side with 

black images: day and night. 

Dachbewohner Anja Harms / Paul Celan

The poetic cycle Mondsand (moon sand) by 

Hans Arp is printed in this third book of Anja 

Harms. It is an accordion structure which 

reflects the cycle structure of the text, like the 

circle of the continuous waxing and waning of 

the moon. 

Mondsand Anja Harms / Hans Arp 

In this next book with a text by the Austrian 

author H. C. Artmann Der Aeronautische 

Sindtbart, Dreissigstes Abendteur avt Capitul Peter 

Malutzki uses the same zinc plate throughout 

the whole book. The picture shows a welldressed 

couple, ready to go to the opera. Using 

different colours and ways of overprinting, the 

expression of the image changes continuously, 

thus reflecting the method of playing with 

words that the author uses in his text. 

Der Aeronautische Sindtbart, Dreissigstes Abendteur avt Capitul 

Peter Malutzki / H. C. Artmann (closed and open) 

Ines v. Ketelhodt combined in her book a 

sonnet by Karoline von Günderode, Der Kuss 

im Traum (the kiss in a dream) with twenty four 

60 

photographs of kissing scenes from the 

Hollywood dream factory taken directly from 

the television screen. These pictures are 

printed in 24 different shades of red, orange, 

and purple (lipstick colours). 

Der Kuss im Traum Ines v. Ketelhodt / Karoline von Günderode 

For more than 12 years, Ines v. Ketelhodt and 

Peter Malutzki have been collaborating 

occasionally. One of their first books together 

was Leporello 1 + 2. In front of the mounted 

camera, the actor moves, holding a black staff 

in front of a light background. Through the 

long exposures, the actor’s and the staff’s 

movements are interwoven in space. 18 black 

and white photographs were selected and 

composed into a sequence. Leporello 1 and 2 

make use of the same sequence, each artist 

imposing different overprints: Ines v. Ketelhodt 

combines the photographs with typographical 

images, Peter Malutzki overprints the same 

photographs with lines in different colours. 

Leporello 1 + 2 Ines v. Ketelhodt / Peter Malutzki 

Since 1997, Ines v. Ketelhodt and Peter 

Malutzki have been working on their version of 

Zweite Enzyklopädie von Tlön (The Second 

Encyclopaedia of Tlön), Borges’ text is the 

source of inspiration for their project that they

egard as an attempt of reconstruction. The 

project is planned to last for 10 years, with 5 

volumes being published every year, one 

volume covering one keyword. The artists 

regard choice and network of keywords as a 

main principle ensuring that in the end it will 

be not just a pile of “anything-goes”, but a 

coherent oeuvre. Even formally the 50 volumes 

show that coherence: all come in the same 

format and will be bound in different shades of 

grey. Inside, quite a lot of different techniques 

are used: handset and computer set type, offset 

as well as letterpress, photography and linocuts. 

The choice of paper (up to printing on found 

material) is also an important element. “But of 

course…”, they write, “we know we can only 

mirror Tlön in our own world, and the 

encyclopaedic idea can only be realized in 

cut-outs and fragments. But we hope that the 

pieces we find will give an idea of the whole 

building.” 

Above and below: Zweite Enzyklopädie von Tlön 

Ines v. Ketelhodt / Peter Malutzki 

Anton Würth studied graphic design and 

lithography in Germany and Italy and has 

been exhibiting regularly both in Germany and 

abroad since 1985. The book is the object and 

61 

subject of his work, with construction and an 

artificial setting being more important than 

mimetic representation. The book 22.3.1994 

contains colour woodcuts on music paper. 

22.3.1994 Anton Würth 

Anton Würth also makes copperplate 

engravings, a printing technique that supports 

his idea of “transforming the book from a 

linear rational form of knowledge into a multidimensional 

aesthetic concept”, as he says 

himself. The second example shown has the 

title 20. Mai - 4. Oktober 1997. Technique and 

content correspond with each other: 

concentration, reduction, linearity, lightness. 

Sometimes, there is no text at all: 

“Book as a form and media of art requires an 

understanding of text that does not literally 

cling to writing.” 

20. Mai - 4. Oktober 1997 Anton Würth 

Frankfurter Edition (The Frankfurt Edition) 

is the title of a publishing project of Coco 

Gediehn and Bernd Wolf. It is a series of 

one-of-a-kind books created by fine artists. 

For the past 12 years more than 90 artists 

have taken part in the projects that all deal 

with visual communication. This diversity has 

fostered the growth of the project into a

natural organism. As a consequence the choice 

of the theme for the annual production evolves 

from the experiences of the previous year. For 

example themes have been : Das Plagiat 

(plagiarism): 20 artists copying each other, 

every copy being the original for the next one 

in line; Das Unsägliche (unspeakable): 

I write a text for your picture / you illustrate 

my text (involving 19 artists); Das Gastmahl 

(the banquet): 17 artists were invited to eat 

and drink and make art and read Platon’s 

Symposium, resulting in a series of one-ofa-kind 

artists’ books; Exerzitien (religious 

exercises): 18 artists spent a week together in 

complete silence in a monastery, only 

communicating by exchanging pictures drawn 

into “cell books”. 

The illustrations (opposite) show samples from 

Frankfurter Edition’s latest project: Im Städel 

(At the Städel-Museum) art about art. Fifteen 

artists investigated selected items of the 

Museum of Fine Art in Frankfurt, resulting in a 

collection of contemporary responses to 

classical paintings of the 17th to 20th century, 

here especially works that all deal with 

Courbet’s The Wave. 

Hartmut Andryczuk is artist, author, publisher 

and journalist all in one. He is especially 

interested in book arts’ networks, artists’ 

magazines networks, and, of course, the 

internet as a platform for literature and fine 

arts. For 10 years, his Hybriden Verlag has been a 

forum for contemporary experimental artists’ 

books with contributions by Pierre Garnier, 

Valeri Scherstjanoi, Wolfgang Müller and 

others. Often Hartmut Andryczuk invites artists 

to work on a certain subject, such as Schädlingsbekämpfung/pest 

control or Virenbibliothek. 

He often collaborates with artists and authors 

such as Freddy Flores Knistoff or Felix Martin 

Furtwängler and publishes some different sorts 

of magazines (periodicals): Unikatmaschine, 

MMM-Diarium, Hybridenland. Works include 

texts, sculptures, installations, performances, 

audio-CDs, and editions which document 

what’s happening and continue to explore the 

results. 

Uta Schneider is an artist especially interested 

in collaboration. Rather than monologues in 

self-assertion the interest in artistic dialogue 

62 

becomes important. Jeder wusste um was es ging 

(Everybody knew what it was all about) is the 

result of one of these artistic dialogues: a 

collaboration of Uta Schneider with the painter 

Thomas Dahmen. The book consists of three 

parts with the themes lines, planes, and figures, 

all printed from linocuts, woodcuts and 

cardboard cuts. Each part was printed page 

after page starting with the first page; the 

translucent paper connects not only the open 

double spread but also the pages following. 

Jeder wusste um was es ging Uta Schneider / Thomas Dahmen 

Every page is the result of what has been 

printed before and influences the next pages. 

Hand set texts were added and printed in 

white, as the text should not be in the 

foreground, but rather be a commentary voice 

in the background. The book can be read as 

a visual essay on perception: how do forms and 

figures influence each other, how are image 

and text related to one another? - these are 

some of the questions the book deals with. 

Liegend/Im Fall uses a text by Uwe Warnke, with 

whom Uta Schneider has done a few other 

books as well. Here, the text, which consists 

only of one sentence (which I think is a 

speciality of the German language!) leads to 

the structure of the book: From colon to colon, 

the text is cut into 49 parts. Each part of the 

text is printed onto the middle of a square 

sheet of transparent paper, with overlapping 

elements of illustrations. The 49 squares make 

up one big square of 7 x 7 sheets, thus giving 

one image and the text in its proper order.

Im Städel Frankfurter Edition (Bernd Wolf and Coco Gediehn) 

Fifteen artists investigated selected items of the Museum of 

Fine Art in Frankfurt, resulting in a collection of contemporary 

responses to classical paintings of the 17th to 20th century, here 

especially works that all deal with Courbet’s The Wave 

Schädlingsbekämpfung/pest control Hartmut Andryczuk 

Virenbibliothek Hartmut Andryczuk

As long as the sheets are in the box, they can 

be turned like the pages of a book, the 

transparency of the paper creating new images 

in the combination of the sheets. But this book 

is not bound: this offers the opportunity to the 

reader to combine the sheets in a different 

form, thus making up his or her own text. 

Liegend/Im Fall Uta Schneider / Uwe Warnke 

Ulrike Stoltz has a focus on mythological 

themes and antiquity, the old stories and texts. 

In her opinion, the past is not gone, it is still 

there and has an influence on us. Ulrike Stoltz 

is interested in the presence of the origins, she 

likes to question the past what it has to tell us 

for today. She also likes to experiment with 

unusual materials. 

Medea Fragmente has a poem written by Ulrike 

Stoltz, that refers to the Greek goddess and her 

magic power. The text is printed with a laser 

printer onto paper, the images were created on 

a computer and printed with archival ink from 

an ink-jet printer. The sheets were then 

laminated and bound in the form of a palm - 

leaf binding. This is a one-of-a-kind book. 

Above and below: Medea Fragmente Ulrike Stoltz 

64 

Orakelblätter (oracle sheets) is the seventh of 

Ulrike Stoltz’s Sibylline Books. This refers to 

the ancient prophetesses, the Sibyls, whose 

prophecies were kept in nine books on the 

Capitol Hill in Rome. This book contains a text 

written by Ulrike Stoltz, a set of poems on 

remembering and forgetting. The images are 

photographs – some of them are clearly 

recognisable for what they are, others are more 

vague. As loose sheets they can be laid out in 

different combinations and interpreted in 

various ways. The images are printed with 

archival ink on joss paper. 

Orakelblätter Ulrike Stoltz 

Uta Schneider and Ulrike Stoltz have been 

collaborating for more than 16 years, now 

under the imprint . Their latest project 

is called The Boat-Book Project and deals with the 

idea that boats and books are both containers 

as well as means of transport. 

Boundless consists of 7 folded sheets, each is a 

chapter dealing with various aspects of both 

books and boats. The pages of the folded sheets 

can be turned and read, this way the book 

functions like a concertina. When you unfold 

them, you will see collaborative drawings by the 

two of that run across the text. 

On the other side, you will see photographs of 

a boat passing under a bridge: all 7 sheets put 

together show the whole boat. 

Boundless Ute Schneider / Ulrike Stoltz

Books and boats are both strong metaphors, 

with which will continue to work. 

This is another example, Leseboot/Segelbuch; 

two folded objects playing with the boat form 

as well as with word combinations. 

Leseboot/Segelbuch Ute Schneider / Ulrike Stoltz 

Conclusion 

To sum it up: the cross connections seem to 

be very important. There are even more links 

than mentioned so far. For example, the books 

Triumpf eines Hosenverkäufers by Veronika 

Schäpers, Frau Trude by Susanne Nickel, 

Ebene by Sabine Golde / Johannes Bobrowski 

and Liegend/Im Fall by Uta Schneider all were 

initiated by Gerlinde Creutzburg/Neues 

Kunsthaus Ahrenshoop. There are lots of cross 

connections within 13 +: some projects by 

Hybriden Verlag included works by Gerhild Ebel, 

Barbara Fahrner, Sabine Golde, Ulrike Stoltz 

and Uwe Warnke. 

Ulrike Stoltz also contributed work to some 

projects of Frankfurter Edition. Uta Schneider 

has collaborated more than once with Uwe 

Warnke. Some works by Gerhild Ebel have been 

published by Uwe Warnke Verlag. 

Some of the artists of 13 + have a concept of art 

and work that necessarily involves collaboration 

with other artists (also from outside 13 +): 

CTL Presse, Editions F. Despalles, Frankfurter 

Edition, Hybriden Verlag, Uwe Warnke Verlag, 

Uta Schneider. Some of the 13 + artists form 

groups (at least duos) themselves: à 3, Carivari, 

Editions, F. Despalles, Frankfurter Edition, Fahrner 

& Fahrner, v. Ketelhodt & Malutzki, . 

It should also be mentioned that Anja Harms, 

Ines v. Ketelhodt, Uta Schneider and Ulrike 

Stoltz formed Unica T (1986—2001). 

This idea of cross connections, cross overs, 

networks and related relations works best with 

65 

the book as such, as each and every new book 

sits on the shoulders of all other books written, 

made and published before, be it consciously 

or unconsciously. The net of books is the 

original one: the net of nets. 

Ulrike Stoltz was a co-founder and for 15 years 

(1986 - 2001), a member of the book artists’ 

collective Unica T (Unica T is a fictitious 

person making real books). She is now working 

together with Uta Schneider under the imprint 

(Uta Schneider & Ulrike Stoltz). 

Ulrike Stoltz is Professor for typography and 

book design at the Hochschule fur Bildende 

Kunste, Braunschweig, Germany. 

notes 

1. 13 x Künstlerbücher/Livres d’Artistes/Artists’ 

Books Ed. by Françoise Despalles. With an essay: 

“verso : recto” by Stefan Soltek. F. Despalles 

Editions, Paris & Mainz, 2000. 

2. Wulf D. v. Lucius: Die Sprache der Zukunft: 

Aktuelle Buchkunsttendenzen in Deutschland. 

In: “Bulletin du Bibliophile, No. 1,” Paris 2001. 

Ed. by Electre-Éditions du Cercle de la 

Librairie; p. 130 ff. 

3. www.livresdartistes.com 

4. www.einblicke-insights.com

Official opening of Bookartbookshop 

(BABS) on Palindrome day 20.02.2002 

Alastair Brotchie friend & landlord 

Kelly Wellman: Financial CPO without 

whom BABS could not survive! 

Anthony Hancock Retrospective at 

BABS & The Foundry. Sept 02 

Mark Pawson: Look I’ve made some 

new postcards! Exhibition. Dec 02 

One year of 

bookartbookshop 

2002-2003 

Annabel Other: The Bristol Art Library 

in residence. May 02 

Bill Burns: Museum of Safety Gear for 

Small Animals. Exhibition. July 02 

(Thanks to Neil Crawford for 

typesetting all our postcards) 

Les Coleman: Glue. Book launch and 

exhibition of 35 years in print. Oct 02 

Dominic Rose: Enseignement 

Agricole. Demonstration. Jan 03 

Simon Rackham: In Black and White 

Exhibition. June 02 

Bob Cobbing & Jennifer Pike 

Graeme Walker: POW 

Installation and book launch 

LLAW: Curated by Brigid McClear. 

This poster by Redell Olsen 

Andrew Lanyon: 100 Hollow Books 

To celebrate 1 year of BABS

An Essay About Reading An Artist’s Book About 

Reading 

Sarah Jacobs 

The essay and the artist's book described in it 

were conceived as being two parts of a single 

project and were made/written in the same 

space of time. 

You are looking at a smallish notebook, not too 

thick, say 100 pages or so. The black cover with 

manufacturer’s name at the back (Seawhite of 

Brighton) gives nothing away but an intention -to 

be sober, discreet. Touch it. It is rough. Pick 

it up. You see immediately it has been divided 

in half. At the back, all the pages are clumped, 

bundled together, tied by a narrow blue-grey 

ribbon. If you want to see what is inside the 

bundle, you would need to take a decisive step. 

Who would start so bold? Not I. At the front, 

the fly leaf gives one author – Heinrich Von 

Kleist – but two translators, two publishers, 

two years of publication, and two titles – The 

Earthquake in Chile and The Chilean Earthquake. 1 

The words are handwritten, in ink and in 

pencil. 

Moving on, turning the pages, you see that 

each verso page is blank. Each recto page has a 

rectangle of paper, creamier in colour than the 

paper of the notebook itself, pasted lightly on 

it. The pasted rectangles are printed but right 

away you can see something is happening – 

there are gaps (not too many) and some words 

(rather few) are picked out by being printed 

more faintly than the main text. This is not a 

riddle. I will give the game away. This edition, 

this redaction, this notebook, this untitled 

artist's book, compares or picks out differences 

between the two translations, by Ronald Taylor 

and by David Constantine. It forms part of my 

translation studies, and its making was just 

about contemporaneous with the making of 

‘The Unknown Masterpiece’ “Drawing Book” 2 

which is a multiple translation of the great 

short story by Honoré de Balzac. 

Having flipped through the front half, you turn 

to the beginning, and start to read. And – even 

though the initial words are missing – you can 

immediately locate yourself in time and in 

67 

space. It is 1647, in the Kingdom of Chile, in its 

capital, Santiago, and a young man is standing 

in a corner of a prison, preparing to hang 

himself. 

A year or two earlier in a grand house…and 

then, again, here and secretly. In the garden of 

a convent. 

What is this year 1647, and where is this Chile, 

this Santiago? Is it the first time you have visited 

the Kingdom and the story? Or the 3rd, or the 

10th? And who are you anyway? The answer 

determines the time and space of your 

particular reading. 

Ostensibly, the place of the story is a city at the 

bottom of the long thin country constituting 

most of the west coast of the lamb chop that 

was (when I was a girl) South, but which now 

forms part of Latin America. The Inca sites are 

far away. So far outside the story that it is only 

the most anachronistic reading that proposes 

them as an absence or even a ghost. Peruvian 

dominion of the country has already ceased 

(1533) but its boundaries have not yet been 

agreed with Spain (1722). The city, familiarly, 

has houses, a convent, a prison, a mighty river, 

a Cathedral with bells, law courts and a site for 

public executions. And, in the year of the story 

– at the very moment the story begins – the city 

is struck by a devastating earthquake. A matter 

of historical fact, or so I take on trust. 

For already the place is so far away, and the 

time so remote from Kleist -- and the more so, 

from me -- that I abandon attempts at 

understanding this tale as an historical 

recreation of a far-off continent in a chronicled 

and documented time. Did Kleist read eyewitness 

accounts of the earthquake? I care not. 

Was it an event which reverberated in world 

history? I doubt it. A thinly-veiled substitute for 

the earthquake which rocked Lisbon in 1755? 

Here we come closer. I remember that Voltaire 

published Candide in 1759, and a little 

research shows The Lisbon Disaster in 1756. So 

we are in Europe, in an age of philosophers, 

and two decades or so later, Kleist will be born. 

How long will it take you to discover that if you 

lift the lightly pasted rectangles, some of the 

notebook pages have words handwritten on

them, not hidden but veiled? Mull them over, 

or read on? Having found one such page, do 

you search for others or leave it until later? 

Are the words a commentary, an exegesis, a 

counterpoint? 

Read. For the story is thrilling -- in two 

paragraphs the young Jeronimo has attained 

the summit of his happiness (in Constantine's 

version), consummated his love (in Taylor's) 

and an elided nine months later, Josepha sinks 

down to the ground in labour. By the third 

paragraph she, rendered criminal, is on route 

to the scaffold. By the fourth, young ladies 

(Taylor) or pious daughters of the city 

(Constantine) hang out windows to view the 

spectacle offered to (Constantine) or mounted 

for (Taylor) divine vengeance. Then, just as 

Josepha is about to be beheaded (Constantine) 

or burnt at the stake (Taylor), and while 

Jeronimo is testing the knot on his self-made 

noose -- the earthquake. 

Having enjoyed the rubble, the screaming 

people on burning rooftops, the men and 

animals struggling with the flood, we pass 

outside the city gate with Jeronimo. He faints, 

comes to, and a spirit of bliss takes hold of him 

as a west wind blows, and he looks down on the 

loveliness of the land. Josepha in the meantime 

has seen a convent-full of nuns crushed, the 

corpse of the archbishop, her father's house 

submerged in a lake boiling with red vapour, 

and the destruction of the law court where her 

sentence was passed. She too has escaped the 

city and has crept, baby in arms, into a dark 

valley shaded with pine trees. 

I can read no longer without thinking of the 

time of the writing (probably 1806), and of the 

writer, of Kleist (1777-1811). The hills, the 

valley, the pines and the hordes of distressed 

people without number bring me back in time 

into the mental space of the last years of the 

eighteenth, the first years of the nineteenth 

century. But whose time? Not only can I not 

propel myself back – well who could? -- but I do 

not even know German. Literally, I must read 

in translation. Constantine, properly, translates 

through Kleist’s older contemporary, Kant 

(1724 –1804) and other philosophers. Taylor 

through the philosophical poet Coleridge 

(1772-1836). And I – astigmatic, myopic and 

68 

presbyopic, read, at the beginning of the 21st 

century, through scratched plastic obsolescent 

National Health Service trifocals. A (largely 

second-hand) Freud and his followers when I 

read down, a vibrant unreachable indubitably 

post-modern far distance as I read up. Always a 

blur as I move through the middle. Would 

someone who knows more be helped or 

hindered by a greater background knowledge? 

All I can assert is that there is a difference 

between 

“…and as though one fearful impression had 

driven all previous impressions from his 

[Jeronimo's] mind he wept for joy that life in 

its sweetness so full of bright phenomena was 

still his to delight in [Constantine]” 

and 

“as though that one terrible event had 

completely banished all earlier visions from 

his mind, he now wept for joy that he was still 

able to revel in the manifold delights that life 

had to offer [Taylor]”. 

An impression or an event? Joy that life exists 

and that the bright phenomena are still there 

for us to delight in? Or joy that one can still 

revel in the delights, rather than sink into 

dejection and melancholy? The passages 

neither evoke, nor mean the same thing. 

By now the rhetorical devices which shape the 

story begin to reveal themselves. Our reading 

post-dates the emergence of a critical 

vocabulary which accommodates such insights, 

and we can foresee that the story will fold back 

on itself, and that Josepha and Jeronimo, will, 

after the passage of a day of horror and a night 

full of wonder, meet the death to which they 

were on route as the story opened. The desire 

of the story is to hold out or tantalise with the 

threat of their deaths, postpone it with vivid or 

lyrical descriptions, and then, in a shortish 

paragraph, bring about their deaths, and the 

death of a baby – not of their baby, little Philip, 

but of little Juan. This doubling back, postponed 

through wandering and puffed with 

incident, is the space of the story. It would be 

tedious to tell you the plot.

It is also the time of the story, namely a time 

suspended between the moment before the 

deaths of Jeronimo (by hanging) and of 

Josepha (by lawful execution) which never take 

place and their actual deaths about 24 hours 

later. Do you remember that short story by 

Borges where a man, about to face the firing 

squad, is granted enough time in the short 

duration it takes him take his last walk, to finish 

his last work? Borges has described story time. 

And your desire to read, to read on, creates the 

story, which (as we all now know, or believe) is 

nothing but a heap of marks on paper until you 

start to read. The omissions and phrases in 

faint print in this edition, do not substantially 

hinder you, I surmise, until the very end when 

you reach the last of the printed rectangles, the 

last paragraph – set some time later and in a 

house back in the city. This last paragraph 

contains the after-story, which, like the end of a 

Jacobean tragedy, points to what happens next, 

outside or after the story and in consequence 

of it. You will see that the very end has been cut 

out. An omission it is hard to overlook. 

Now you can unbundle the back half of the 

notebook. 

Pause, I would like to backtrack. The story puts 

you in two different historical spaces. You are 

indifferent to the first (Chile in 1647) and 

perhaps more alert to the second (early 19th 

century Europe) than the original readers 

would have been. They would have taken that 

for granted. 3 

Imaginatively you are in a geographical space 

which is probably unknown to you, though it is 

not a strange space. Santiago is described in 

terms which make it sound like a European city, 

and its landscape is – more or less – the 

romantic landscape with which you will be 

acquainted, though you must remember that at 

the time the story was published, the great 

paintings of Caspar David Friedrich (1774 - 

1840) which spring to your mind, had not yet 

come into existence. Kleist’s first readers will 

have had a different concrete visualization of 

the scene. Literally, in real space, you probably 

remain in one place, and after you have made 

your initial investigations into the nature of the 

first half of the notebook, you will have read 

69 

the printed story in one go. The only 

substantial physical movement you will have 

executed is to turn the pages with, at most, an 

occasional peep under the pasted rectangles. 

Your movements will have been automatic and 

unthinking. 

Your reading will not have taken very long, but 

if you are entranced by the story, it will have 

seemed to have taken even less. Neither the 

actual time it takes you to read, nor the 

duration of the narrated time (essentially the 

events of two days with references forward and 

back) correspond with the time you perceive to 

have passed. 

I hypothesise that the task of the writer, of 

Kleist, is to fuse imaginative time and space so 

that the reader is mentally translated to a 

fictional elsewhere in such a way that the actual 

passage of time becomes irrelevant. Time and 

space are obliterated. 

So what does this artist’s book do? I would be 

surprised if you can untie the blue-grey ribbon, 

which has prevented you from gaining access to 

the second half of the notebook, without a 

qualm. For it must be clear that by so doing, 

you will inevitably damage the notebook – the 

object which is an artist’s book -- and that the 

next time you or someone else comes to look at 

it, it will be grubbier, more tattered, as an art 

object -- less crisp and, to some, less desirable. 

Its monetary value will decrease. The automatic 

forward movement of reading is halted and you 

are forced to decide your move. Get up, get a 

drink of water like the reader in a Calvino 

story? Leave the untying for a more enthusiastic 

reader or a more propitious time? Untie the 

ribbon with the air (guilty or triumphant) of 

someone who may be opening Pandora’s box? 

And while the object left my possession with the 

ribbon loosely tied, who is to say the next 

readers will tie it so scrupulously? Some may 

leave the legacy of a tight knot. 

And once you have untied the ribbon, and seen 

that the second half is mostly blank, though 

some pages contain phrases in pencil 

(corresponding to Constantine’s translation) or 

in ink (corresponding to Taylor’s), you will 

realise that to look thoroughly, you will have to 

keep referring back of the first part. You will

also realise – perhaps for the first time – that 

the pages are unnumbered, so you will have to 

hunt. The hunt will take time. You must set 

aside the time. Unless you are very careful, the 

hunt itself will cause the further degeneration 

of the book as your greasy fingers (I do not 

mean this to be insulting – we all have them) 

pinch the pages and mangle their corners. 

You cannot execute your reading without 

becoming aware of your hand's movement 

through the physical space of the book. If only 

because the physical manipulation has become 

more difficult, you are more likely to be aware 

of the time that is passing while you explore. It 

no longer flows. It moves in jerks. You fidget, 

pause to tear up pieces of paper to act as ad 

hoc book marks, perhaps take notes. You are 

not in a fugue. You consciously quest. 

If Kleist’s story causes time and space to fuse, 

the artist's book sunders. Though only of 

course if you let it – if curiosity, if a sense of 

duty, if something you cannot label (desire) 

propels you -- creates the time and space. 

Already you know what you will find. By now 

you catch my drift. Taylor and Constantine 

translate the last words differently. Their 

choices do not mean the same thing, though 

they have in common -- that they are both 

mysteriously unclear. Does the end show you 

what the story is, or has been, about? There is 

no answer and the signpost of the ending 

points here, or points there. 

Sarah Jacobs Colebrooke Publications 

65 Colebrooke Row, London N1 8AB 

notes 

1. You are looking at an untitled artist’s book by 

Sarah Jacobs (described as a redactor) which 

contains the full text of The Earthquake in Chile 

by Heinrich Von Kleist. Ronald Taylor, 

translator. Angel Books, London, 1985. 

This text is compared with The Chilean 

Earthquake David Constantine, translator and 

editor. J. M. Dent, London, 1997. The book is 

now in the collection of the National Art 

Library at the Victoria & Albert Museum. 

70 

2. This artist’s book contains the full text of 

Honoré de Balzac’s story Le Chef d'Ouevre 

Inconnu Sarah Jacobs, translator and maker. 

Colebrooke Publications, London, 2002, 

ISBN 0 9527537 4 1. 

3. Kleist’s fictions, as opposed to his essays, are 

generally set in the far away and long ago. 

I – perhaps inevitably -- read them as being 

about his own time. His original readers may 

well have done so too. However, obviously, our 

understanding of their time (which is shaped 

by our knowledge of what happened after) may 

be quite different from theirs. 

An installation and books by Sarah Jacobs 

will be shown at: 



London 

N1 6HB 

3rd - 24th October 2003 

Hours: Weds - Fri 1pm - 7pm 

Sat 1pm - 6pm 

Tel: 020 7608 1333 


info@bookartbookshop.com

The Special Books Collection of The Scottish 

National Gallery of Modern Art 

Ann Simpson 

The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art 

first opened its doors to the public in 1960. 

The collection spans the major international 

art movements of the 20th and 21st centuries 

in all media. It was decided early on to develop 

a Special Books Collection to document the 

interaction of the artist with the book and to 

reflect the diversity of format that has 

developed during the period. There are now 

over 4500 titles in this collection with a 

particularly strong holding of Dada and 

Surrealist books and over 2050 titles dating 

post-1960. The gallery has a dedicated budget 

for the collection and each year acquires both 

items lacking from the historical collection and 

cutting-edge books by contemporary artists. 

Among the highlights of the historic collection 

are copies of Oskar Kokoschka’s Die Träumenden 

Knaben (Leipzig 1917 edition), Wassily 

Kandinsky’s Klänge (Munich 1912 [1913]), Der 

Blaue Reiter Almanach (Munich 1912) and Ernst 

Barlach’s Die Wandlungen Gottes (Berlin 1922). 

French publications include Blaise Cendrars 

and Sonia Delaunay’s La Prose du Transsiberian, 

(Paris,1913), Fernand Léger’s Fin du monde 

(Paris 1919), and Henri Matisse’s Jazz (Paris 

1947-1948). British artists are represented by 

Charles Ricketts, William Nicholson, F.C.B. 

Cadell, Paul Nash, Wyndham Lewis and Lucian 

Freud. 

During the 1990’s the Gallery made a series of 

notable acquisitions with the object of building 

up its Dada and Surrealist holdings. These 

movements involved poets, writers, musicians 

and artists who were eager to tear down the 

boundaries between art, poetry and literature. 

Therefore in order to represent the movements 

adequately, it was necessary to extend the 

collection into these areas. In 1994 with the 

help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund 

and the National Art Collections Fund, the 

Gallery acquired the Archive and Library of Sir 

Roland Penrose, one of three great collectors 

of Dada & Surrealism in this country. 

77 

A substantial number of artworks from the 

Penrose collection were added shortly 

afterwards. The following year we received the 

bequest of a second great collection, that of 

Mrs Gabrielle Keiller who was one of the 

Gallery’s advisors from 1978 - 1985. Included in 

the bequest was her library of surrealist books 

and periodicals. Together these two collections 

give the Gallery a world-class resource of all 

types of material relating to Dada & Surrealism. 

Roland Penrose was a key figure in the British 

art scene from the 1930’s until his death in 

1984. He lived in France from 1922 - 1935, 

pursuing a career as a painter. Here he 

encountered artists and writers of the surrealist 

movement; his circle of friends included 

Breton, Eluard, Ernst, Miró and Picasso. With 

the young poet David Gascoyne, he was largely 

responsible for bringing Surrealism to Britain. 

He was one of the organising committee for the 

controversial but influential International 

Surrealist Exhibition held in London in 1936. 

His superb collection of mainly cubist and 

surrealist art was assembled in the late 1930’s 

and included several important works 

purchased from Paul Eluard. After the war he 

was closely involved with the foundation of the 

Institute of Contemporary Arts. He was a close 

friend of Picasso and wrote the first English 

biography of the artist. He also wrote 

biographies of Miró and Tàpies and organised 

countless exhibitions, often lending from his 

own collection and that of his second wife, the 

photographer, Lee Miller. 

The Penrose Library is particularly interesting 

as it represents the complete working library of 

a Surrealist artist and reflects the diverse 

concerns of the movement. It comprises over 

10,000 books, exhibition catalogues and 

periodicals on Dada, Surrealism and modern 

art in general. Among them are a number of 

important livres d'artiste and artists’ books, 

many containing inscriptions, original prints 

and special dedicatory drawings. There is a 

complete collection of his friend Max Ernst’s 

collage novels including an hors commerce, 

dedicated copy of Une Semaine de bonté (Paris 

1934). Penrose had financed this publication 

and the archive contains correspondence about 

the development of the project between 

Penrose and Jeanne Bucher, the publisher.

Gabrielle Keiller, the other great collector, 

had been married to the distinguished 

archaeologist Alexander Keiller (of the Dundee 

marmalade family) who died in 1955. Her 

interest in modern art began in 1960 when she 

visited Peggy Guggenheim's art collection in 

Venice and saw the work of Eduardo Paolozzi 

exhibited at the Biennale. It was Paolozzi who 

encouraged her to include surrealist works in 

her art collection. 

The Keiller Library 

Photograph © National Galleries of Scotland 

Mrs Keiller’s Library is a collector’s library 

distinguished by the consistently high quality of 

the material - fine bindings, rare editions and 

books which like Penrose's, often contain 

special dedicatory inscriptions and drawings. 

There are many examples of first issues of 

limited editions, which contain rare prints, and 

manuscripts and sketch material. Many of these 

came from the library of Georges Hugnet, who, 

as artist, poet, writer, bookbinder, and 

publisher, was a key figure in the production of 

surrealist books in Paris. Among the Keiller 

treasures is a de-luxe edition of Marcel 

Duchamp's Green Box (Paris 1934), dedicated to 

Hugnet and which complements Hugnet’s 

de-luxe edition of Duchamp’s Boîte en valise 

(1935 - 1941) also acquired by Keiller and given 

to the Gallery. Hugnet and Hans Bellmers little 

book Oeillades ciselées en branche (Paris 1939) can 

be seen as the perfect example of the surrealist 

livre d’artiste. Mrs Keiller acquired Hugnet’s 

own copy printed on violet-scented paper, 

complete with rose leather book-box lined with 

silk-gauze and dried violets that he made for it. 

The collection also has copies of Bellmer’s Die 

Puppe (Karlsruhe 1934) and La Poupée (Paris 

1935) as well as the artwork and manuscript for 

Les Jeux de la poupée (1938 - 1939, but not 

published until 1949). 

78 

The Penrose & Keiller Libraries are remarkably 

complementary, with little duplication. Both 

contain key works by Hans Arp, André Breton, 

Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Paul Eluard, Man 

Ray, Francis Picabia, Yves Tanguy, Tristan Tzara, 

working alone or in various combinations. 

Since 1995, the Gallery has continued to collect 

dada & surrealist publications most notably the 

periodical Dada, the exhibition catalogue 

Surrealism en 1949 with Duchamp’s special cover 

of a foam breast laid on a black velvet cloth, 

and most recently André Breton’s own copy of 

Tristan Tzara and Marcel Janco’s La Première 

aventure de M Antipyrine (Zurich 1916). 

Both Mrs Keiller and Roland Penrose collected 

books out of the surrealist movement. Penrose 

had an especially fine collection of books by his 

friends Picasso, Miró and Tapiès. Most of these 

livres d’artiste contain unique dedicatory drawings. 

Among the highlights are Picasso’s Vingt 

Poèmes de Gongora, (Paris 1948) inscribed by 

Picasso, with a full-page original drawing by 

Picasso in coloured inks of a man on horse on 

the title page. The book was given to Penrose 

by Picasso during his visit to Britain for the 

World Peace Congress held in Sheffield in 

1950. Joan Miró’s Je travaille comme un 

jardinier, (Paris 1963) similarly has a watercolour 

drawing enclosed at the front that is 

dedicated to Penrose and Lee Miller as does 

Antoni Tàpies’s, Nocturn Matinal, (Barcelona 

1970). Penrose’s connection with the ICA 

brought him continued contact with the 

contemporary art scene and his book collection 

was enriched with examples of work by Dieter 

Roth, whose little tentative recipe, (Stuttgart, 

1969) was sent to him by the artist through the 

post; it’s box still bears the stamps. Other titles 

include Arte come Pre-Testo/Art as Pretext, by 

Momo, (Rome, 1976), Ed Ruscha’s Twenty-six 

Gasoline Stations (Alhambra, 1963) Some Los 

Angeles Apartments, (Los Angeles 1970,) and A 

Few Palm Trees, (Hollywood 1971) and Gui 

Rosey and Hans Richter’s, Faits Divers, Faits 

Eternels, (Paris 1972). 

Gabrielle Keiller also had a lively interest in 

contemporary art and encouraged many 

younger British artists such as Richard Long, 

Hamish Fulton, Gilbert and George, Bruce 

McLean as well as Paolozzi. She acquired work 

by Roy Lichtenstein and in 1976 commissioned

From the collection, clockwise from top left: Smith/Stewart Lovebite, 1995; Damien Hirst, Robert Sabbag and 

Howard Marks Snowblind: A Brief Career in the Cocaine Trade, 1998; Morning Star Press Anthology, 1997; Jaqueline 

Donachie Part Edit, 1994; Roderick Buchanan Work in Progress, 1995; Deb Rindl Parallel Lives, 1995 

Photograph © National Galleries of Scotland 

Georges Hugnet and Hans Bellmer Oeillades ciselées en branche, Paris, Éditions Jeanne Bucher (Paris 1939) 

Photograph © National Galleries of Scotland

a portrait of her dachshund Maurice from 

Andy Warhol. This interest is also reflected in 

her Library which contains most of Paolozzi’s 

book productions - Metafisikal Translations, 

(London 1962), The Metallization of a Dream 

(London 1963), Kex (London 1966), Abba-Zabba 

(Cologne 1970). International Pop Art is represented 

by Walasse Ting’s Ic Life (Bern 1964) 

and Lucas Samaras three-dimensional Book 

(New York 1968). Later came Daniel Spoerri’s 

Krims-Krams Magie, (Berlin 1971), and Dieter 

Roth’s Gesammelte Werke, Band 6, (Reyjavik, 

Dusseldorf, London, 1971). Mrs Keiller was one 

of the very early subscribers to Bruce McLean 

and Mel Gooding’s Dreamwork, (London 1985). 

The Gallery’s collection has grown steadily over 

the years. Scottish artists and authors are well 

represented. The Gallery has an almost 

complete holding of the printed work of Ian 

Hamilton Finlay and the Wild Hawthorn Press. 

These include prints, cards, folding cards, 

booklets, books and proposals. Other artists 

include Callum Innes, Alan Davie, John Bellany, 

Bruce McLean, and Adrian Wiszniewski. The 

Gallery’s copy of Wiszniewski’s For Max, 

(London 1988) is unique, with text added in 

biro by the artist during a visit to the Gallery. 

There is a strong holding of books by Hamish 

Fulton including Hollow Lane, (London [1971]) 

Skyline Ridge: Four Connecting Walks on Southern 

England, (London 1975), Song Of The Skylark: 

Midday Hawk . Mice in the Hedge., (London 

1982) and A Twelve Day Walk And Eighty Four 

Paces, (London, 1991). Gilbert and George 

titles include Side by side: Gilbert & George, the 

sculptors, 1971, (Cologne 1972), A Guide to 

Singing Sculpture by George & Gilbert, the human 

sculptors, (London 1973), Red Boxers series, 

(London, 1975) and Dark Shadow (London 

1976). The publications of Bookworks, Coracle 

Press, Morning Star Press, Weproductions and 

Workfortheeyetodo are all represented. 

From further afield titles include Sol Lewitt’s 

Location of lines, (London 1974), Andrea 

Zanzotto and Joe Tilson’s Circhi e Cene (Circuses 

and Suppers) (Verona 1979) and John Cage’s 

Rolywholyover: a circus, (Los Angeles 1993). 

More recent additions have been works by 

Christine Kermaire and Maddy Rosenberg. 

The Gallery also has a complete run of Krater 

und Wolke, ed. Ralf Winkler (A.R. Penck) 

(Cologne 1982 - 1990). 

80 

Access and display 

Members of the public as individuals can study 

books from the collection in the Gallery 

Reading Room by appointment. There are also 

regular seminars on Artists’ Books and 

Bookmaking held for students as part of their 

coursework. 

To make the collection available to a wider 

public, during the 1999 conversion of the Dean 

Orphanage into a new Gallery, one of the 

smaller rooms was fitted out as a display library. 

Dedicated to Mrs Keiller, both the Keiller and 

Penrose books are shelved here together with 

two Cabinets of Curiosities, recreated from 

Penrose’s houses in London and Sussex. The 

displays change every twelve weeks and cover 

work from the historic collection and new work. 

Among recent displays have been: A word for the 

Mantelpiece: The Work of Thomas A. Clark & 

Laurie Clark, 2001 and A Library for a Justified 

Sinner, in association with Pocketbooks 2002. 

Book material is also incorporated into other 

Gallery exhibitions. The major summer 

exhibition of 2002 New, Recent Acquisitions of 

Contemporary British Art included a large 

section of artists’ books. These included work 

by Roderick Buchanan, Tacita Dean, Jacqueline 

Donachie, David Faithfull, Ian Hamilton Finlay, 

Douglas Gordon, Damien Hirst, Julian Opie, 

Deb Rindl, David Shrigley, Bob and Roberta 

Smith [Patrick Brill], Stephanie Smith and 

Edward Stewart, Tim Staples and Catherine 

Yass. 

As part of the move to the Dean Gallery, an 

automation programme for the catalogues of 

the Special Collections, Archive and Gallery’s 

Reference Library is currently underway. 

Access to the Special Book Collection, Archive 

and Reference Library is by appointment only. 

For information please contact: 

The Senior Curator Archive and Library or the 

Librarian, Scottish National Gallery of Modern 

Art, The Dean Gallery, 73 Belford Road, 

Edinburgh EH4 3DS 

gmaarchives@nationalgalleries.org 

Telephone: 0131 624 6252/6253 

Ann Simpson 

Senior Curator Archive and Library

Roberta Bridda Col ricordo infine 12 x 12 cms, watercolour, ink, 

collage, one-of-a-kind, 2002 

Roberta Bridda Libro fluxus ink on sanitary pad, cancelled typewriter text, 

one-of-a-kind, 2002 

Roberta Bridda Lettere al direttore 14 x 20cm, altered book with Xerox transfer, one-of-a-kind, 2002

Gli Italiani - The Italians 

Carrie Galbraith 

“The book is a place where you can wait for 

somebody, a place in which to search for 

something that is lost, or perceived lost, and to 

find it again, in your hands, through the 

pages.” - Roberta Bridda 

Class in Libro d’Artista Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, 

Venice, 2002 

Italy has a long tradition of artists making 

books, from illuminated manuscripts to 

innovative early printers, from the Futurists to 

artists and designers such as Bruno Munari in 

the 60s and 70s. Today there are a number of 

small independent presses and artists working 

in the book form in Italy such as Corraini in 

Mantua and Alberto Casiraghy and his Edizioni 

Pulcino Elefante. In this article, I have chosen to 

focus on six artists who, unlike the monk 

labouring a lifetime in the scriptorium, vary 

greatly in their disciplines and age. They are 

architects, designers, anthropologists, social 

workers and teachers yet they share the 

common bond of the love of the book. They 

have all studied at the Scuola Internazionale 

di Grafica in Venice, whose artistic director, 

Matilde Dolcetti, has been a great influence 

and supporter of their explorations. 

83 

In interviewing the artists, I focused on the 

individuals approach to the process, specifically 

asking them their interpretation of the artist’s 

book. The artists have responded candidly to 

my questions, touching on the essence of their 

ideas and aesthetic sensitivities as well as their 

processes. 

All of the artists have seen many international 

exhibitions of artists’ books. They have found a 

“spirit of common intentions” in the books, 

even if the language and techniques have been 

different. To quote Lia Malfermoni, “each book 

is original, different and unique. The country 

of creation is the inner homeland, inside the 

artist.” 

Roberta Bridda (see opposite) studied at the 

University of Architecture in Venice and wrote 

her dissertation on artists’ books, placing them 

in the same structural territory as buildings. In 

1997 she saw an exhibition of books and began 

considering the possibilities of the medium, 

describing the artists’ book as “an open shape, 

a home, a body and a journey.” Roberta has 

said that the book “creates a need to think 

about language, a place where codes mix 

together, where the text can be an image and 

the image can also be text. With books, the 

idea is to stay awake in front of reality and 

dreams, living one’s multiple lives.” 

Loretta Cappanera 

Ali di Carta (1) 

23 x 18cms, 

cut paper and 

collage, 

one-of-a-kind, 1994 

In 1993, while searching for a way to express 

her desire to communicate and give testimony 

to the inner journey, Loretta Cappanera began 

working with artists’ books. She does not 

distinguish between “art” and “book,” finding 

the book a valid vehicle by itself. For Loretta, 

the book is a witness to the personal vision 

quest and is full of movement. She perceives 

the materials used in the creation of the book 

as leading to a continuous exploration of the 

form.

Loretta Cappanera Ali di Carta (2) 26 x 36 cms, thread and 

woven paper, edition of 2, 1998 

Loretta Cappanera Libro bianco 40 x 30 x 10cms closed, 

37 x 900cms open, woodtype, one-of-a-kind, 2002 

Loretta Cappanera Collezioni di Sabbia 22 x 17 cms, 

letterpress and collage, edition of 5, 2002 

84 

In 2002, out of a desire to understand 

publishing and communication, Loretta 

initiated Belles Pages a small press project. 

Conceived as collaboration between Italian and 

French poets and artists, Belles Pages is more 

than just beautiful words. There is an intent to 

promote pleasure in the viewer from touching 

the paper, caressing the binding and 

encountering the etched lines on the page. 

These small books (A5 format) are hand-bound 

in editions ranging from 25 to 50, with letter 

pressed covers, an original print and computer 

generated text on high quality paper. Belles 

Pages will eventually realise a total of 7 editions 

annually. 

Morena Coppola Un Libro Gioco monotype, one-off, 2002 

Above and below: Morena Coppola Salehah 22 x 30 cms, 

mixed media, one-of-a-kind, 2002

For some years Morena Coppola studied art 

and art history, attended exhibitions and tried 

many different mediums in search of a 

instrument for her unique voice. In 2000 

she found the artist’s book and began 

experimenting and investigating the many 

possibilities. Morena believes that the book is 

part of the individual, that it challenges and 

gives advice about the discipline, that it follows 

the thought process until a solution is found 

and one is ready for the next level of 

exploration. She feels it expands creativity and 

softens the encounter when diving into a 

surface. In the book, there is a passionate 

emotion that has no room for compromise. 

“An artist book is a kind of expression of my 

soul, it’s a self-portrait, a declaration of 

correspondence with myself, with my words and 

my feelings for others. It’s my thoughts 

expressed to others who want to interact, it’s a 

diaphragm-volcano that doesn’t want to stop, 

and it discovers facts that I cannot understand 

rationality. It’s always surprising. But it’s also a 

response to that with which I do not agree. 

It is the possibility of political reply and the 

opportunity to reveal and redeem by 

disagreement. It’s a strong wind, it’s convincing 

to the extreme, it’s passion. Each book is a sort 

of homecoming to Pompeii where, upon 

arriving, one finds it is their hometown. It’s 

resting in the sleeper’s vegetable-garden, its 

relief at the Temple of Isis, its magnificent 

collaboration.” 

Lia Malfermoni Erranti 224 x 40 cms (open), 49 x 49 cms 

(closed), mixed media, one-of-a-kind, 2002 

85 

Lia Malfermoni began making artists’ books 

in 2000 after becoming interested in the 

possibility of working in three dimensions. 

She began to extend her explorations to 

include the sequencing of words and images, 

using them to communicate emotions and 

thoughts and as a declaration of her passions 

and beliefs. She feels that the book also holds 

an element of play, a game. As Lia has 

described it, an artist’s book is 

“experimentation, revelation, learning, work, 

memories, discussion, the meeting, the 

moment, the risk, the telling, the passion, the 

becoming, the listening, the sensibility, the 

glancing, the soul.” 

Above and below: Lia Malfermoni Corpetti 

25 x 35 cms, woodcut & watercolour 

edition of 7, 2002

Images above: Stefania Missio Gli Amanti di Pietra 

32 x 34 cms, linoleum print, collage, thread on 

Japanese paper, edition of 10, 2002 

Stefania Missio studied medieval history 

followed by paleontology and codification 

courses where she became interested in the 

history of the book. At the Accademia delle 

Belle Arti in Rome, she wrote her thesis on 

“History, Aesthetics and Instruments of the 

Artist’s Book.” 

Stefania thinks of the book as an essential 

organ for human beings. Before studying and 

making artists’ books, she understood the book 

only in terms of a device for illustration. 

Learning that one can go beyond the usual way 

of projecting through sequencing and the 

integration of text and image as well as the 

altering of size, Stefania has opened to an 

artistic and expressive quest, creating and also 

experimenting with the book from different 

perspectives. 

86 

“An artist’s book is a handmade work that takes 

advantage of the ideological inheritance of the 

language of books but uses its structures, 

materials, languages and codes to get far away 

from the standard communication systems 

found in every traditional book. It’s an object 

that forces us to decode systems of 

communication for transmitting messages, 

systems that are comfortable and that are found 

in books available in bookstores and libraries,” 

she says. 

In artists’ books, she feels that the real quest is 

playing with the semantic significance as given 

to letters, words and some materials. She finds 

that there is a possibility to work with the 

meaning as expected from one system of words, 

while creating another way of reading by giving 

the words an alternate significance. The game, 

she thinks, is in the decoding, provided one is 

willing to see things differently. As she says, 

creating all art, not just books, is a study in 

anthropology and sociology. 

Giuseppe Perezzan came in contact with artists’ 

books in 2000, in Venice. He became fascinated 

with the freedom and possibility for expression 

that the medium allows. He found within the 

book form the possibility to include the use of 

widely differing processes and techniques, 

offering a way of working which forces one to 

think about the task from multiple points of 

view: conceptual, structural and aesthetic, and 

as such, demands concentrated time and effort. 

Always interested in challenging his point of 

view, Giuseppe tries to reinterpret all that he 

encounters. Deriving his inspiration from 

day-to-day occurrences, he is often struck (with 

pleasure or otherwise) by facts, impressions, 

readings and sheer coincidences. From this 

he takes the opportunity to define these 

occurrences and give them form, to express the 

ideas in a work, in something that he feels can 

enclose the moment. It is never an instant task, 

easily carried out. He finds that he requires 

plenty of time to discover the expression of a 

book. There are advantages to this slow 

approach, he says, as it allows the idea to 

become deeply rooted, coaxing the best from 

the project, making it more effective, creating, 

in the end, a more complete book.

Above and below: Giuseppe Perezzan Errare 

24 x47 cms (closed), 112 x309 cms (open) cyanotype on 

paper, text by Mauro Lazzaretti, edition of 4, 2002 

Giuseppe Perezzan Abbiti mille baci 

cyanotype on cotton, 150 x 30 cms (book), 33 x 7 x 5 cms 

(box), edition of 6, 2002 

87 

Each artist interviewed has found, in the book 

form, a vehicle of expression singularly suited 

to his or her unique interests and concerns. 

While each is working with different processes 

and approaches, they share an enthusiasm that 

connects the artists by an invisible thread, 

binding them to the long tradition of artists’ 

books in Italy. 

The following is a list of courses, exhibitions, 

museums and collections of artists’ books in 

Italy. The list is by no means complete, as 

interest in the artist’s book in grows daily. 

Schools 

Venice: Scuola Internazionale di Grafica di 

Venezia an independent centre for the Visual 

Arts with courses in printmaking, book arts, 

graphic and web design, painting and drawing 

and providing residencies in the visual arts. 

www.scuolagrafica.it/ 

Cortona: University of Georgia Arts Program at 

Cortona courses in papermaking and book arts 

in the spring, summer and fall semesters. 

www.visart.uga.edu/cortona 

Florence: Santa Reparata Graphic Art Centre 

printmaking, papermaking, drawing and book 

arts courses and workshops. 

www.fionline.it/santareparata/welcome.html 

Exhibitions 

Libri Mai Mai Visti (Books Never Ever Seen) An 

annual juried exhibition in Russi (near 

Ravenna) since 1995. Open to international 

submissions, catalogue each year, organised by 

the Vari Cervelli Associati (VACA). 

www.vaca.it (website in English, Italian and 

German) 

Annual International Review of Artists’ Books An 

exhibition in Rome open to international 

submissions, sponsored by La Tana Spazio dal 

1999, a non-profit organisation, whose purpose 

is the study, research and promotion of reviews

and exhibitions about artists’ books, both 

national and international. 

http://utenti.lycos.it/latana1999 

Collections & Other 

The Contemporary Art Museum Luigi Pecci in 

Prato (near Florence) has a small collection of 

artists’ books dating from the 1960's, with many 

Italian artists’ books. Not a permanent 

exhibition, call for an appointment. 

www.comune.prato.it/pecci/gener/eng/home.htm 

Tipoteka Italiana in Cornuda (near Treviso) An 

excellent typography and printing press 

museum. 

Biblioteca Poletti in Modena (near Bologna)for 

artists’ books exhibitions, collection. 

Galleria Martano in Turin has artists’ books 

exhibitions. 

Central National Library in Florence Fondo 

Bertini (Gabinetto Stampe) collection. 

MART a new modern art museum in Trento 

with artists’ books in the Archivio di Nuova 

Scrittura. 

The National Library in Rome has set up a 

small area for artists’ books exhibitions and 

houses a growing collection. 

For articles on artists’ books and print/works 

on paper in Italy (including workshops) visit 

www.printworks.it 

Carrie Galbraith 

Fellow 

Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, Venice, Italy 

Special thanks to Giuseppe Perezzan for 

translations. 

88

ARCHIVE: a race against the instant? 

Chris Taylor 

In March 2001 a Regional Arts Lottery Project, 

Contemporary Artists Books & Related Events, 1 

was established providing the opportunity to 

develop a number of research interests related 

to artist’s book production. These included the 

Contemporary Artists’ Book Fair as a focus for 

discussion, exchange and dissemination; a 

series of public workshops highlighting the 

processes and production values involved in 

the making of such objects; SYMPOSIA, three 

round-table events exploring book-related areas 

of collecting, audio/visual and interpolation; 

IMAGE and TEXT, two separate publications 

exploring the book format/the format of the 

page and, finally, ARCHIVE, a collection of 

artists’ books, catalogues and documentation. 

ARCHIVE is a collection, a history, an 

exhibition, a resource. The collection 

comprises 55 artists’ books, (57 if you include 

the three individual items contained within 

IMPACT’s Correspondence), purchased primarily 

from participants at the 2001 and 2002 

Contemporary Artists’ Book Fairs. 2 It includes a 

cross selection of artists’ publications produced, 

exhibited and available during that specific 

period. 

The term ‘archive’ can be problematic as a way 

of labelling a collection of contemporary art 

works. ‘Archive’ can suggest a past history, 

rather than a reflection of the contemporary. 

In the first of the three SYMPOSIA 3 events held 

at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds in 2003, 

Clive Phillpot questioned the application of the 

term ‘archive’ to artists books. 

"It seems to me that for some reason the idea 

of 'archives' got attached to artist's book 

collections. I don't really understand why. I'll 

read you a definition of archives that might 

perhaps make you understand why I have a 

problem with this: 

Archives - Definition 1. Public records of selected 

materials kept in a recognised archival repository. 

And 2. The accumulation of original records 

assembled in the course of activities of a person or 

91 

persons or of a public or private institution, etc. etc. 

(Librarian’s Glossary) 

“So archives, some people say, are the memory 

of an organisation, or in some cases something 

to do with the life of a person. Yet, in popular 

parlance, the word 'archive' is often applied to 

collections of things, an archive of bird's eggs 

or something, and it seems to be inappropriate. 

So, I'll just say that I do have problems with the 

word ‘archive’ attached to artists’ books but it's 

one of those things like the phrase "artist's 

books" itself, which won't go away, and that's 

not very satisfactory either. 

However, this archive is not only a history, but a 

snapshot of contemporary practice in which 

the genre of artists’ books is explored, 

discussed and disseminated to both dedicated 

and new audiences. ARCHIVE is a living history, 

an accessible and tangible resource made 

available as a portable exhibition. As Victoria 

Worsely, Archivist at the Henry Moore Institute 

noted, 

“Archives are often seen as dark spaces, 

stereotypically located in the basement, and this 

space signifies a burial or entombment of 

things past. In archival theory, all information 

produced fits into what is called the ‘life cycle 

of the record’. When it is created and being 

used by its creator, it is termed a ‘current 

record’. When its active life is over, but it is still 

used occasionally, it becomes ‘semi-current’ as a 

record that isn’t needed all of the time but may 

occasionally be referred to. And only when it 

has no use in the present by its creator and is 

determined as valuable enough to keep for 

posterity does it take on the attributes of an 

archival record. Archives, because they 

normally begin at the end, are therefore 

inextricably linked with the notion of death.” 4 

Usually, collections of whatever type are 

acquired and grow until every item that could 

possibly belong within them have been 

collected, the collector loses interest or the 

collector dies. ARCHIVE never had the luxury 

of endless funds, but was defined from the very 

beginning by a set budget, a decision to 

incorporate a diverse range of production 

techniques and, most importantly, to highlight 

the array of conceptual experimentation

currently at play within the structure and 

function of the book format. It is important to 

understand that ARCHIVE did not “begin at the 

end”, but came to life at the very beginning of 

the project, even before a number of the books 

which now reside in it were even conceived, 

such as Colin Sackett’s Speakers or John Bently’s 

The Rainbow Makers. 

At the outset, the decision on what to select, 

though a seemingly envious position to hold, 

proved far more difficult than anticipated. It 

was never the intention to create an overview of 

the most prominent artists working within this 

field, but rather, to provide an educational 

resource that would inform and inspire a wider 

audience through the book’s natural interplay 

of space, rhythm and sequenciality. Yet, as the 

collection developed, the overall visual aspect 

would change. Books purchased in the early 

stages were ‘withdrawn’ and either exchanged 

with the artist or replaced by that of a different 

producer. Certain books became superfluous 

within what is basically a small, tight-knit 

community of objects and, eventually, the 

curators’ aesthetic judgements came in to play. 

As a temporary measure, purchased books were 

stored in sets of commercially available 

cardboard drawers, the design of these units 

becoming the benchmark around which the 

maximum size of the books was determined 

(A4) and the final storage constructed. 

Eighteen drawers, set within a bespoke wooden 

cabinet, now house the books. Those drawers 

not containing the maximum size books are 

sub-divided to hold the smaller publications in 

place, with each drawer incorporating a list of 

contents pasted on the inside. 

92 

“Jacques Derrida’s work on the archive 

investigates the concept as being one sited in 

the idea of the house: the Greek word arkeion 

being the house or residence of the superior 

magistrate. From this domestic and yet 

authoritative location Derrida begins to view 

the archive as lying between the public and the 

private, and between the coldness of the law 

and the intimacy of the home. He suggests the 

process of collecting and archiving (with their 

insistence upon distance and dislocation from 

the immediate and the actual) affects and 

colours the very body of material which is being 

scrutinised. The archive can only ever be a 

distorted lens through which phenomena are 

addressed. With the advent of email, an 

instantaneous mode of communication, untold 

stress is placed on the idea of the archive. 

It threatens received ways of ordering material 

with destruction. What ensues is Derrida’s 

‘archive fever’: a race against the instant and a 

plea for a distancing from phenomena.” 5 

The contents of the complete ARCHIVE are 

documented in an index, a ring-bound series 

of cards which, as well as providing artist, 

imprint, media and date of publication details, 

contain a short description of the book written 

and compiled by the curators. By chance, the 

index has become a collection in itself, a series 

of thoughts inspired by 55 objects. The 

individual descriptions are intended simply as a 

stepping stone into the content of each 

particular book providing the reader/viewer 

with an opening into some of the more abstract 

concepts and formats. From Conor Lucey’s 

minimal Accidental (Australian) Waterfalls to 

Pavel Büchler’s bureaucratic What the Cleaners

Found, each publication’s title and description 

have no obvious connection with the next 

except the means to incite the curiosity of the 

reader/viewer. 

The main function of ARCHIVE is to be 

accessible to both conventional and 

unconventional audiences and institutions by 

way of educational and curatorial means. It is 

self-contained and can be displayed with the 

minimal of effort and resources. 

It can be crated and transported to locations 

far and wide. To date, ARCHIVE has been 

accessed at the IKON Gallery, Birmingham as 

part of its educational outreach programme 

and the Dean Clough Galleries, Halifax as part 

of the RALP workshops. It will be launched in 

its entirety at the Henry Moore Institute 

Library, Leeds in Autumn, 2003 before touring 

to national and international venues. 

By its very nature, ARCHIVE is at once intimate 

and public. 

Chris Taylor 

School of Fine Art, History of Art & Cultural 

Studies, University of Leeds 

93 

notes 

1. Contemporary Artists’ Books & Related Events 

a Regional Arts Lottery Project funded by the 

Arts Council of England March 2001 – 2003. 

Co-ordinated by Chris Taylor and John 

McDowall, curators of the International 

Contemporary Artists’ Book Fair, held annually at 

Dean Clough, Halifax. 

2. Illustrated catalogues from the 2001 and 

2002 Contemporary Artists’ Book Fairs are 

housed within ARCHIVE. 

3. SYMPOSIA, held in collaboration with the 

Henry Moore Institute Library, Leeds, 3 May, 7 

June and 12 July 2003. Archives: shelved? the 

first of three events, examined the issues of 

acquisition, intention and development of 

archives and collections, particularly in 

reference to artists’ books, objects and 

ephemera. The speakers were Tim Brennan, 

Clive Phillpot and Victoria Worsely. 

4. Ibid. 

5. Tim Brennan Curationism: The Nu-Curator as 

Performer in Simon Morris Interpretation 2 

Information as Material 2002, p.44. A copy of 

this publication is housed within ARCHIVE.

Knife Edge at the Eagle: Another Situation: No Style Bruce McLean and Mel Gooding, 1992 

Knife Edge Texts Bruce McLean and Mel Gooding, 1992

Making Books 

Emma Hill 

Moving house two years ago, I counted sixteen 

boxes that contained my books. I have books 

from four generations of my family. Books I 

have re-read at intervals throughout my life and 

other books I will probably never read but keep 

because they have become in some way familiar. 

As Calvino understands you can read a person's 

life by looking at their books, they represent 

the past and are held, with unknown potential, 

for the future. 

I make books because I think books are 

important. When you take a book into your 

hands you are taken on a journey that leaves 

you somewhere different from where you 

started. I make artists’ books because they can 

contain more than one creative language in a 

structure that holds time. I make books for the 

same reason I imagine most people are drawn 

to making them, because they are satisfying to 

make. 

As a publisher of books which bring together 

the work of contemporary artists and writers 

one enters interesting but problematic 

territory. The experience of a book is generally 

a private one, a subjective gathering of images 

in the mind to visualise the words we read, fluid 

and individual to each reader. A work which 

attempts to ‘make visual’ words, to create visual 

narrative, or to play conceptually upon the 

'bookness' of itself, is by nature a hybrid thing 

and risks overloading the space where what you 

see or read becomes real in the mind's eye. 

Good artists' books are never merely illustrative. 

The best of them integrate formal qualities to 

create “harmony among our various modes of 

perception...” 1 - the intangible effect all good 

art has to provoke a sense of recognition, even 

in the first glance. 

A book comes with a certain set of rules which 

can be utilised or broken and I am less 

interested in debating what an artist's book is 

than in finding out what an artist's book can be. 

I am encouraged by the view that “a book is a 

space for imaginative action” 2 - a particular 

kind of site where an artist can use what we 

95 

understand about how a book holds language 

to make us pause, contemplate and look anew. 

Over the last ten years I have published books 

which range from unique objects to limited 

run, hand printed books to long-run 

commercially printed editions. The only 

defining feature of the imprint is that it brings 

together words with images and in most 

instances words which have been written 

contemporaneously with the making of the 

images. Early books tended to be made as a 

record of temporary installations at the Eagle 

Gallery and were simple letterpress, block print 

or litho publications. The gallery is situated in 

an area of London traditionally associated with 

printing and in the early 90’s still had a 

working community of small scale commercial 

print workshops, which made printing the 

books financially possible. 

In 1992 Bruce McLean and Mel Gooding’s 

Knife Edge Texts brought together the writing 

from their previous collaborations in a simple 

board bound book printed entirely in letterpress 

by Tom Shaw. McLean liked the 

utilitarian feel of the blank billboard covers and 

incorporated a line of the books on the wall of 

the installation Knife Edge at the Eagle: Another 

Situation: No Style. Having a gallery it seemed to 

make sense to show books in the same way as 

we showed other art works and to present them 

in a context where they were not an adjunct to 

the other objects but attendant to them. It was 

important to make them accessible and 

readable. I can't see the point of making a book 

with text if the viewer can't read it and however 

precious a book is, the experience of it as an 

object is lost if contained in a glass case. 

In 1995 I was approached by Terry Smith, who 

was gaining recognition as an installation artist 

and had recently made a number of 

interventions in a group of Acme houses in the 

east end of London which had been cleared to 

make way for the M11 link road. 

Smith’s work by then existed only as 

documentation - sequences of mainly black and 

white photographs which showed how he had 

referenced the histories of these spaces in 

simple, eloquent repetitions of architectural 

details, cut directly into the walls.

Smith was exploring ways of bringing his work 

to a wider audience and though he had shown 

extensively within a museum context in the UK 

and abroad, had not yet found a satisfactory 

way of translating this most private aspect of his 

practice into work which could be shown or 

disseminated. 

The work was intriguing and beautiful but how 

it fitted within the framework of a commercial 

gallery took a long time to resolve since its 

resonance depended upon the specificity of its 

location. A bookwork seemed a logical way of 

containing the documentary aspect, but Smith 

was anxious that the approach taken to making 

the publication follow as closely as possible his 

wider working methods. Thus the book Site 

Unseen was conceived as a ‘page specific’ site 

that would reveal a single project through a 

narrative of visual images, working notes and 

commentaries and a longer poetic text. 

Funding from the Arts Council made the 

project possible, but it also imposed parameters 

that led to a different way of making the book 

than in previous publications. We were 

required to print in a run of 500 or above and 

to explore ways of distributing the book wider 

than the network of individuals, collections and 

libraries that had previously bought the smaller 

edition publications. Budget dictated that the 

book would largely have to be printed using 

commercial lithography and the most efficient 

tool to bring all the different elements together 

was the computer. Within the financial 

restraints however there was a determination to 

use material and design to mirror the working 

process of the artist who had made a series of 

sculptural drawings into the fabric of a derelict 

house, exposing layers of its history down to 

the lathe and plaster skeleton. Images were 

chosen as much for their potential to convey 

the atmosphere of the house as they were to 

show the artist's interventions upon it while 

pages of different materials were layered 

together or cut through with perforations and 

apertures to parallel the sense of revealed form 

and pattern. 

We were fortunate in the two writers involved in 

Site Unseen. James Putnam, who put the project 

into the wider context of Smith’s practice and 

highlighted the crucial interplay between the 

96 

“actual and the metaphorical” that runs 

through all the work and Mel Gooding who 

understood implicitly how his text must 

function to complement and reveal in language 

the sensation of the hidden site, which he did 

most eloquently. 

Site Unseen was published in the context of an 

installation at the Eagle Gallery and was the 

inspiration behind a number of the books that 

followed which were approached on a much 

more complex level and developed as an 

extension of the work we were showing in 

exhibition. It was important as a publisher to 

ask what kind of an audience these works were 

for, since the arena for artists’ books in the UK 

is a small one and the Gallery could only 

operate in a limited way as a distributor. It 

seemed to make more sense to stay at the ‘fine 

art’ end of making artists’ books than to 

attempt to produce longer runs where quality 

of purpose and print would be limited by 

budget and where to make any kind of 

financial returns large numbers of the books 

would have to be sold. 

Two fundamental questions interested me and 

were born out of the experience of making 

previous books and in thinking about the 

context in which we were showing them. The 

first was whether we could make publications as 

objects that would appeal to people even before 

they had read the text or properly looked at 

the images. Our immediate audience was the 

mixture of private individuals, consultants and 

curators that passed through the gallery and 

though there was interest in the books there 

was a hesitancy about them as collectible works 

of art. The second and far more difficult issue 

was how one could commission genuine 

collaborations between an artist and writer 

within a framework which would allow them 

the time and flexibility to develop a work which 

properly integrated the various languages 

involved. 

In 1999 I set up a subscription scheme to 

publish five artists’ books that could be 

developed over a period of years rather than 

months. The scheme was designed to raise a 

starting fund of £20,000 which would be 

supplemented by grant funding, sponsorship 

and sales of the published books.

Site Unseen Terry Smith, 1997

The choice of artists went wider than those 

represented by the Eagle Gallery and included 

some who had made books before and others 

for whom it was new territory. Writers were 

approached in consultation with the artists and 

a provisional list of collaborations went to 

museums, research departments and collectors 

with 10 subscribers copies of the books 

available. 

Spiritual Letters Andrew Bick and David Miller, 1997 

Mr Krusoe’s Garden: I take breakfast at an Evil Hour 

Pete Nevin, letterpress printed at Uhiselu, 

Tallin, Estonia, 2002 

98 

The first book published under the EMH Arts 

Publishers Scheme: And a year ago, I 

commemorated a missed encounter was 

brought out in 2000 and was a collaboration 

between the painter Jane Bustin and the 

curator and critic Andrew Renton. Bustin had 

been working on a series of paintings which 

took their titles from references in the poems 

of Paul Celan. As an abstract artist she had 

been much drawn to Celan's ability to fracture 

and remake language in his attempt to find a 

means to express the unsayable and was 

exploring ways in her own work whereby she 

could convey a range of associations and 

emotional responses through very minimal, 

process led paintings. The deep seated link 

between word and image in the work made it 

obvious material for a book but the approach 

to making it and how or whether to reference 

the source material had to be considered 

carefully. 

Andrew Renton accepted the invitation to write 

a text and brought to the project a deep seated 

knowledge and understanding of Celan's work. 

He did not attempt to write in literal response 

to the artist's paintings though he requested 

to borrow individual works to have around him 

over a period of approximately six months. 

Renton's text when it was finished was 

remarkable. He had managed to combine 

reference with suggestion and had written a 

piece that while ostensibly was about the act of 

writing drew in threads of memory, sensation 

and potential. 

Celan said that his poetry was written towards 

the moment of "becoming Silent" and this 

sense of constructing a work that would be as 

much about absence as presence became the 

dominant principle in deciding how to make 

the book. Bustin had made two aquatints - 

pools of colour, latticed with a trace of an 

etched plate, that were to be printed on 

unbound, folded pages. The resonance of 

the images on the paper was overt, almost 

sculptural, as the saturated ink bled into the 

bite of the etched line. It became apparent that 

in order to reinforce the sense of what was not 

present we should run a blank plate on the 

opposite page so that the spread became a 

diptych, empty and full. The text had been 

written with a series of commentaries and was

And a year ago I Jane Bustin and Andrew Renton, 2000 

Blocks Basil Beattie and Mel Gooding, 1991

set to resemble the pages of the Talmud and 

printed letterpress with the deepest impression 

we could make. Thus closed the book showed 

only blank, white paper with the merest trace of 

words, like braille - the after evidence of the 

book's contents. 

Working collaboratively it is always the case that 

what you intend to make is altered in the 

process of making it. Our most recent 

publication involved the work of Julia Farrer 

and the American writer Judith Thurman. 

Farrer is an immensely dexterous artist who 

works across many media and has made books 

consistently over the last twenty years. 

Her ideas for this book were already developed 

and ambitious, exploring a structure which 

involved etched and cut out sections, so that 

the book would stand, opened out like a 

leperello, with different views of, and through 

the pages. Initial discussions between the writer 

and artist had centred around a work which 

would explore language, the tower-like structure 

of the book a potential allusion to the 

Tower of Babel and the idea of fragmented 

language a possible starting point to the text. 

During the initial period of collaboration a 

close friend of both died and the book became 

a dedication to Kate Griffin, widow of the poet 

Jonathan Griffin. Thurman's writing moved 

away from discussing language in any abstract 

sense and became a poem about love, a more 

intimate and lyrical text than was first 

anticipated. How it counterpoints Farrer’s 

architectonic plays of line and space is an 

interesting and unexpected thing, for it brings 

a humanistic tone to the work which might 

otherwise have been absent. The poem reflects 

a softness and music in the artist’s images and 

together the elements of language, form and 

image become, I think, a space for imaginative 

action. 

Emma Hill 

Director, Eagle Gallery / EMH Arts, London 

100 

notes 

1. Paul Valéry on Mallarmé 

2. Mel Gooding: Propositions ’Apropos the Artist’s 

Book

Correspondences a collaborative bookwork published by EMH Arts, 1999 

LO Julia Farrer and Judith Thurman 2001

PUPA 

PRESS

Artist’s Book Publishers 

Book Works 

19 Holywell Row 

London 

EC2A 4JB 

Tel: 020 7247 2203 

Fax: 020 7247 2540 

www.bookworks.org.uk 

mail@bookworks.org.uk 

Commissioning and publishing organisation for 

artists’ books and text-based projects. The most 

active artists’ publisher in the UK with many 

publications completed over the years. See the 

website for details of past and current projects 

and mail order. 

Alec Finlay / Morning Star 

Alec Finlay, Artist in Residence 

BALTIC The Centre for Contemporary Art, 

South Shore Road, Gateshead, 

NE8 3BA 

Tel: 0191 478 1810 x 237 

Fax: 0191 478 1922 

www.balticmill.com 

alecf@balticmill.com 

Alec Finlay is an artist and publisher who has 

been working as artist-in-residence at BALTIC: 

The Centre for Contemporary Art since July 

2001, producing a series of twelve books 

co-published by BALTIC and Morning Star. 

The first titles in the series include: Irish 2, 

Football Moon, Cowboy Story and Verse Chain: 

Sharing Haiku and Renga. Some of the 

forthcoming publications will be based upon 

the participative projects that Alec is running: 

Bynames (Hermit Futon), Wind Blown Cloud, 

and The Book of Questions: details of how to take 

part in these projects are at www.balticmill.com. 

Granary Books, Inc. 

307 Seventh Ave. Suite 1401 

New York, 

NY 10001 

U SA 

Tel: 0031 212-337-9979 

Fax: 0031 212-337-9774 

www.granarybooks.com 

info@granarybooks.com 

Granary Books is a publisher of artists’ books, 

poetry and the documentation thereof. We also 

103 

deal in literary and art libraries and archives of 

the sixties and seventies. Enquiries are 

welcome. Hours: by appointment only. 

Libra Press 

Nils Burwitz 

Calle Rosa 22 

Valldemossa 

Mallorca 

E 07170 

Spain 

Tel: 0034 97161 2838 

burwitz@arrakis.es 

Free lance work for artists by artist, painter, 

sculptor, printer and editor. 

Lydia Megert Editions 

23 rue de Chéroy 

75017 Paris 

France 

Tel: 0033 1 4522 1228 

lydiamegert@gmx.net 

Contact: Lydia Megert, Editor 

Publisher of editions and artists’ books since 

1973. Lydia Megert Editions also deals in 


MakingSpace Publishers 

Jonathan Ward 

Primrose Cottages 

Barton Estate 

Whippingham 

Isle of Wight 

PO32 6NS 

Tel: 01983 884246 

makingspace@btinternet.com 

Artists’ books publishing, co-ordination, design, 

printing and binding. 

Queriendo Press 

Penelope Downes 

140 Cotswold Road 

Bristol 

BS3 4NS 

Tel: 0117 963 3010 

penny@queriend.dialstart.net 

I create books in collaboration with artists from 

other disciplines and countries, we publish 

under the name of Queriendo Press.

Red Fox Press 

Cashel 

Foxford 

Co. Mayo 

Ireland 

Tel: 00353 94 57848 

www.redfoxpress.com 

info@redfoxpress.com 

Contact: Francis van Maele 

Printing and publishing of limited numbered 

and signed editions and creating of artists’ 

books. 

Redstone Press 

7a St Lawrence Terrace 

London 

W10 5SU 

www.redstonepress.co.uk 

Publishers of (amongst others) books by David 

Shrigley. 

The Old School Press 

The Old School 

The Green 

Hinton Charterhouse 

Bath 

BA2 7TJ 

Tel: 01225 723 822 

www.theoldschoolpress.com 

mao@theoldschoolpress.com 

Contact: Martyn Ould 

The Old School Press prints and publishes new 

texts in limited editions with specially 

commissioned illustrations. We use traditional 

letterpress printing techniques, metal type, fine 

papers, and hand-binding. One of our books 

can start with a text, a paper, a typeface, or a 

medium of illustration. Our aim is always to 

find a combination of text, illustration, typeface, 

papers, and binding that makes a unified 

whole. Our books are generally illustrated with 

specially commissioned work from artists 

working in a variety of media which to date 

have included watercolour, wood engraving, 

wood cuts, line drawing, pastels, digital 

photography and pochoir. Monthly e-mail 

newsletter available. 

104 

Bookshops and Galleries in the UK 



Hoxton 

London 

N1 6HB 

Tel: 020 7608 1333 


info@ bookartbookshop.com 

contact: Tanya Peixoto 

Open: 1 – 7 pm: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 

and By appointment. A huge selection of 

contemporary artists’ books for sale and a lively 

exhibition programme. 

BALTIC (Bookshop) 

The Centre for Contemporary Art 

South Shore Road 

Gateshead 

NE8 3BA 

Tel 0191 478 1810 

Fax 0191 478 1922 


email: info@balticmill.com 

Camden Arts Centre (Bookshop) 

Arkwright Road 

London 

NW3 6DG 

www.camdenartscentre.org 

e-mail info@camdenartscentre.org 

Dean Clough Galleries (Bookshop) 

Dean Clough 

Halifax 

HX3 5AX 

Tel 01422 250250 

A selection of artists’ books held, home of the 

Artists’ Books Archive at Dean Clough. 

EMH Arts / The Eagle Gallery 

159 Farringdon Road 

London 

EC1R 3AL 

Tel: 020 7833 2674 

Fax: 020 7624 6597 

email: emmahilleagle@aol.com 

Contact: Emma Hill 

Contemporary gallery dealing in and 

publishing artists’ books by represented artists. 

Open: Wednesday – Friday 11 am – 6 pm, 

Saturday 11 am – 4 pm

The Fruitmarket Gallery (Bookshop) 

45 Market Street 

Edinburgh 

EH1 1DF, 

Scotland 

Tel: 0131 225 2383, 

Fax: 0131 220 3130 

www.fruitmarket.co.uk 

Email: bookshop@fruitmarket.co.uk 

Contact: Elizabeth McLean 

Open: Monday - Saturday 11am - 6pm, 

Sunday 12 noon - 5pm 

The Fruitmarket Bookshop is an acclaimed 

contemporary culture bookshop (with approx 

3500 titles) and part of Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket 

Gallery, widely known as Scotland’s leading 

contemporary art gallery. The Gallery publishes 

artists’ books and exhibition catalogues and 

also offers a mail order and selected online 

catalogue service. 

Hardware 

First Floor 

162 Archway Road 

London 

N6 5BB 

Tel: 020 8341 6415 

Fax: 020 8348 0561 

deirdrek99@yahoo.co.uk 

Contact: Deirdre Kelly 

By appointment, wide range of artists’ books. 

Mail order service available. 

Marcus Campbell Art Books 

43 Holland Street 

London 

SE1 9JR 

Tel 020 7261 0111 

Fax 020 7261 0129 

www.marcuscampbell.co.uk 

info@marcuscampbell.co.uk 

Off-Centre Gallery 


Bristol 

BS3 4NX 

Tel/fax: 0117 987 2647 

offcentre@lineone.net 

Contact: Christine Higgott / Peter Ford 

The gallery houses an international collection 

of artists’ books including items from Eastern 

Europe, USA and Canada. These range from 

refined photogravure and small edition offset 

105 

litho to one-off hand printed books. Off-Centre 

Gallery director Peter Ford’s own books stem 

from his experimental approaches to art on 

and with paper. There is also a small selection 

of unusual books about artists’ books - from 

Russia, Poland, Australia and elsewhere. 

Off-Centre Gallery co-organised “The Book 

Garden - artists’ books from Russia, Ukraine 

and Lithuania” in 1995 (touring) and was the 

Bristol venue for A Tale of Two Cities, the CFPR/ 

NY Centre for Book Arts exhibition in 2001. 

Opening hours vary according to current 

exhibitions, so please call ahead to view books 

by appointment. 

The Permanent Bookshop 

Permanent Gallery 

20 Bedford Place 

Brighton 

BN1 2PT 

Tel/fax: 01273 710771 

www.permanentgallery.com 

Email: info@permanentgallery.com 

Managed by a small unit of ‘Borbonaise’ 

loyalists, the Permanent Bookshop (housed 

within Permanent Gallery) peddles a fine range 

of limited edition artist-made books, small-press 

publications, magazines and occasional papers. 

It carries both lean and densely-textured 

printed matter; The “choicest paper-cuts” sure 

to suit most occasions 

Walther Koenig Books 

Serpentine Gallery 

Kensington Gardens 

London 

W2 3XA 

Tel: 020 7706 4907 

Fax: 020 7705 4911 

Email: waltherkoenigbooks@hotmail.com 

Contact: Franz Koenig 

New and out of print artists’ books from pre- 

1960. artists’ books stocked are from editions of 

over 500 only. Contact the bookshop to request 

a current sales bulletin. 

William English at Roe and Moore Rare Books 

29 Museum Street 

London 

WC1A 1LH 

Tel: 020 7251 5637 

Specialist selection of artists’ books including 

publications by Bill Burns.

Contemporary Printmaking 

British Artists’ Books 

Hardware… 

Hardware 

First Floor 

162 Archway Road 

Highgate 

London 

N6 5BB UK 

t: 020 8341 6415 

f: 020 8348 0561 

a wide range of artists’ books can be 

viewed by appointment all year round 

mail order available 

www.artmetropole.com 

artists’ books 

multiples 

audio works 

video 

publications 

mail order always available 

www.artistsbooks.com

Zwemmers Art Bookshop 

Whitechapel Art Gallery 

80-82 Whitechapel High Street 

London 

E1 7QX 

Tel 020 7247 6924 

www.whitechapel.org 

International Bookshops and Galleries 

Art Metropole 

788 King Street West 

Toronto 

M5V 1N6 

Canada 

Tel: 001 416.703.4400 

Fax: 001 416.703.4404 

www.artmetropole.com 

info@artmetropole.com 

artists’ books, multiples and video media store, 

gallery, publisher and distributor. Their website 

also has good archive links, lots of information 

and a mail order service. 

Barbara Wien 

Galerie und Buchhandlung für Kunstbücher 

Linienstrasse 158 im Hof 

D 10115 

Berlin 

Germany 

Tel: 0049 30 2838 5352 

Fax: 0049 30 2838 5350 

www.barbarawien.de 

Email: info@barbarawien.de 

artists’ book gallery, press and shop. 

Bookstorming 

24 rue de Penthièvre 

75008 Paris 

France 

Tel: 0033 1 4225 15 58 

Fax: 0033 1 4225 10 72 

Email: info@bookstorming.com 

www.bookstorming.com 

contact Marc Sautereau (Director) 

Tues - Sat 1pm - 7pm 

107 

Specialist bookshop and website dealing in 

contemporary artists’ books. Visit the website 

for full listings and more information on their 

new stores opening in September 2003 at 18-20, 

rue de Perle, 75003 Paris and Fondation 

Maison Rouge, 10 bd de la Bastille, 75011 Paris. 

Telephone and Fax numbers remain the same 

for both. 

Boekie Woekie 

Berenstraat 16 

1016 GH Amsterdam 

The Netherlands 

Phone/fax: 0031 20 639 0507 

Email: boewoe@xs4all.nl 

www.boekiewoekie.com 

The bookstore and gallery are open Tuesday to 

Friday from 12 - 6 pm, Saturdays from 12 - 5 pm 

and the afternoon of the first Sunday of each 

month. An artist-run bookstore for books by 

artists in Amsterdam. 

Califia Books 

20 Hawthorne Street 

San Francisco 

CA 94105 

USA 

Tel/fax: 001 415 284 0314 

www.califiabooks.com 

Email: califia@califiabooks.com 

Distributor of Fine Press and Letterpress 

Editions and artists’ Books from over 300 small 

and individually operated presses from across 

the United States and abroad. 

DIA Center for the Arts (Bookshop) 

548 West 22nd Street 

New York 

NY 10011 

USA 

Tel: 001 212 293 5540 

Fax: 001 212 989 9356 

www.diabooks.org 

Email: bookshop@diacenter.org 

Florence Loewy - Books by Artists 

9/11 rue de Thorigny 

Paris 75003 

France 

www.florenceloewy.com 

Email: flo@florenceloewy.com 

Bookstore and exhibitions of artists’ books and 

books about artists’ books.

Grahame Galleries + Editions 

Centre for the Artist’s Book 

1 Fernberg Road 

Milton 4064 

Brisbane. Australia 

Tel: 0061 7 3369 3288 

Fax: 0061 7 3369 3021 

Email: editions@thehub.com.au 

www. grahamegalleries.com.au 

Contact: Noreen Grahame 

Opening hours: Wed - Sat 11am - 5pm 

A commercial gallery showing mostly works on 

paper and artists’ books, and houses the Centre 

for The Artist’s Book. Also organiser of the 

‘artists’ books + multiples fair.’ 

Johan Deumens 

Dr N. G. Piersonstraat 1 

NL 2104 VG 

Heemstede 


Tel/Fax: 0031 23 5282 491 

www.artistsbooks.com 

Email: deumens@artistsbooks.com 

Large selection of artists’ books and editions by 

international artists with mail order via website. 

Joshua Heller Rare Books Inc. 

P.O. Box 39114 

Washington DC 

20016 

USA 

Tel: 001 202 966 9411 

Fax: 001 202 363 5658 

Email: HellerBkDC@aol.com 

Contact: Joshua Heller 

Hours: By appointment only 

Oak Knoll Books / Oak Knoll Press 

310 Delaware Street 

New Castle 

DE 19720 

USA 

Tel: 001 302 328 7232 

Fax: 001 302 328 7274 

www.oakknoll.com 

Email:oakknoll@oakknoll.com 

Books about books, book history and the book 

arts. 

One Star Press 

16 rue Trolley de Prévaux 

75013 

108 

Paris 

France 

Tel: 0033 6 6301 2287 

www.onestarpress.com 

Email: info@onestarpress.com 

artists’ books website with mail order. 

PABA Gallery LLC 

The Foundry Building 

33 Whitney Avenue 2nd floor 

New Haven 

Connecticut 

CT 06510 

USA 

Tel: 001 203 773.3665 

www.pabagallery.com 

mail@pabagallery.com 

Open Tuesday - Saturday, call for hours 

Contact: Brian Valzania 

PABA, the PhotoArt BookArt Gallery was 

founded in 1999 with the purpose of offering 

contemporary photography and artists’ books 

including fine and small press, multiples and 

unique book works. Regular exhibitions of 

international and national artists. 

Printed Matter Inc 


New York 

NY 10011 

USA 

Tel: 001 212 925 0325 

Fax: 001 212 925 0464 

www.printedmatter.org 

Contact: Max Schumann (Manager) 

Email: mschumann@printedmatter.org 

New York’s book art book shop and distributor, 

also organise a book arts fair and mail order 

through website. 

Walther König 

Buchandlung 

Ehrenstrasse 4 

D 50672 

Köln 

Germany 

Tel. 0049 221 2059 60 

Fax 0049 221 2059 640 

www.buechermarkt.net 

Books on the arts, and artists’ books all 

featured on the website, with mail order.

Artist’s Book Centres 

Centre des Livres d’ Artistes / Pays - Paysage 

17 Rue Jules Ferry 

87500 Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche 

France 

Tel: 0033 555 757030 

Fax: 0033 555 757031 

www.irisnet.fr/pp 

Centre for artists’ books with archive and 

exhibition programme. 

Centre for Artist’s Books 

Visual Research Centre 

Dundee Contemporary Arts 

152 Nethergate 

Dundee 

DD1 4DY 

Tel: 01382 348060 

www.dca.org.uk 

Email: j.a.cumberlidge@dundee.ac.uk 

Contact: Jane Cumberlidge 

Center for Book Arts 

28 West 27th Street 

NY 10001 

New York 

USA 

Tel: 001 212 481 0295 

Fax: 001 212 481 9853 

www.centerforbookarts.org 

Founded in 1974, The Center for Book Arts is 

dedicated to preserving the traditional crafts of 

book-making, as well as exploring and 

encouraging contemporary interpretations of 

the book as an art object. Its work is channelled 

through five programme areas: exhibitions 

related to the arts of the book; lectures on 

topics of interest to book artists and 

craftspeople; a modest publication schedule; 

services to artists, both established and 

emerging and an extensive offering of classes. 

Each year the Center offers three terms of 

courses, workshops and seminars taught by 

experienced book artists, and providing 

hands-on training in all aspects of traditional 

and contemporary bookmaking, including 

bookbinding, letterpress printing, papermaking 

and other associated arts. 

110 

Grahame Galleries + Editions 

Centre for the Artist’s Book 


Milton 4064 


Tel: 0061 7 3369 3288 

Fax: 0061 7 3369 3021 




The Centre for the artist book is a collection 

of c.550 artists’ books and some 200 reference 

books. The gallery also has exhibitions of 

artists’ books and organises the Artists’ Books 

and Multiples Fair. 

Idaho Center for the Book 

1910 University Drive 

Boise 

Idaho 

83725 

USA 

Tel 001 208 426 1999 

www.lili.org/icb 

ttrusky@boisestate.edu 

The Hemingway Western Studies Center at 

Boise State University, in coordination with 

the Idaho State Library, was designated by the 

Library of Congress as the site for the “Idaho 

Center for the Book” in 1994. 

The purpose of the ICB is to encourage and 

promote an interest in reading, writing, 

making, disseminating, and collecting books, 

as well as preserving and publicising the 

bibliophilic heritage of Idaho. 

In addition to bookmaking workshops, displays 

and demonstrations, the ICB sponsors, juries 

and coordinates a biennial travelling artist’s 

book exhibition (Booker’s Dozen) which 

includes 14 bookworks by Idahoans. It also 

publishes books, card games and videotapes as 

well as a bi-annual newsletter, and Idaho by the 

Book, the unique format (tetratetraflexagon) 

literary heritage map. 

Works by Idaho authors and bookmakers 

Vardis Fisher, James Castle, Ernest Hemingway, 

Glenn Balch and Evelyn Amos are available 

from the ICB.

The center also sponsors a travelling exhibition 

about autistic, self-taught Idaho artist James 

Castle and sells facsimile Castle books and a 

special issue of The Journal of Artists’ Books 

devoted to Castle. 

As well, a facsimile of the first work published 

by the first press in the Pacific Northwest 

(and oldest surviving Western American press) 

‘Idaho’s Lapwai Mission Press’ is also available 

from the ICB, as is a video about the history of 

that press. ‘Lapwai’ is the Nez Perce word for 

‘place of the butterfly,’ a bit of etymology and 

entomology, which informs our logo, designed 

by Evelyn Phillips of Ketchum, Idaho. 

Minnesota Center for Book Arts 

1011 Washington Avenue South, Suite 100 

Minneapolis 

MN 55415 

USA 

Tel: 001 612 215 2520 

Fax: 001 612 215 2545 

www.mnbookarts.org 

Email: mcba@mnbookarts.org 

The Minnesota Center for Book Arts engages 

diverse artists and learners in exploring the 

vitality of book arts. Shop and Gallery opening 

hours are listed on website. 

Pyramid Atlantic 

6001 66th Avenue 

Riverdale 

MD 20737 

USA 

Tel: 001 301 459 7154 

Fax: 001 301 577 8779 

www.pyramidatlantic.org 

Email: pyratl@earthlink.net 

Visual arts centre specialising in hand 

papermaking, printmaking, and artists’ books. 

Also organise an artist’s book fair, see their 

website for more details. 

San Francisco Center for the Book 

300 De Haro Street 

San Francisco 94103 

USA 

Tel: 001 415 565 0545 

Fax: 001 415 565 0556 

111 

www.sfcb.org 

info@sfcb.org 

Contact: Steve Woodall (Artistic Director) 

The San Francisco Center for the Book is a 

non-profit organisation devoted to teaching the 

many arts and crafts that go into making books 

(mostly) by hand. The Center also has an 

ongoing exhibition programme, archived on 

the website. 

Visual Studies Workshop 

31 Prince Street 

Rochester 

NY 14607 

USA 

Tel: 001 585 442 8676 

www.vsw.org 

info@vsw.org 

The Visual Studies Workshop is an 

internationally recognised centre for media 

studies: photography, visual books, film, video, 

digital imaging. Located in two historic 

buildings, comprising 44,000 feet of space in 

Rochester’s museum and cultural district, VSW 

serves visual artists and the general public with 

diversified programming in education and 

exhibitions. Its publications include Afterimage, 

the journal of media arts and cultural criticism, 

and artists’ books from VSW Press. Residencies, 

access programmes, and internships make the 

facilities available for the production of 

artworks and for scholarly research in VSW’s 

extensive archives and library which includes 

an extensive artists’ book collection. 

Educational programmes include an MFA 

programme in Visual Studies in association with 

SUNY College at Brockport, and evening and 

weekend workshops throughout the school 

year. More information at www.vsw.org or 

info@vsw.org

• A touring exhibition and 

resource available to 

galleries, libraries and 

educational institutions 

• A unique collection of 

contemporary artists’ 

books, catalogues and 

documentation 

• Fully indexed with artist, 

imprint, production details 

and commentary 

For further information 

regarding ARCHIVE, the 

Contemporary Artist’s Book 

Fair and other related events 

email: book.fair@ntlworld.com 

or visit 

www.contemporaryartistsbooks.com 

DEEAN CLLOOUGH 

ARCHIVE is curated by 

Chris Taylor & John McDowall 

ARCHIVE photo:Chris Taylor © 2003 

ARCHIVE 

www.lili.org/icb

Book Arts Collections / Archives UK and Eire 

The Bristol Art Library 

10 Maycliffe Park 

Bristol 

BS6 5JH 

email headlibrarian@tantraweb.co.uk 

The Bristol Art Library is a fully functioning 

public library housed in a wooden cabinet the 

size of a small suitcase. Annabel Other, the 

artist, created the library in 1998 and is the 

Head Librarian. The library’s volumes cover a 

wide range of subjects, from palaeontology to 

astronomy, with 170books (all 5 in x 4 in) made 

by artists and practitioners from all areas of the 

arts and sciences. 

Membership of Bristol Art Library is free, and 

once you have joined and received your manilla 

reader’s ticket you may visit the library and 

peruse its volumes anywhere in the world. The 

library now has 4,500 members, a giftshop and 

a friends’ organisation FOTBAL (Friends of 

The Bristol Art Library). The Bristol Art 

Library tours regularly and has appeared at 

venues ranging from galleries and museums to 

hairdressing salons and the seaside. 

British Library 

96 Euston Road 

London 

NW1 2DB 

Tel: 020 7412 7000 

Email: reader-services-enquiries@bl.uk 

Website: www.bl.uk 

Contact name: Dr Stephen Bury 

Approximate number of books held: 5000 

Public Access: By Reader’s Ticket 

Opening Hours: Monday 10 am – 8 pm, 

Tuesday – Thursday 9.30 am – 8 pm, 

Friday and Saturday 9.30 am – 5 pm 

Reference Collection 

Catalogue Details: see www.bl.uk 

UK National Library, receiving legal deposit 

copies. 

Centre for Artists’ Books 

Visual Research Centre 

Dundee Contemporary Arts 

152 Nethergate 

Dundee 

DD1 4DY 

113 

Tel: 01382 348060 

www.dca.org.uk 

Email: j.a.cumberlidge@dundee.ac.uk 

Contact: Jane Cumberlidge 

Opening hours: Closed Mondays, 

Tuesdays By arrangement, Wednesday - Friday 

10.30 am - 5.30 pm, Saturday and Sunday 

12.30 pm - 5.30 pm (during projects) 

The Centre for Artists’ Books has established 

an archive, which includes work by young 

Scottish artists such as David Shrigley, 

Jacquie Donnachie and Graham Fagen. 

The CAB archive includes an almost complete 

collection of books by Weproductions, a large 

collection of Pavel Buchler’s publications and a 

comprehensive collection of prints and books 

by Ian Hamilton Finlay, bequeathed by the 

National Art Collections Fund in 2001. If you 

would like a tour of VRC ‘behind the scenes’, 

including the publishing and product design 

facilities, information about projects, the 

Centre for Artists’ Books, or would like more 

general information, please contact Jane 

Cumberlidge. 

Chelsea College of Art & Design 

Library 

Chelsea College of Art & Design 

Manresa Road 

London 

SW3 6LS 

Tel: 020 7514 7773 

Website: www.linst.ac.uk/library 

Contact: Liz Lawes / Liz Ward 

Approximate number of books held: 2,500 

Public Access: Yes, by appointment 

Opening Hours in term time: see website. 

Vacation Opening Hours: Restricted, by 

appointment only. 


Catalogue Details: www.linst.ac.uk/library for 

the Chelsea OPAC (Online Public Access 

Catalogue) artists’ books are identified by the 

shelfmark ARTIST’S BOOK. 

Artists’ books: the book as a work of art 1963-1995 

by Dr Stephen Bury, (Scolar Press, 1995) also 

documents much of the collection. 

Summary of Collection: The collection was 

started in the early 1970s to document work 

produced by contemporary avant-garde artists; 

it is strong on Fluxus, American conceptual 

works, British artists and current and ex- 

Chelsea staff and students.

Glasgow School of Art 

Library 

Glasgow School of Art, 

167 Renfrew Street 

Glasgow 

G3 6RQ 

Tel: 0141 353 4551 

Email: g.rawson@gsa.ac.uk 

Website: gsa.ac.uk/library 

Contact name: George Rawson 


Public Access: Yes 

Opening Hours in term time: 

Monday - Friday 11-12 am 

Vacation Opening Hours: 

Access by appointment 


Catalogue Details: 

On line catalogue gsa.ac.uk/library 

Specialising in the works of Ian Hamilton 

Finlay and Coracle Press 

International Sound and Visual Poetry Archive 

11 Dale Close 

Thames Street 

Oxford 

OX1 1TU 

Tel: 01865 727529 

Email: paula.claire@talk21.com 

Contact name: Paula Claire 


A private collection of Sound and Visual Poetry, 

Artists’ Books, Book Works built from an 

international exchange of works. Workshops, 

exhibitions and lectures / performances 

utilising this archive by appointment. 

London Institute Collections including London 

College of Printing see www.bookhad.ac.uk the 

search engine for any artist’s book in the 

member collections or www.linst.ac.uk. 

Manchester Metropolitan University Library 

Book Design Collection / Artists’ Books Collection 

All Saints 

Manchester 

M15 6BH 

Tel: 0161 247 6107 

www.mmu.ac.uk/services/library/ 

Email: artdesign-lib-enq@mmu.ac.uk 

114 

Contact: Gaye Smith, Daniel Pounds, Jacky Holt 


Public Access: By Appointment 


Catalogue: To purchase a catalogue please 

contact the Book Design Library on the third 

floor of All Saints Library (0161 247 6107) or 

email artdesign-lib-enq@mmu.ac.uk. 

Opening hours Year round: Monday - Friday 

10 am – 4 pm (excluding bank holidays) 

The Artists’ Books Collection, currently about 

1300 items, forms an important part of the 

Book Design Collection and can be browsed in 

a separate sequence. Twentieth Century artists’ 

books, (book or book-like objects in which an 

artist has a creative input beyond authorship or 

illustration) are important for disseminating 

the ideas of artists and for demonstrating the 

structure of a book used as an artistic medium. 

Works range from the conceptual works and 

multiples of artists such Dieter Roth, Ed Ruscha 

and Sol Le Witt to the concrete poem cards of 

Ian Hamilton Finlay or the experimental, 

hand-printed livres d’artiste of Ken Campbell. 

The scope of the collection is from the late 

1960s to the present day with a strong bias 

towards British artists. The library regularly 

features exhibitions from this collection. A 

catalogue Artists’ Books: a catalogue of the collection 

by Gaye Smith, 1993 (£4) can be purchased 

from the Book Design Enquiry Desk (see 

Catalogue details for more info). 

National Art Library: Book Art Collection 

Victoria and Albert Museum 

South Kensington 

London 

SW7 2RL 

Tel: 020 7942 2400 

Website: www.nal.vam.ac.uk 

Email: nal.enquiries@vam.ac.uk 

Contact: Andrew Russell, Special Collections. 

Approx. no of books held: 5000 


Opening Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 

10 am – 5 pm (not Bank Holiday weekends) 


Catalogue Details: http://ipac.nal.vam.ac.uk 

A major reference library and the Victoria and 

Albert Museum’s curatorial department for the 

art, craft and design of the book.

Norwich School of Art and Design Artists Books 

Collection 

Library, Norwich School of Art and Design 

St Georges Street 

Norwich 

NR3 1BB 

Tel: 01603 610561 

Email: t.giles@nsad.ac.uk 

Website : see above 

Contact name: Timothy Giles 

Approximate number of books held: 400 items 

Public Access: No 

Opening Hours in term time : 9.15 am – 5 pm 

Vacation Opening Hours: contact library 


Catalogue Details: On line catalogue at 

http://aleph.lib.uea.ac.uk 

(see link for NSAD Library) 

Small Studio resource of contemporary artists’ 

books (from 1990 to present). Lower price 

range, with an emphasis on European and US 

works. Adding approx 50 items per annum. 

Royal College of Art Artist’s Book Collection 

Royal College of Art Library 

Kensington Gore 

London 

SW7 2EU 

Tel: 020 7590 4219 

Email: darlene.maxwell@rca.ac.uk 

Website: www.rca.ac.uk 

Contact name: Darlene Maxwell 


Public Access: No 


Monday - Friday 2-30 pm - 4.30 pm 

Vacation Opening Hours: By Appointment. 


Catalogue Details: Paper (some online) 

Includes items from RCA students and well 

known British and international artists. 

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art 

Special Books Collection 

Dean Gallery 

Belford Road 

Edinburgh 

EH4 3DS 

Tel: 0131 624 6252 

Fax: 0131 623 7126 

www.nationalgalleries.org 

115 

Email: gmaarchives@nationalgalleries.org 

Approx. no of books held: 4500 

Open to the public, by appointment 

Opening Hours: Monday to Friday 

10 am – 1 pm and 2 pm – 4.30 pm 

Catalogue details: 

OPAC available in the Reading Room 

Reference collection, see the essay by Ann 

Simpson in this issue for more information. 

Tate Library 

Tate Britain, Millbank 

London 

SW1P 4RG 

Tel: 020 7887 8838 

Fax: 020 7887 8902 

Email: research.centre@tate.org.uk 

Contact name: Hyman Kreitman, Research 

Library Enquiry Desk. 


Public Access: By appointment 

Opening Hours: Monday – Wednesday 

11 am – 5pm 

Reference / Closed access collection; it may be 

necessary to make an initial appointment to 

study the catalogue and make requests. All visits 

are by appointment. 

University of Brighton Artists’ Books Collection 

St Peter’s House Library 

16-18 Richmond Place 

Brighton 

BN2 9NA 

Tel: 01273 643220 or 643221 

Email: AskSPH@brighton.ac.uk 

Website: http://library.bton.ac.uk/ 

Contact name: Alison Minns / Monica Brewis 




Monday -Thursday 9 am – 8 pm 

Friday 9 am –6 pm; Saturday 1 pm – 4 pm 


Monday – Friday 9 am – 5 pm 


Catalogue Details: http://library.bton.ac.uk/ 

The University has also produced a holdings list 

of a small selection of their artists books in: 

A guide to the Special Collection at St Peter’s House.

University of Gloucestershire Artist’s Book Collection 

Pittville Learning Centre 

University of Gloucestershire, Pittville Campus 

Albert Road 

Cheltenham 

Gloucestershire 

GL52 3JG 

Tel: 01242 532254 

Website: http://www.glos.ac.uk 

Email: dthompson@glos.ac.uk 

Contact name: David Thompson 


Public Access by appointment 


By appointment within Learning Centre Hours 

Monday -Friday 9 am – 9 pm 


Monday -Friday 9 am – 5 pm 


Catalogue Details: all holdings listed on WebCat 

on-line catalogue http://webcat.glos.ac.uk 

The Collection has been developed to support 

Artist’s Books and Printmaking modules of the 

Fine Art Course. 

University of Plymouth, Exeter 

Library, Earl Richards Road North 

Exeter 

EX2 6AS 

Tel: 01392 475060 

Fax: 01392 475053 

Website: www.plymouth.ac.uk 

Email: Vicki.Maguire@plymouth.ac.uk 

Contact name: Vicki Maguire (Senior subject 

librarian, Exeter) 



Opening Hours: see website for details 


Catalogue Details: telnet:lib.plym.ac.uk 


Library 

UWE Faculty of Art, Media and Design 


Bristol 

BS3 2JT 

Tel: 0117 32 84757 

Website: www.uwe.ac.uk/library 

Email: Sarah.Clifford@uwe.ac.uk 

Contact name: Sarah Clifford 

116 



Opening Hours: Monday – Friday 9 am – 5 pm 


A collection built upon from the 1970’s with 

contemporary artists’ books added over the last 

two years onwards. A monthly exhibition 

programme of invited artists runs in the study 

area, please see the website for details of 

current and archived artists’ books events in 

the library at: 

www.uwe.ac.uk/amd/cfpr/exhibit.htm 

University of Westminster, Harrow Learning 

Resources Centre 

Watford Road 

Harrow 

Middlesex 

HA1 3TP 

Tel: 020 7911 5885 

Email: bannards@wmin.ac.uk 

Website: http://www.wmin.ac.uk/harlib 

Contact name: Sally Bannard 




Monday -Thursday 8.30 am – 9 pm 

Friday 9.30 am –7 pm, Sat/Sun 10 am –5 pm 





http://owl.wmin.ac.uk/ALEPH 

Modest collection, purchased inexpensively. 

Wexford Artist’s Book Collection 

Wexford Arts Centre 

Cornmarket 

Wexford 

Ireland 

Tel: 00353 53 23764 

Fax: 00353 53 24544 

www.wexfordartscentre.ie 

wexfordartscentre@eircom.net 

Contact: Andi Mc Garry and Denis Collins 

A growing collection, built upon annually with 

purchases form the Wexford Artists’ Book 

exhibition. The collection has been assembled 

as a resource to promote artist’s books in 

education and to be used for special artists’ 

books exhibitions.

Wimbledon School of Art Library 

Merton Hall Road 

London 

SW19 3QA 

Tel: 020 8408 5027 

Email: hdavies@wimbledon.ac.uk 

www.wimbledon.ac.uk/school/resources.html 

Contact name: Helen Davies 


Public Access: Yes for reference only, by 

permission of the Head of Learning Resources 


Monday – Thursday 10 am - 8.30 pm 

Friday 10 am - 7.30 pm 

Vacation Opening Hours: usually 10 am - 5 pm, 

(with 2 weeks closed in August, but hours can 

vary) 



www.wimbledon.ac.uk/school/resources.html 

Winchester School of Art Library 

Park Avenue 

Winchester 

SO23 8DL 

Tel: 02380 596986 

Website: www.library.soton.ac.uk 

Email: wsaenqs@soton.ac.uk 

Contact name: Catherine Polley 





Saturday 10 am – 4 pm 

Vacation opening hours: 



Catalogue: online at www-lib.soton.ac.uk 

The Winchester School of Art Library is a 

specialist art and design library within the 

University of Southampton. Specialisms within 

the collection include, the complete Liver and 

Lights series by John Bently. 

International Archives and Collections 

Artistbookarchive.com 

The collective result of a number of individual 

collectors who wish to remain anonymous. The 

117 

collection is presented here for the pleasure 

and profit of book collectors and researchers. 

Artistbookarchive.com started collecting books 

in 1999. The books in the collection may be 

lent to individuals or institutions for 

exhibitions. Contact them for information. 

www.artistbookarchive.com 

Booklyn Artists Books Study Collection/Archive 

37 Greenpoint Avenue 

4th Floor 

Brooklyn 

NY 11222 

New York 

USA 

Tel: 001 718-383-9621 

www.booklyn.org 

Email: mweber@booklyn.org 

Contact: Marshall Weber 

Approx. number of books held: 700 


Opening hours: Archive and library research 

are by arrangement between Monday – Friday 

10 am – 5 pm 

Reference collection, but some lending for 

institutional research or exhibitions. 

On-line catalogue in production, complete by 

2005, paper catalogue available on request by 

2005. Booklyn has a wide spectrum of 

contemporary book arts by living artists 

including, fine collage books, collaborative 

projects, fine letter press, independent press, 

multi-media books, photographic books, 

unique books, and ’zines. 

Franklin Furnace / MOMA Artist’s Book Collection 

Franklin Furnace Artist’s Book Collection at 

Museum of Modern Art 

11 West 53rd Street 

NY 10019 

New York 

USA 

The Franklin Furnace Artists’ Books Archive 

was acquired by MOMA in 1993 and forms part 

of the Museum of Modern Art’s Artist’s Book 

Collection. Franklin Furnace has an 

informative website with links to the MOMA 

“Dadabase” of Artists’ Books in their collection. 

The website also includes a catalogue of 

Franklin Furnace publications since 1977. 

Franklin Furnace Archives include (amongst

many others) works by Jenny Holzer, Yoko Ono, 

Laurie Anderson, Ed Ruscha, Lawrence Weiner, 

Barbara Kruger and Lucy Lippard. The website 

has extensive information and historical texts 

www.franklinfurnace.org, follow the links to 

access the MOMA “Dadabase.” 

MOMA is undergoing refurbishment until 2005 

and is temporarily located at: 

33 Street at Queens Blvd. 

Long Island City, Queens 

Tel: 001 212 7089400 

www.moma.org 

info@moma.org 

Franklin Furnace continues to; document the 

‘avant-garde,’ show virtual and digital works on 

their website and promote performance art. 

Franklin Furnace Archive Inc 

45 John Street ≠ 611 

NY 10038 

New York 

USA 

www.franklinfurnace.org 

mail@franklinfurnace.org 

Grahame Galleries: Centre for the Artist’s Book 


Milton 4064 


Tel: 0061 7 3369 3288 

Fax: 0061 7 3369 3021 


www.grahamegalleries.com.au 



Opening hours: 

Wednesday – Saturday 11 am – 5 pm 

The Centre for the Artist’s Book is a collection 

of c. 550 artists’ books and some 200 reference 

books. 

Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection 

John M Flaxman Library 

School of the Art Institute of Chicago 

37 South Wabash 

Chicago 

Il 60603 

USA 

Tel: 001 312 899 5098 

Website: www.artic.edu/saic/art/flasch/ 

118 

Email: aboehme@artic.edu 

Contact name: Doro Boehme 




8:30 am to 7:30 pm 

Vacation Opening Hours: 10 am to 4 am 

Reference or Lending Collection: Reference 


Catalogue only available in the book room. 

In addition to a wide variety of artists’ books we 

also collect multiples, artists’ ’zines, mail and 

stamp art and any ephemera surrounding the 

production of artists’ books. Various dealers’ 

archives of professional papers and 

correspondence as well as an extensive 

collection of artists’ and publishers’ files, 

exhibition catalogues that are addressing this 

field and a growing number of examples of 

web/net art complement these holdings. 

Public access is as unencumbered as possible. 

Meermanno-Westreenianum - Museum van het Boek 

Prinsessegracht 30 

1514 AP Den Haag 


Tel: 0031 70 3462700 

Website: www.meermanno.nl 

Email: bibliotheek@meermanno.nl 

Contact name: Drs. Rickey Tax 

Number of books (approx): 

artists’ books: 1,000 

modern fine print collection: 30,000 

Public access: Yes 

Opening hours (library): 

Tuesday - Thursday 1 pm – 4.45 pm 

Friday 9 am -12:30 pm and 1 pm – 4.45 pm 

The museum, opened to the public in 1852, 

has since developed into the national museum 

of the history and the art of the book. 

It consists of twosections, the collection Van 

Westreenen and the collection of the Museum 

van het Boek (established in 1960). A research 

library provides secondary literature reflecting 

these interests, including books on the history 

of the book and the book-trade, private presses, 

book production, history of script and 

calligraphy, early typography, graphic design, 

paper, book design and bindings. 

Special collections include; Van Westreenen 

Collection: 340 (illuminated) manuscripts, 

1,500 incunabula, and early imprints, often in

costly bindings; Jhr dr R.M. Radermacher 

Schorer Collection (bibliophile editions) 

Editions printed by and literature on private 

presses, Artists’ books and Ex-libris. 

Reinhard Gruener: Artist’s Book Collection 

Postfach 1302 

D 82243 

Fuerstenfeldbruck 

Germany 

Tel: 0049 89 15912 102 

Email: r.gruener@buchkunst.info 

A private collection of Modern Avant-Garde 

artists’ books with the main focus on East - 

German and Russian Artists. Exhibitions can be 

curated, and contacts with Museums and artists 

are welcome. Contact Reinhard Gruener for 

more information. 

Scuola Internazionale di Grafica 

Cannaregio s. Marcuola 

Calle Seconda del Cristo 

1798 Venice 

Italy 

Tel: 0039 41 721 950 

www.scuolagrafica.it 

Email: info@scuolagrafica.it 

Contact Names: Lorenzo de Castro (Director) 

Carrie Galbraith (Fellow) 

Approx. number of books held: 200 

Public Access: By Appointment 

Opening Hours Term Time only: 

Monday – Friday 9 am – 1 pm and 2 pm – 6 pm 



Paper catalogue to be published in 2004. 

International school, nearly all of the books in 

the collection were created at the Scuola 

Internazionale di Grafica by students, residents 

and visiting artists. The collection will be 

travelling to the USA in 2004 for several 

exhibitions. 

Visual Studies Workshop Research Archive 


Rochester 

NY 14607 

USA 

Tel: 001 585 442 8676 

www.vsw.org 

119 

library@vsw.org 

An extensive collection and archive of artists’ 

books and related disciplines from the early 

1970’s onwards. See the essay overleaf for more 

information on the collection. 

Yale Center for British Art: Department of Rare 

Books and Manuscripts 

1080 Chapel Street 

P.O. Box 208280 

New Haven 

Connecticut CT 06520 

USA 

Tel 001 203 432 2814 

Fax: 001 203 432 9613 

Website: www.yale.edu/ycba 

Email: Elisabeth.fairman@yale.edu 

Contact name: Elisabeth Fairman, Curator of 

Rare Books and Manuscripts 

Approx. number of books held: 

1000 (plus archival material) 


Opening Hours: 

Tuesday – Friday 10 am – 4.30 pm 


Catalogue Details: Paper catalogue and online 

at orbis.library.yale.edu 

The Yale Center for British Art, both a public 

museum and research institute, houses the 

most comprehensive collection of British 

paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints and rare 

books outside Great Britain. Given to Yale by 

the late Paul Mellon, the collection contains 

masterpieces by the leading artists who worked 

in Britain from the sixteenth century to the 

present. The Center’s Department of Rare 

Books and Manuscripts houses c. 30,000 

volumes, including a growing collection of 

contemporary British Artists’ Books.

The Visual Studies Workshop in Prince Street, Rochester, New York 

VSW Library and Research Center

Visual Studies Workshop Press and Archive, USA 

Sarah Bodman 

The Visual Studies Workshop Press is part of 

the Visual Studies Workshop, based in 

Rochester, New York State, USA. The press has 

a long history of artist’s book production by 

students, residents and visiting artists and has 

built up a huge collection resource for the 

preservation and study of artists’ books. The 

press is part of the wider sphere of VSW, which 

investigates both the practice, and historical 

study of computer media, artists’ books, film 

and photography. VSW also runs an 

educational programme through State 

University New York, summer schools, 

workshops, internships and film and exhibition 

programmes in the galleries. Afterimage, the 

bimonthly journal of media arts and cultural 

criticism, edited by Bruno Chalfour, is also 

based and published at VSW. 

The Visual Studies Workshop was originally 

instigated by Nathan Lyons in 1969 and began 

the first part of its long history in a loft space 

on Elton St in Rochester, as an artist’s space 

and MFA programme with 30 students. The 

main focus of the workshop was (and still is) 

film, photography, artists’ books and print. 

Joan Lyons developed the press element of 

VSW, with the first piece of machinery being an 

old proof press and cases of metal type 

obtained from a newspaper printer in the area. 

With her experience of printmaking, graphic 

design and book making from her earlier years 

spent working as a graphic designer in New 

York city, Joan Lyons has had plenty of 

opportunities to use all of this expertise in her 

on-going role as the press director. She is also 

well known for editing and publishing the 

informative Artists’ Books: A Critical Anthology 

and Sourcebook, which has been updated and 

reprinted three times since its original 

publication. 

Many of the early workshop students were 

interested in printmaking techniques and the 

book arts and by 1971 several students had 

made letterpress books, which led to VSW 

acquiring an offset press in 1972. Over the next 

year the printing of books, prints, posters and 

121 

artwork increased, with the press regularly 

producing books for student’s group exhibitions 

and, an important step in 1972 saw the 

first book produced by the press with outside 

artists Videofreex (Cooperstown TV is a Museum 

Videofreex, Mediabus Inc. in an edition of 1,000 

copies). The press element of VSW was 

beginning to grow and the next few years saw 

the onset of many collaborative projects with 

visiting artists, establishing the press as an 

important publisher of artists’ books. In 1973, 

with the press in full swing, a foundation grant 

helped with the purchase of a new offset press, 

copy camera, darkroom equipment and a plate 

maker to expand the facility. 

In the same year, Keith Smith, John Wood, 

Sonia Sheridan and A. D. Coleman were invited 

to the press for two weeks and produced 10 

artists’ books between them including; Sonia 

Sheridan and Keith Smith Unfolding Vol. 1 and 

Unfolding Vol. 2, Sonia Sheridan Time Plane, 

A. D. Coleman Carbon Copy 6/25-6/29 and John 

Wood’s A Ten Page Note. More artists’ books 

followed in 1974 and the production of three 

handbooks, much-valued reprints of early 

photographic process books: Ernst Lietze’s 

Modern Heliographic Processes, Herbert 

Dennison’s A Treatise on Photogravure and 

A. T. Story’s The Story of Photography. 

By the end of 1974 the VSW Press was busily 

producing artists’ titles, a research series and 

editions of students work. VSW Press also 

printed many editions of poetry for small 

publishers which provided a means of income 

for the press; prospective writers, poets and 

publishers would bring their texts, with Joan 

Lyons providing a free design and layout 

service and the press then charging only for the 

printing. This not only brought in funds for the 

workshop but also helped small press 

publishers to produce editions they might not 

otherwise have been able to afford. With the 

exception of a small amount of grant support, 

the press became more or less self-supporting 

and in 1976, a Heidelberg press was purchased 

with a grant from the visual arts programme of 

NYSCA, and was subsequently used to print 

over 400 books. 

In the late 1970’s VSW as a whole moved to 

their present location; a large stone mansion

and gallery / workshops in Prince Street, 

Rochester. The huge presses moved with them 

but, with the development of newer printing 

technology over the last thirty years, the letterpress 

eventually gave way to processes such as 

DocuText, and more recently, digital output. 

With the changes in pre-press work and output, 

most artists’ books published by VSW now use 

mainly computers and inkjet printers, with 

large scale or offset litho editions being printed 

off the premises. As with nearly all print and 

book arts workshops, the old letterpress has 

made way for a new set up of computers and 

printers. There are still some traditional aspects 

of book making and binding available within 

the studios, although the press is now veering 

more towards small editions and pre-press 

production for their artist’s book publishing 

programme. After 34 years the press still 

pursues an active publishing output, which is 

documented on their website and VSW 

continues to run a successful artists-in-residence 

book arts programme which has been ongoing 

since the early 1970’s. The book arts residency 

production programme involves publishing of 

books in editions of up to 200 on site, with 

facilities for hand binding available. 

As part of their artist’s book publishing history, 

VSW press established their Research Centre 

and collection as their own press grew; 

including a Research Library of 20,000 books 

concentrating on the areas of photography, 

filmmaking, video, bookmaking, media studies, 

and the cultural practices of image making. 

The Research Centre’s Independent Press Archive 

has a vast collection of over 5,000 artists’ books 

from the 1970’s onwards with a substantial part 

of the artists’ books collection amassed from 

books either made at VSW as part of the 

Workshop’s residency and publishing 

programme (since 1970), or through the VSW 

sponsored publishing of books by local and 

visiting artists. Through these programmes, 

pre-press and publishing sponsorships VSW 

have helped to publish and collect a diverse 

range of books by artists including: 

Douglas Holleley (Far Fetched, 1976) Paul 

Zelevansky (The Case For The Burial of Ancestors, 

Book I, 1980) Mimi Smith (This Is A Test, 1982) 

Douglas Heubler (Crocodile Tears, 1984) Philip 

122 

Zimmerman (Civil Defense, 1984) Erica van 

Horn (Black Dog White Bark, 1986) Ulises 

Carrión (For Fans and Scholars Alike, 1987) 

Helen Douglas and Telfer Stokes (Real Fiction 

1987) Buzz Spector (The Position of the Author, 

1992) Babette Katz (My Flag, 1995) Scott 

McCarney (Far Horizons, 1997) and Judy Gelles 

(Florida Family Portrait, 2002). 

I was fortunate enough to experience the 

Research Centre archives at first hand in 

Nov/Dec 2002 when I was given a sponsored 

residency at VSW to print one of my own 

artists’ books. On completion of my book in the 

studios I was determined to spend as much 

time in the Research Centre archives as 

possible as it was such a treat to be able to 

handle so many examples of artists’ books. The 

books are cross-catalogued by publisher, title 

and artist, so they were easy to locate within the 

labyrinth of archival boxes on the shelves. 

The archival boxes full of artists’ books at VSW 

The VSW collection also includes countless 

artists’ books by individuals such as Barbara 

Kruger, Richard Olsen, Sol Lewitt and a large 

collection of the work of Ed Ruscha from the 

late 1960’s and early 70’s. Although the collection 

is well catalogued, I did find some work by 

happy accident when looking for the work of 

another artist in the box files, for example Jim

Pomeroy’s Stereo Views / Ver Multidimensionales 

made in 1988, a boxed, manipulated View 

Master, with a set of 21 3-D images and an 

offset printed book published at Syracuse. 

Stereo Views / Ver Multidimensionales Jim Pomeroy, 1988 

The archive contains many artists’ books by 

Keith Smith who is based in Rochester, 

including some of his earlier works Overcast 

(Book 112) 1986; Lexington Nocturne April 19 

(with Jonathan Williams) 1983 and Swimmer 

(Book 114) 1986 as well as his bookbinding and 

book art publications (which are all listed at 

www.keithsmithbooks.com). 

Artists’ Books by Keith Smith, clockwise from top left: 

Overcast (Book 112) 1986, Lexington Nocturne April 19 (with 

Jonathan Williams) 1983 and Swimmer (Book 114) 1986 

Also well represented in the collection are 

many of the recognisable artist’s book 

publishers in the USA (see page 62); Nexus 

(with works by Steven L. Steinman, Clifton 

Meador and Scott McCarney), the Museum of 

Modern Art New York (including works by 

Telfer Stokes, Ted Greenwald / Richard 

Bosman, A. R. Penck and Jörg Immendorff) 

and Hallwalls Press (Jenny Holzer and Peter 

Nadin’s Eating Friends and Laurie Anderson’s 

Words in Reverse). Printed Matter Publications 

represented in the collection include works by 

Nancy Holt (Ransacked), Douglas Huebler and 

Kathy Acker (The Adult Life of Toulouse Lautrec) 

and there is also a good selection of works from 

123 

Philip Zimmerman’s Space Heater Multiples in 

Rochester, including books by Willyum Rowe 

(Sure as Death) Philip Zimmerman / Tim Ahern 

(The Rusty Plate) and Keith Smith. 

In Case of Emergency Scott McCarney 

The time I spent at the Research Centre 

allowed for a pleasurable delve into a large and 

valuable collection; with such a vast amount of 

books, it would take a long time to fully explore 

the whole archive. The luxury of looking at and 

having time to study so many examples of work 

for my own curiosity was an added bonus to 

being at VSW. The archives and study centre 

including: media arts, photography, 

independent film and video, electronic 

imaging, visual books and the publications arts 

are open to the public by appointment. For 

more information see the website link or email 

library@vsw.org. Artists’ books still form a 

significant part of the Visual Studies Workshop; 

as well as the collection and study centre, the 

ongoing artists’ books publishing and residency 

programme there is The Collector’s Gallery 

and Bookstore which sells artists’ books and 

reference books produced at the Press. 

The MFA education programme runs in the 

VSW studios giving students and residents the 

opportunity to interact (during my time there 

I really enjoyed meeting the students who were 

busy making some very nice editions for a book 

arts project in the studios). 

Residencies usually last up to four weeks and 

artists are given free access to the studios on a 

24-hour basis. Full details of the programme 

and how to apply can be found on their website 

alongside information on exhibitions, and 

current and archived VSW Press publications at 

www.vsw.org, or email artists@vsw.org.

Words in Reverse Laurie Anderson, 

Hallwalls Press, 1979 

Two examples of artists’ books produced at VSW Press: 

Perspectives III Joan Lyons, 1976 (open and closed) 

Crocodile Tears Douglas Huebler, printed at VSW in an editon of 

2,500 in 1985 (open and closed) 

Artists’ Books by Ed Ruscha, clockwise from middle left: 

Nine Swimming Pools and a Broken Glass, 1968 (closed and open), 

Various Small Fires and Milk, 1970, Twentysix Gasoline Stations, 1969, 

Some Los Angeles Apartments 1965, Every Building on the Sunset Strip, 1966 

and Thirtyfour Parking Lots in Los Angeles, 1967 

Examples of Museum of Modern Art (New York) publications in the artists’ books archive at VSW, 

from top left: Young Masters and Misses Telfer Stokes, MOMA, 1984, Exit the Face Richard Bosman and 

Ted Greenwald, MOMA, 1982, Brandenberg Gate Jörg Immendorff and A. R. Penck, MOMA, 1982, 

Conversations with Nature Bryan Hunt, MOMA, 1982 and Book of Nine Gary Stephan, MOMA, 1983 

Fragments for a Body of Knowledge Shelley Hoyt, Susan King, 

Joan Lyons and Sue Ann Robinson, VSW Press, 1992

Book Arts Organisations 

Booklyn (USA) 


Brooklyn, NY 11222, New York, USA 

Tel: 001 718 383 9621 

Email: mweber@booklyn.org 

Web: www.booklyn.org 

Contact: Marshall Weber 

Booklyn is a super-cool, non-profit artist-run 

organisation that distributes, publishes, and 

produces exhibitions and runs educational 

programmes involving contemporary artists’ 

books. Booklyn includes a bookshop dealing in 

artists’ books, courses in book arts, a gallery 

centre and typeset/design studio services. 

Fine Press Book Association 

Membership Enquiries 

Janet Jackson 

Glenswinton 

Parton 

Castle Douglas 

DG7 3NL 

www.fpba.com 

jj@forge.demon.co.uk (for membership 

enquiries) 

An association dedicated to the appreciation of 

finely printed books and their production. 

Open to collectors, printers, artists etc. 

Also organise FPBA book fairs. 

Geelong Arts Alliance (Australia) 

PO Box 1229 

Geelong 

VIC 3220 

Australia 

Tel: 0061 3 5222 8300 

Email: gaa@swift.net.au 

Contact: Susan Hartigan and Glen Smith 

Not for profit cross artform membership 

organisation in regional Victoria, promoting 

collaborative actions, events and ideas and 

community cultural development. 

Letterpress Alive 

A website set up by the Alembic Press to collect 

any information about letterpress activities in 

the UK. This is to ensure the continuation of its 

125 

use, and to encourage a greater awareness of 

the subject. The website includes information 

and links on Letterpress societies, printers, 

courses and workshops, museums, exhibitions, 

book fairs, sources of help and information and 

discussion and website links. Please visit the 

website at www.letterpressalive.co.uk. 

Any suggestions for inclusion on the website 

should be emailed to David Bolton at 

AlembicPrs@aol.com. 

The Book Art Project 

Paul Johnson Director 

11 Hill Top Avenue 

Cheadel Hulme 

Cheshire 

SK8 7HN 

Tel: 0161 485 2174 

pauljohnson@bookart.co.uk 

The encouragement of writing and illustration 

in the book form by children and promoting 

books and the book arts in school education. 

Based originally at Manchester Metropolitan 

University, but now operated in the private 

sector. For details of courses and publications, 

please contact as above. 

The Society of Bookbinders 

(President: James Brockman) 

The Society of Bookbinders is dedicated to 

traditional bookbinding and to the 

preservation and conservation of the printed 

and written word. There are eight regions, each 

with its own committee, comprising a Chairman 

Treasurer, Secretary and Committee Members. 

The Society of Bookbinders is committed to the 

provision and furtherance of education in the 

field of bookbinding. Our stated aim is to, 

‘advance education for the public benefit in all 

aspects of bookbinding, in particular, but not 

exclusively by, the collection, collation, 

evaluation and organised dissemination of craft 

and technical information.’ 

The Society’s eight Regions each organise 

meetings at which lectures and/or Masterclass 

demonstrations are given. Visits to libraries, 

binderies and suppliers are also arranged. 

At the National level, a Conference, hosted by 

one of the Regions, is held every other year.

In non-Conference years, a National AGM is 

held - usually at a venue housing a book / 

binding - related attraction. We also have an 

Education & Training weekend on non- 

Conference years. This is a new initiative that 

concentrates on specific subjects and processes 

within bookbinding. 

Regions: 

Birmingham • East Anglia • London & South • 

Midlands • North East • North Wales & North 

West • Scotland • West • Overseas. 

For further information, membership details 

and related links and events, please visit the 

website: www.societyofbookbinders.com 

For National membership details contact: 

Mrs Phillipa Harvey (Secretary) 

Plaster Hill House 

Churt 

Surrey 

GU10 2QT 

or email info@societyofbookbinders.com 

The Society of Bookbinders: Western Region 

Secretary: Bindy Wollen 

St Annes 

Higher Woodfield Road 

Torquay 

TQ1 2LE 

Tel: 01802 293047 

www.societyofbookbinders.com 

Email: bindy@wollen.demon.co.uk or 

info@societyofbookbinders.com 

The Society welcomes new members whether 

they are professional, amateur bookbinders or 

just enjoy books and their bindings. 

Membership offers regional programmes of 

lectures, workshops and visits. There is a 

biennial Conference and Competition and an 

annual publication Bookbinder. Newsletters 

keep members informed of events throughout 

the year and give names and addresses of 

suppliers of materials and new and secondhand 

equipment. 

126 

Wexford Artist’s Book Exhibition 

A popular annual event including works for 

sale at Wexford Arts Centre, Ireland. Contact 

Andi Mc Garry or Denis Collins for further 

details. 

Wexford Arts Centre 

Cornmarket, Wexford 

Ireland 

Tel: 00353 53 23764 

Fax: 00353 53 24544 

www.wexfordartscentre.ie 

wexfordartscentre@eircom.net

Book Arts Websites 

www.andreweason.com artists’ books by Andrew 

Eason with useful links to other book arts sites. 

www.artistbookarchive.com an archive website 

of donated artists’ books. 

www.artistsbooks.com Johan Deumen’s site for 

sales of artists’ books with useful links and 

reference books. 

www.artgoes.com the official Artgoes website of 

their multiples, books etc. 

www.artic.edu/saic/art/flasch/exhibitcatalog.html 

the Consistency of Shadows book arts catalogue 

exhibition, full of information. Also the Joan 

Flasch Artist’s Book Collection. 

www.artmetropole.com in Toronto has a very 

good online selection of multiples, book works, 

artists’ books and reference material with links 

to other sites and archives. 

www.aspectable.com artists’ books by Niamh 

Jackman, Conor Lucey and Mermaid 

Turbulence. 

www.backspace.org/hayvend/list.html Hayvend 

multiples and artists’ details. 

www.balticmill.com see their Projects section 

for Alec Finlay’s book art projects. 

www.barbarawien.de German book arts 

bookshop and gallery. 

www.boekiewoekie.com online catalogue of 

artists’ books from Boekie Woekie, Amsterdam. 

www.bookart.co.uk The Book Art Project 

website promoting the book arts in schools. 

www.bookartbookshop.com The London based 

Bookartbookshop website, with opening hours 

exhibitions info and current information. 

www.bookarts.ua.edu for useful bookarts web 

resource links. 

www.bookartscentral.com website of book arts 

techniques and handbooks. 

128 

www.bookarts.com a book arts directory of 

makers, museums and suppliers in the USA. 

www.bookhad.ac.uk search engine for book arts 

study and research in selected institutions and 

collections, with useful links. 

www.booklyn.org Booklyn Artists Alliance, 

features their published artists’ books, 

courses and workshop programmes. 

www.bookstorming.com Paris based artists’ 

books for sale by many international artists. 

www.bookworks.org.uk Book Works website, 

lots of information on current and past artists’ 

publications, forthcoming projects with mail 

order available. 

www.buechermarkt.net Walther König book 

dealer and artist’s book publisher. 

www.califiabooks.com San Francisco based 

artists’ books and Fine Press editions. 

www.cca-kitakyushu.org Japanese international 

gallery / book art research publishing. 

www.centerforbookarts.org New York Center 

for Book Arts, exhibitions and courses. 

www.colophon.com Fine Press books, plus links 

to a number of related websites. 

www.colophon.com/umbrella/index.html 

online selections from the Umbrella book arts 

journal. 

www.dca.org follow the links for the Centre for 

Artists’ Books, Dundee. 

www.diabooks.org DIA Center’s New York 

bookstore including artists’ books. 

www.digital.library.upenn.edu/books/ 

online books. 

www.florenceloewy.com artists’ books archive 

and bookstore. 

www.fpba.com Fine Press Book Association 

membership details and information, plus some 

useful links.

www.fruitmarket.co.uk/artistsbooks.html 

details of current publications from the 

Edinburgh gallery. 

www.grahamegalleries.com.au Centre for The 

Artist’s Book, Brisbane, Australia with details of 

exhibitions and their artist’s book fairs. 

www.granarybooks.com/catalog.html full 

catalogue of their publications. 

www.hamish-fulton.com details of the artist’s 

work, including books. 

www.indeprintent.com/index.htm artists’ books 

by Ral Veroni. 

www.kuenstlerbuecher.de/messen.htm list of 

international book fairs and artist’s book fairs. 

www.library.yale.edu Yale University library’s 

collection of artists’ books. 

www.lili.org/icb Idaho Center for the Book. 

www.mpawson.demon.co.uk Mark Pawson’s 

website of multiples, disinfotainment, artists’ 

books and lots more. 

www.keithsmithbooks.com Keith Smith’s Books, 

all titles, information and mail order. 

www.mnftiu.cc David Rees’ Get Your War On 

publications and prints. 

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/strictnature/ 

Edward Summerton’s Strict Nature Reserve. 

www.onestarpress.com artists’ books and artists’ 

multiples. 

www.pabagallery.com Photo Book Art Gallery 

website, Connecticut, USA. 

www.penkiln-burn.com Bill Drummond’s 

website including How to be An Artist. 

www.philobiblon.com site for artists’ books 

information, plus links to numerous websites. 

www.printedmatter.org the major artist’s book 

store in New York has an online selection of 

artists’ books, multiples and reference books. 

129 

www.sfcb.org the San Francisco Center for the 

Book, book arts information and exhibitions. 

www.smabs.co.uk Stuart Mugridge’s artists’ 

books and useful links. 

www.slis.ua.edu/ba/bookweb.html 

MFA in Book Arts at the University of Alabama, 

with bookweb links. 

www.societyofbookbinders.com for society 

information, events, membership and links. 

www.theBenedict.net artists’ books and site 

specific works by Benedict Phillips. 

www.thecooker.com Jake Tilson and Atlas. 

http://theorangepress.com/ has a very good 

information section of museums and book arts 

stores and suppliers for New York and Paris. 

www.thingsnotworthkeeping.com details of 

TNWK’s projects and bookworks. 

www.uwe.ac.uk/amd/cfpr/exhibit.htm 

UWE, Bristol website with artists’ books events 

and exhibitions archive. 

www.vsw.org details of Visual Studies Worskhop, 

programmes, residencies and artists’ books. 

www.weproductions.com weproduction’s own 

website with details of their artists’ books and 

useful links. 

www.wexfordartscentre.ie for the annual 

Wexford Artist’s Book exhibition. 

www.wsworkshop.org Women’s Studio 

Workshop information and artists’ books 

archive. 

www.zyarts.com/zybooks UK based exhibition 

and information website, featuring various 

artists making books, artist’s book gallery, news 

and events, with useful links.

Artist’s Book Website Review 

Guy Begbie 

At the time of writing this review, Benedict 

Phillips site www.theBenedict.net is in the 

process of being completed. However as it 

stands there are some quirky pages that reveal 

an intelligent and witty approach to expanding 

one’s practice into a digital virtual structure, 

as well as providing clear information on 

conceptual projects that translate successfully 

into the web site format. 

At the opening page you can access A book for 

loozing in the street. This describes a project 

where an edition of books was produced from 

found discarded objects. These books were 

then placed (effectively lost) along a route 

defined by their origins (where they were 

found). 

Benedict Phillips is an artist, poet and curator 

based in Yorkshire, UK. The clear layout of the 

homepage is reminiscent of double page 

spreads. Scrolling down to the second one, you 

can link to Homeless Houses. Here, bag sized 

house models inhabited with people symbols 

rendered onto their surfaces, are placed in or 

around public buildings in York. This work 

seems to highlight a social dilemma and a 

relationship between the users of these 

buildings and their architectural fabric. 

Scrolling downwards, the word ‘fragile’ on a 

red banner demands attention on the next 

spread below. This sub-section of the site, 

documents aspects of an artistic endeavour, a 

collaboration between Benedict Phillips and 

Anne-Marie Culhane carried out in a Leeds 

park. The art works were produced by subtle 

interventions. These were intended to provide 

intriguing diversions for passers-by. A text intro 

gives details about the project. The viewer can 

navigate through thumbnail images to access 

documentation of specific artworks such as a 

book that draws parallels between the body and 

the park. Details of a touring exhibition of this 

work and associated educational workshops, are 

included with a summary of issues and ideas 

concerning the relationship of the public with 

130 

the park. The final curiosity of this site is the 

Benedictionary, a phonetic alternative spelling 

site with the option to type in your own text to 

‘Benedikshonise’ it, an ecclesiastical overtone 

of blessed words. 

Edward Summerton’s site Edward Summerton At 

The Strict Nature Reserve 

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/strictnature/ is an 

intriguingly lucid presentation of a body of 

work made up of disparate elements that all 

have a poetic resonance and Scottish identity. 

The site catalogues sculptural work, paintings, 

artists’books, postcard editions, installations, 

video and sound. Summerton’s site has the 

option to be concluded with an exuberant 

piece of text. This links all the individual pieces 

of work in a description of a post apocalyptic 

journey through an urban / rural environment 

in which the narrator creates a contemporary 

subcultural mythology. 

The opening page of The Strict Nature Reserve 

takes you into a space resembling the periphery 

of redundant trading estate. You click on the 

sign/hoarding and you are immediately 

confronted with a set of curious thumbnail 

images depicting Summerton’s work in a variety 

of genres. Having chosen the object option, 

I particularly liked the cloven Dear Shoes and the 

Hollow Log vinyl Bag that is carried by the Fly 

Bastard in the narrators account. The enlarged 

versions of the thumbnails include the titles 

and media used to make the works. The Strict 

Nature Reserve site is utilitarian and 

functional in its design, a factor which is 

appropriate, given the ascetic nature of 

Summerton’s work. 

Andrew Eason’s site www.andreweason.com 

opens with text and thumbnail images floating 

over an ochre and yellow striped home page. 

Following the threads of hypertext and images 

through the site, this striped backdrop is 

consistent in a variety of hues, creating a rich 

dressing to emphasise this book artists’ images 

and his concern with the finer nuances of 

texture and mark. Eason is a Bristol based artist 

whose interest in presenting sequential text and 

image in the book form is informed by his 

position as a librarian at the city’s main public 

library.

Eason’s subject matter is fairly eclectic, but runs 

with historical reference on which he builds his 

own singular lyricism in words and pictures. His 

texts are poetic and allude to a heightened 

experience of the ordinary, such as a night walk 

in the city, as in the book Smoke Flower. This is a 

book that acknowledges the archaeological 

residue of the urban environment. Through 

historical re-enactment, Eason has created 

Obscura, which can be linked to from the home 

page. This was originally conceived as an 

installation for a performance event at Bristol’s 

Camera Obscura. The site version is displayed 

in a cinematic format with stills images of a 

character dressed in eighteenth century 

costume, he is appropriately contained within 

circular lens like vignettes. 

Andrew Eason’s site has a useful selective links 

section, listing further sites for artists’ books 

exhibition venues, project facilitators and 

institution collections. The overall feel of this 

site does not compromise the books it 

disseminates. 

Keith Smith’s books site, 

www.keithsmithbooks.com is a godsend to 

artists wishing to actively engage with the book 

structure and its cultural and technical 

complexities. This site lists all the practical 

manuals that Keith Smith has self published. 

Clear explanatory text gives an oversight of 

each manual with the option to view specific 

sections of these books through the hypertext. 

An order form is easily accessed and the whole 

site has a minimal straightforward design 

aesthetic. 

www.penkiln-burn is the site dedicated to the 

marketing of the work of maverick and svengali 

Bill Drummond. Drummond’s former exploits 

include building up his self-made myth through 

a popular music empire, the KLF and the K 

Foundation. He is also a conceptual artist who 

has employed a range of strategies in order to 

question and subvert the cultural landscape. 

The site is extremely straightforward to 

navigate through. At the time of writing there 

are three sections to choose from at the 

opening page, The Catalogue, subdivided into 

Job No 5 How to be an artist and Job No.21 Silent 

Protest (war art one). The ‘Shop’ page enables 

the ordering of works through a downloadable 

131 

form, and the Events section lists exhibitions 

video installations and performances. The 

underlying glorious nihilism in the main body 

of work catalogued, is celebrated through 

sparse utilitarian typography and seductive 

thumbnails of paintings, multiples and one-off 

publications reflecting a diversity of oblique 

obsessions, such as the owning, disowning and 

modification of an expensive artwork by one’s 

favourite artist. 

Visiting Mark Pawson’s site Disinfotainment & 

Kustom Kulture at www.mpawson.demon.co.uk 

the aesthete in search of refined minimalist 

web design will experience a major arrest of 

colour recognition. The home page is a 

chequered with thumbnail images in a 

wonderful lurid day-glow rainbow hue. Pawson 

is a self-confessed image junkie, photocopier 

fetishist and aficionado of lo-fi printing 

methods. He has a mail art lineage, that has 

informed his methods of working, distribution 

and dissemination of ideas. His bookworks are 

meticulous and affordable varying from what 

could be described as artists’ books to more 

fanzine type publications. 

As well as Pawson’s own work,it is possible to 

purchase the publications of other artists on 

this site. Apart from the dazzling array of 

ephemera available (printed and painted 

material, badges, T-shirts and toys, to name just 

a few items); the sheer focussed obsessional 

nature of Pawson’s practice and production 

places this site in the ‘add to favourites’ league. 

His publications, What are you collecting at the 

moment Mark? and Noggins the Scandinavian 

tourist souvenirs, display a deranged, eccentric 

sensibility that is refreshingly articulated by five 

years of collecting and research. Disinfotainment 

& Kustom Kulture is a site where the opening 

low-budget page belies the innovative use of a 

high quality retro-graphic layout, once the 

viewer has acclimatised and proceeded beyond 

home. 

Guy Begbie is a practicing book artist and long 

distance lorry driver. He lectures in Book Arts, 

Graphic Design and Fine Art at Herefordshire 

College of Art and Design.

Artist’s Book Fairs 

There are various book fairs around the world 

that feature artists’ books. International events 

such as Pyramid Atlantic Book Fair, USA, The 

Frankfurt Book Fair and the Bibliophile book 

fairs in Paris feature artists’ books, but stands 

can often prove to be an expensive outlay for 

individual artists or small publishers. 

The following list includes fairs where artists’ 

books are the main feature or are significantly 

represented within the fair. 

For a current list of worldwide book fairs, see 

the website: www.kuenstlerbuecher.de/messen.htm 

BALTIC and Independent Northern Publishers 

Book Fair Saturday 1st November 2003 

11 am – 5 pm 

Contact: Crista Ermiya 

Independent Northern Publishers 

PO Box 990 

Newcastle Upon Tyne 

NE99 2US 

Tel: 0191 212 0354 

cristae@zoom.co.uk 

Centre des Livres d’ Artistes has hosted and 

organised artist’s book fairs, contact them for 

further details. 

17 Rue Jules Ferry 

87500 Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche 

France 

Tel: 0033 555 757030 

Fax: 0033 555 757031 

www.irisnet.fr/pp 

Fine Press Book Association (FPBA) have book 

fairs around the UK, with stands available for 

FPBA members. The next fair is at Oxford 

Brookes University on Sat 1st and Sunday 2nd 

November 2003. See the FPBA website for more 

details and for subsequent fairs. 

For FPBA membership details contact: 

Janet Jackson 

Glenswinton 

Parton 


DG7 3NL 

www.fpba.com 

jj@forge.demon.co.uk 

133 

Grahame Galleries organise the Artists’ Books 

and Multiples Fair (4 since 1994) Overseas 

participants can submit works by post for a 

small fee, without having to attend. 

Centre for the Artist Book 


Milton 4064 

Brisbane 

Australia 

Tel: 0061 7 3369 3288 

Fax: 0061 7 3369 3021 


editions@thehub.com.au 


Halifax Contemporary Artist’s Book Fair is an 

annual, one-day artist’s book fair with events, at 

Dean Clough Galleries, Halifax, now in its 7th 

year. For dates and information contact: 

Chris Taylor 

Arts Co-ordinator 

Dean Clough Galleries 

Halifax 

HX3 5AX 

Tel: 01422 250 250 

www.contemporaryartistsbooks.com 

book.fair@ntlworld.com 

London Artists Book Fair 2003 (LAB03) The next 

LAB 2003 is from 28-30th November at the 

Institute of Contemporary Art, London. For 

details of LAB 04 & LAB 05 contact: 

Marcus Campbell 

Marcus Campbell Art Books 

43 Holland Street 

London SE1 9JR 

Tel: 020 7261 0111 

Fax: 020 7261 0129 

lab@marcuscampbell.co.uk 

Printed Matter Editions and Artist’s Book Fair, USA 

Contact: Max Schumann (Manager) for dates / 

venue information of the annual international 

artist’s book fair. 

Printed Matter Inc 


New York 

NY 10011 

USA 

Tel: 001 212 925 0325 

Fax: 001 212 925 0464 

www.printedmatter.org 

mschumann@printedmatter.org

Book Arts Courses 

Bradford College 

School of Art, Design and Textiles 


Great Horton Road 

Bradford 

BD7 1AY 

Tel: 01274 438 998 

Fax: 01274 433 236 

www.bradfordcollege.ac.uk 

Contact name: Ian Colverson 

Bradford offers a range of courses at 

Undergraduate and Postgraduate level. 

A well-established printmaking department. 

Camberwell College of Arts 

Peckham Road 

London 

SE5 8UF 

Tel: 020 7514 6302 

Fax: 020 7514 6310 

enquiries@camb.linst.ac.uk 

For more information and to order a 

prospectus see www.camb.linst.ac.uk 

Book Arts - General Course Information. 

Camberwell is the only college in the UK 

providing specialist postgraduate study in Book 

Arts. Book artists are at the forefront of 

creating a new role and identity for the book, 

which is being freed from its traditional role as 

container of information by technologies such 

as ‘e-books’ and downloadable internet sites. 

The increasingly important role of the book 

within fine art practice is at the heart of this 

unique course, which is led by a teaching team 

of experienced educators and artists. Students 

are asked to explore the concept of the book 

through analysis of its form and function, and 

its changing nature with reference to its 

historical context and its relationship to 

current practice. 

Postgraduate Diploma 

The Pg Dip is an intensive course providing an 

introduction to the concept and practice of 

Book Arts. Students develop skills in areas such 

as printmaking, reprographics and computers, 

and follow set projects to investigate narrative 

structures, image and text. The course has been 

134 

particularly designed to enable people from 

diverse academic or professional backgrounds 

to establish specialist skills, knowledge and 

focus in preparation for practice in the field or 

further study at Masters level. 

Masters Degree 

The MA offers you the opportunity to develop 

a project from proposal to final exhibition. 

Students are asked to research the content, 

materials and technical skills appropriate to 

their project, and produce written as well as 

practical work exploring their chosen subject 

area and their relationship to contemporary 

practice. Applicants are expected to be well 

grounded in relevant aspects of book arts and 

able to define and debate their study proposals. 

Individual programmes are negotiated and 

supervised throughout the course in tutorials 

with specialist academic staff. 

Both courses include a Postgraduate 

Professional Development Programme, which 

helps students update or acquire research and 

career development skills. 

The Book Arts teaching team is made up of 

experienced educators and practising book 

artists. The course is led by Subject Leader 

Susan Johanknecht, who is the founder of Gefn 

Press. Course tutor Les Bicknell has work 

included in the collections of the Victoria and 

Albert Museum, The Rijksmuseum, and MOMA 

in New York. Visiting tutors include Dr Helen 

Douglas who is the co-founder of Weproductions 

and winner of the Nexus Press book award, 

Virginia Nimarkoh artist and curator and 

Melanie Jackson artist and curator. 

Hereford College of Art and Design 

Folly Lane 

Hereford 

HR1 1LT 

Tel: 01432273359 

Fax 01432 341099 

www.hereford-art-col.ac.uk 

hcad@hereford-art-col.ac.uk 

Contact name: Guy Begbie 

Hereford College of Art and Design has a 

strong interest in artists’ books. The following 

courses all deliver book arts projects:

BA (Hons) Illustration, Design Crafts, HND 

Fine Art, Graphic Design, Spatial Design and 

Photography. The college has specialist book 

arts teaching staff and a good letterpress and 

bindery facility. The college holds an annual 

book arts competition and student work is 

shown at the London Artist’s Book Fair and the 

Hay on Wye Literary Festival. 

London College of Printing 

Elephant & Castle 

London 

SE1 6SB 

Tel: 0207 514 6700 

www.lcp.linst.ac.uk 

Contact: Mike Brunwin 

m.brunwin@lcp.linst.ac.uk 

BA (Hons) Book Arts & Crafts 

This project-based course is designed to create 

opportunities for you to explore the art and 

craft of the book in all its aspects. It uniquely 

combines theoretical and cultural studies of 

creative practice with the development of 

highly specialised crafts skills. Within this 

context, this 3D design course utilises the book 

both in its traditional role as information 

carrier, using text and illustration in the codex 

form and as an art object in its own right. 

Units of study and options include: Formal and 

structural design, historical and contemporary 

design structures, form and function, 

printmaking, illustration and calligraphy, 

computer-aided design, photography, fine print 

and typography, the book as art, paper 

engineering, limited editions, cultural studies. 

Options are practically-based and develop 

makers as well as designers. 

Year 1 includes; printmaking, drawing, craft 

bookbinding, and illustration, photography and 

creative book practice. Core studies include; 

computer aided design, cultural studies and 

personal and professional studies. 

Year 2 concentrates on book at structures and 

fine print editions with a choice of special 

electives in: advanced printmaking, design 

bookbinding, artist’s books, historical and 

conservation structures, computer graphics. 

Core studies provide support with research and 

135 

professional practice through work placement 

and exhibitions at major venues in the UK and 

Europe. 

In year 3 students undertake a range of project 

briefs and write a dissertation. There is a final 

year degree show exhibition. 

This full-time, 3 year undergraduate course is 

recognised as being the best available in this 

field. Through its expanding international links 

in Europe and North America, the course provides 

opportunities for student exchange. 

Recent student exchanges have included 

Germany and North America. Field trips to 

Prague and Amsterdam have also been 

organised, with future exchanges planned with 

institutions in Paris. Book Arts students have 

also exhibited to acclaim in major galleries and 

won international awards in UK, Europe and 

the USA. All first and second choice applicants 

are interviewed and visits from prospective 

applicants are welcomed. 

For further information please contact: 

Mike Brunwin Tel: 0207 514 6700 

Email: m.brunwin@lcp.linst.ac.uk 

Scuola Internazionale di Grafica (Italy) 

Cannaregio s. Marcuola 

Calle Seconda del Cristo 

1798 Venice 

Italy 

Tel: 0039 41 721 950 


info@scuolagrafica.it 

Contact: Lorenzo de Castro (Director) 

Carrie Galbraith (Fellow) 

Year-round courses offered in the Book Arts 

(Libro d’Artista) for Italian and International 

students. Information for all courses can be 

found at www.scuolagrafica.it.


School of Art, Design & Textiles 

The option to make Artists’ 

Books is increasingly available and 

appropriate as part of the curriculum 

within the School’s broad range of 

courses including BA(Hons) 

Graphic Media 

Communication, BA(Hons) 

Art & Design, BA(Hons) 

Fine Art and the Masters 

Degree in Printmaking. 

For further information please contact: 

The Admissions Officer · Bradford College 

Great Horton Road · Bradford · West Yorkshire BD7 1AY 

Tel 01274 433333 

Fax 01274 433241 

www.bradfordcollege.ac.uk 

MA Book Arts (Full-time 1 year, Part-time 2 years) 

• explores the role of the book within fine art practice 

• only course of its kind in the UK 

Open Days 

3 December 2003 

11 February 2004 

28 January 2004 

17 March 2004 

Camberwell College of Arts 

Peckham Road 

London SE5 8UF 

For more information 

www.camb.linst.ac.uk 

enquiries@camb.linst.ac.uk 

telephone: 020 7514 6302 

An associate college of 

the University of Bradford

Short Courses, Workshops and Summer Schools in 

Book Arts 

Artgoes 

Artgoes publish a journal: the News Ironical and 

have a website of their Artgoes Catalogue Art 

Superstore. Artgoes also offer courses in Book 

Arts, including summer schools at Newcastle 

College and Hexham Campus 

(Tel: 0800 731 7073 for dates and times). 

Artgoes also run a design service and are happy 

to visit colleges for workshops: At the Major’art 

Surgery our ART goes into TEACHing art ‘n’ 

design & DESIGNing ‘artfully - it’s the 3pronged 

‘art attack that’s trident-tested! 

For more information on any aspect of Artgoes 

contact: Chloe Daykin (chloe@artgoes.com) or 

Chris Morton (chris@artgoes.com) 

Artgoes 

The Major ’art Surgery 

Baddox 

NE46 2PX 

Tel: 01434 60 80 70 

Fax: 01434 60 80 70 

www.artgoes.com 

Booklyn (USA) 

Booklyn offer a range of educational 

programmes over the full year at their book 

arts centre in Brooklyn, New York. Summer 

Seminars and Intern Institutes cover a range of 

classes, workshops and seminars for educators, 

artists and students, covering many aspects of 

the book arts. Examples of courses include: 

Reading Books Out Loud, The New Book; 

Book Craft Tradition meets Do It Yourself 

Youth-Pop Culture or The New Book in the 

Twenty-first Century. For more information 

regarding any of our education programmes, 

please contact Emily Larned, our Education 

Coordinator, who can answer any questions you 

may have. 

Emily Larned Education Coordinator 

Tel: 001 917-612-0375 

redcharming@hotmail.com 



Brooklyn, NY 11222 , 

New York, 

USA 


137 

Hazell Designs Books 

Rachel Hazell teaches basic bookbinding, 

contemporary bookarts, theory and creative 

writing; in Edinburgh and around the world. 

Workshops from an hour to a week, custom 

designed as required. All ages taught. 

Will travel. Island workshops a speciality. 

Rachel Hazell 

Hazell Designs Books Top Flat, 

3 Kirk Street 

Edinburgh. EH6 5EX 

Tel: 0131 554 6283 

www.hazelldesignsbooks.co.uk 

rachel.hazell@virgin.net 

John Jameson 

John Jameson runs short bookbinding courses 

around the UK. 

Cotswold Bookbinders 

Oak Tree House 

Ewen 

Cirencester 

Glos 

GL7 6BT 

Tel: 01285 770458 

www.cotswoldbookbinders.co.uk 

john@cotswoldbookbinders.co.uk 


LCP run short courses and summer schools in 

Book Arts, please see the website: 

www.lcp.linst.ac.uk for more details and to 

order a prospectus 

Book Arts 


Elephant & Castle, London SE1 6SB 

Tel: 0207 514 6700 

www.lcp.linst.ac.uk 

San Francisco Center for the Book (USA) 

102 workshops each trimester in all aspects 

of making artists’ books. Letterpress, photo 

processes, printing and bookbinding. 

See the website for calendar of classes. 

300 De Haro Street 

San Francisco 94103 

USA 

Tel: 001 415 565 0545 

Fax: 001 415 565 0556 

www.sfcb.org 

info@sfcb.org 

Contact: Steve Woodall (Artistic Director)

Scuola Internazionale di Grafica (Italy) 

Year round courses offered in the Book Arts 

(Libro d’Artista) for Italian and International 

students, meeting once a week throughout the 

academic year. Short courses in book arts 

include Venice and the Book for International 

students in June and July (one month courses). 

There is also a two-week intensive course 

during the August workshops open to all. 

Information for all of these courses can be 

found at www.scuolagrafica.it 

The Scuola also has an active residency 

programme for printmaking, book arts, 

drawing and painting throughout the year. 

Information for the residency programme can 

be found at www.artsinvenice.it 

Scuola Internazionale di Grafica 

Cannaregio s. Marcuola, Calle Seconda del 

Cristo 1798 Venice, Italy 

Tel: 0039 41 721 950 


info@scuolagrafica.it 


Summer schools and short courses in 

Bookbinding, traditional, photographic and 

digital printmaking and computer design. 

For booking information, or to be put on to 

the short courses mailing list, please contact: 

The Project Office 

UWE Bristol 

Faculty of Art, Media and Design 


Bristol 

BS3 2JT 

Tel: 0117 32 84810 

www.uwe.ac.uk/amd/courses.htm 

amdenquiries@uwe.ac.uk 

Walford Mill Craft Centre 

Courses in Bookbinding run regularly and 

range from Accordion formats and Japanese 

boxes to Leather bindings. For all enquiries or 

bookings please contact: Hannah Thomas, 

Education Officer. 

Walford Mill Craft Centre 

Stone Lane 

Wimborne 

Dorset. BH21 4JW 

Tel: 01202 841400 

www.walfordmillcrafts.co.uk 

138 

Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, 

New York (USA) 

VSW runs an annual book arts summer school 

programme with guest artists presenting 

workshops such as Printed Pranks and Protest: 

Artist-Activist Publications, Marshall Weber; 

Bookworks: From Meaning to Structure, Doug 

Beube; Structure of the Visual Book, Scott 

McCarney and Making a Digital Photographic 

Book, Douglas Holleley. VSW also runs 

workshops and seminars in visual studies, 

photography, digital imaging and video. 

Full course listings are on the website at 

www.vsw.org 

Visual Studies Workshop, 

31 Prince Street, Rochester 

NY 14607 

New York 

USA 

Tel: 001 585 442 8676 

www.vsw.org 

info@vsw.org

The Faculty of Art, Media and Design 

at the University of the West of England, Bristol runs regular Summer Schools in Bookbinding 

for artists’ books, screenprint, etching, relief, litho and woodcut in the Print Centre. 

For more information on any of these courses please call the 

Project Office at UWE, Bristol on 

0117 32 84834 

Please also visit our website at www.uwe.ac.uk/amd 

or for artists’ books events see www.uwe.ac.uk/amd/cfpr/exhibit.htm

Print Studios and Print Facilities 

AM Reprographics 

Unit 4 St Catherine’s Trading Estate 

Whitehouse Lane 

Bristol 

BS3 4DN 

Tel: 0117 923 1551 

Fax: 0117 923 1890 

www.amrepro.co.uk 

info@amrepro.co.uk 

Colour laser copying and printing, large format 

printing and all repro scanning. Digital high 

volume printing and duplication service. 

ARC Ackworth Resource Centre 

7 College Terrace 

Ackworth 

Pontefract 

W. Yorks 

WF7 7LB 

Tel: 01977 611 251 

destina@harrides.fs.net.co.uk 

A tiny, cottage based print workshop with 

artist’s studio above. Courses are run here 

supported by Workers Educational Association. 

Artichoke Print 

Bizspace S1 

245a Coldharbour Lane 

London 

SW9 8RR 

Tel: 020 7924 0600 

Fax: 020 7733 5140 

www.printbin.demon.co.uk 

mcm@artichokeprint.demon.co.uk 

Open access studios and editioning print 

facilities. 

Badger Press Open Access Studios 

Printmaking Studio 

Unit 4 Claylands Road Industrial Estate 

Bishopswaltham 

Hants 

SO32 1BH 

Tel 01489 892 127 

mikegriffithsis@hotmail.com 

A fine art printmaking studio offering 

editioning services and tuition in most 

printmaking media including: etching, 

wood engraving, screenprinting etc. 

141 

Bath Artist Printmakers 

7 Lower Borough Walls 

Bath 

BA1 1QS 

Tel/fax: 01225 446136 

Facilities for etching, lithography, relief and 

screenprint. 

Belfast Print Workshop 

Cotton Court, 30-42 Waring Street 

Belfast 

BT1 2ED 

N. Ireland 

Tel: 02890 231323 

Fax: 02890 230323 

www.belfastprintworkshop.org.uk 

info@belfastprintworkshop.co.uk 

Contact: Paula Gallagher / Struan Hamilton 

Open access workshop for professional artists, 

also short course and workshops for beginners. 

Birmingham Print Workshop 

19c Lee Bank Business Centre 

55 Holloway Head 

Birmingham 

B1 1HP 

Tel: 0121 427 8045 

Contact: Anne Crews 

Facilities for etching, relief, stone lithography 

and screenprint, with darkroom. Courses and 

exhibitions, new members are welcome. 

Brighton Independent Printmaking 

Module B1 Enterprise Point 

Melbourne Street 

Brighton 

BN2 3LH 

Tel: 01273 691 496 

Open access fine art print studios for etching, 

relief, lithography, collograph and screenprint. 

Short courses and membership available. 

Clo Ceardlann na gCnoc 

Aonad S&T, Derrybeg Industrial Estate 

Gweedore, Co. Donegal 

Ireland 

Tel: 00353 75 31271 

oona@indigo.ie 

Contact: Oona Hyland 

Facilities for etching, relief, stone lithography, 

bookbinding, digital video and sound. Centre 

for innovative and collaborative projects.

Curwen Print Study Centre 

Chilford Hall 

Linton 

Cambs 

CB1 6LE 

Tel: 01223 892 380 

www.curwenprintstudy.co.uk 

enquiries@curwenprintstudy.co.uk 

Printmaking study centre for artists of all 

abilities. all print facilities, accommodation 

available. Also the Curwen Studio (Tel: 01223 

893 544) is a professional artists editioning 

studio specialising in high quality lithography 

and screenprint editions. Contact Jenny 

Rowland jenny@thecurwenstudio.co.uk or see 

their website at www.thecurwenstudio.co.uk 

Dove Studios (The Print Room) 

Butleigh 

Glastonbury 

Somerset 

BA6 8TL 

Tel 01458 850 682 

bronbradshaw@yahoo.com 

Contact: Bronwen Bradshaw 

Courses in book arts and printmaking offered 

in studio environment with etching and hand 

printing facilities. Occasional exhibitions of 

prints and artists’ books. 

Edinburgh Printmakers 

23 Union Street 

Edinburgh 

EH1 3LR 

Tel: 0131 557 2479 

Fax: 0131 558 8418 

www.edinburgh-printmakers.co.uk 

printmakers@ednet.co.uk 

Contact: Zulbika Brett 

Open access print studio and entrance free 

gallery, specialising in contemporary and 

innovative printmaking practice. 

Glasgow Print Studio 

22 King Street 

Glasgow 

G1 5QP 

Tel: 0141 552 0704 

Fax: 0141 2919 

www.gpsart.co.uk 

gallery@gpsart.co.uk 

Glasgow Print Studio provides a range of 

services to artists and the public in the West of 

142 

Scotland. These include a custom-built 

printmakers workshop, a gallery exhibiting 

local and international artists and a retail 

outlet: Gallery III. Workshop facilities are 

available in etching, stone and plate 

lithography, relief printing, photography and 

many other processes, including a digital 

imaging service. The workshop is run by an 

experienced staff of expert artist printmakers. 

Hafod Press 

Hafod Y Llyn 

Maentwrog 

Gwynedd 

Wales 

LL41 3AQ 

Tel: 01766 590 638 

www.hafod-art.co.uk 

hafod.art@virgin.net 

Contact: Noëlle Griffiths 

Artists’ studio with etching press and 

accommodation. 

Hand and Eye Letterpress 

9 Railway Street 

London 

N1 9EE 

Tel/fax: 020 7278 9606 

www.handandeye.co.uk 

handandeye@mac.com 

Contact: Phil Abel 

Letterpress printing and design to the highest 

standards. 

Leicester Print Workshop 

50 St Stephen’s Road 

Highfields 

Leicester 

LE2 1GG 

Tel: 0116 255 3634 

Contact: Sean / Sarah 

Ipwsandr@btopenworld.com 

Etching, relief, stone lithography, digital and 

screenprint facility. 

London Print Studio 

425 Harrow Road 

London 

W10 4RE 

Tel: 020 8969 3247 

info@londonprintstudio.org.uk 

Gallery and open access print studios and 

digital studios. Introductory courses available.

MakingSpace Publishers 

Jonathan Ward 

Primrose Cottages 

Barton Estate 

Whippingham 

Isle of Wight 

PO32 6NS 

Tel: 01983 884246 

makingspace@btinternet.com 

Editioning, design and publishing of prints, 

artists’ books and collaborative projects. 

Specialising in screenprint, bookbinding and 


Northern Print Studio 

42-27 Fish Quay 

North Shields 

Tyne and Wear 

NE30 1JA 

Tel: 0191 259 1996 

Fax: 0191 259 1699 

www.northernprint.org.uk 

info@ northernprint.org.uk 

Open access print studios, classes and courses 

available. Commissions and exhibitions. 

Seacourt Print Workshop 

78 Hamilton Road 

Bangor 

Co. Down 

BT20 4LG 

Ireland 

Tel/fax: 028 9146 0595 

www.seacourt-ni.org.uk 

info@ seacourt-ni.org.uk 

Contact: David DuBose Manager 

Seacourt print workshop is a printmaking 

studio in Northern Ireland with a wide-ranging 

programme for artists of all abilities. 

Spike Island Printmakers 

133 Cumberland Road 

Bristol 

BS1 6UX 

Tel: 0117 929 0135/ 0117 929 2266 

Fax: 0117 929 2066 

Open access workshop with facilities for 

etching, relief and screenprint. Editioning 

available, also short courses. 

143 

The Yew Tree Press 

Park Place 

Aldsworth 

Glos 

GL54 3QZ 

yewtreepress.com 

colin.h@yewtree502.fsnet.co.uk 

A fine press and graphic arts studio in the heart 

of the Cotswolds. Typeset and design service 

also offered, work is widely exhibited and 

collected.

Materials Suppliers 

William Cowley 

97 Caldecote Street 

Newport Pagnell 

Bucks 

MK4 0DB 

Tel: 01908 610038 

Fax: 01908 611071 

Manufacturers and suppliers of hand made 

traditional parchment and vellum for writing, 

illuminating, printing and bookbinding. 

R. K. Burt and Co. Ltd 

57 Union Street 

London 

SE1 1SG 

Tel: 020 7407 6474 

Fax: 020 7403 3672 

www.rkburt.co.uk 

sales@rkburt.co.uk 

Wholesale paper suppliers, speciality papers for 

creative use. 

J. Hewit & Sons Ltd. 

Kinauld Leather Works 

Currie 

Edinburgh 

EH14 5RS 

Tel: 0131 449 2206 

Fax: 0 131 451 5081 

www.hewit.com 

sales@hewit.com 

Manufacturers of fine bookbinding leathers 

and suppliers of equipment, tools, materials 

and sundries for all bookbinders. Mail order 

available through their website. 

Mould Type Foundry 

Leyland Lane 

Leyland 

Preston 

PR25 1UT 

Tel: 01772 425026 

Fax: 01772 425001 

Suppliers of metal print type. 

144 

Paintworks 

99-101 Kingsland Road 

London 

E2 8AG 

Tel: 020 7729 7451 

Fax: 020 7739 0439 

shop@paintworks.biz 

Contact: Dorothy Wood 

Specialists in supplying to contemporary artists, 

friendly and knowledgeable, wholesale paper 

rates. Mail order available. 

John Purcell Paper 

15 Rumsey Road 

London 

SW9 OTR 

Tel: 020 7737 5199 

Fax: 020 7737 6765 

www.johnpurcell.net 

jpp@johnpurcell.net 

Specialist suppliers of papers for artists; hand 

made, mould and machine made various 

Japanese and unusual papers. Mail order always 

available, ask for a catalogue. 

T N Lawrence & Son Ltd. 

208 Portland Road 

Hove 

BN3 5QT 

United Kingdom 

Tel: 0845 644 3232 

Fax: 0845 644 3233 

Shop telephone 01273 260280 

www.lawrence.co.uk 

E-mail: artbox@lawrence.co.uk 

Suppliers of art materials from their Hove shop 

outlet with full mail order on their extensive 

website. 

VIP The Very Interesting Paper Company Ltd 

83 Bell Street 

Reigate 

Surrey 

RH2 7YT 

Tel: 017 3722 2401 

Fax: 017 3722 2267 

www.cranesdirect.co.uk 

vip@vipaper.co.uk 

Paper manufacturers and suppliers.

Bookbinders 

Bristol Bound Bookbinding 

300 North Street 

Ashton Gate 

Bristol 

BS3 1JU 

Tel: 0117 966 3300 

www.bristolbound.co.uk 

information@bristolbound.co.uk 

Bookbinders specialising in restoration, 

leather and cloth artists’ books, albums and 

presentation boxes. We undertake any binding 

projects. 

James and Stuart Brockman Ltd 

High Ridge 

Ladder Hill 

Wheatley 

Oxon 

OX33 1HY 

Tel/fax: 01865 875279 

www.brockmanbookbinders.com 

stuBrockman@aol.com 

A well established family company specialising 

in very high quality book restoration and 

modern fine bindings. 

Cedric Chivers Ltd 

1 Beaufort Trade Park 

Pucklechurch Trading Estate 

Bristol 

BS16 9QH 

Tel 0117 937 1910 

www.cedricchivers.co.uk 

info@cedricchivers.co.uk 

Craft bookbinders and conservation specialists. 

Hazell Designs Books 

Top Flat 

3 Kirk Street 

Edinburgh 

EH6 5EX 

Tel 0131 554 6283 


rachel.hazell@virgin.net 

Non-leather binding specialist, unusual 

commissions welcome. 

145 

Chris Hicks Bookbinder 

64 Merewood Avenue 

Sandhills 

Oxford 

OX3 8EF 

Tel: 01865 769346 

chrishicksbookbinder@btinternet.com 

Bookbinding and book restoration, fine 

bindings and box making. 

John Jameson 

Cotswold Bookbinders 

Oak Tree House 

Ewen 

Cirencester 

Glos 

GL7 6BT 

Tel: 01285 770458 

www.cotswoldbookbinders.co.uk 

john@cotswoldbookbinders.co.uk 

A wide range of bindings, commissions and 

repairs undertaken. John Jameson also runs 

bookbinding courses at venues around the UK. 

Sarah Jarrett-Kerr 

Yeo House 

Nempnett Thrubwell 

Blagdon 

Bristol 

BS40 7UZ 

Tel: 01761 462 543 

Fax: 01761 463 287 

sarah@Jarrett-kerr.com 

The aim of my bookbinding is to create a partnership 

between the book and its binding. 

I like to collaborate with the client in the 

design of my commissions, this ensures that 

expectations are fulfilled with the final design. 

Shepherds Bookbinders 

76 Rochester Row 

London 

SW1P 1JU 

Tel: 020 7620 0060 

www.bookbinding.co.uk 

shepherds@bookbinding.co.uk 

Fine bookbinders, materials suppliers and 

courses. An extensive website.

Magazines and Journals 

Afterimage 

Visual Studies Workshop, 


Rochester 

NY 14607 

New York 

USA 

Tel: 001 716 442 8676 

www.vsw.org/afterimage/index.html 

afterimage@vsw.org 

Afterimage is a bi-monthly journal of media 

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146 

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Immoral Compass / Stokey Comics 

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Tel: 020 7249 2187 / 07711 334 913 

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We publish strip comics that investigate the 

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JAB (Journal of Artists’ Books) 

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Tel: 001 434 244 33319 

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JAB was founded in an attempt to raise the 

level of critical inquiry about artists’ books. 

Since 1994 we have published over seventy 

articles, reviews, and interviews by fifty different 

authors. The wide range of opinion and depth 

of writing has made JAB an indispensable 

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JAB is published twice each year, once in the 

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Printmaking Today 

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The journal of contemporary graphic art 

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147 

Tel: 001 310 399 1146 

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A journal of the small press culture of artists’ 

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WOID 

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A journal of visual language. Its focus is: the 

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book, and generally the questions and 

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paul.werner@nyu.edu 

To view temporary archives of reviews and 

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Founded in 1973, the Orange Press publishes 

pamphlets that explain and encourage the 

various practices of visual language. For more 

information on the Orange Press or WOID 

contact Paul T. Werner. 

Other journals occasionally featuring artists’ 

books include: 

Art in America 

Artforum 

Creative Review 

Leonardo 

Arts Canada 

Art Journal 

Art Review

JAB 

JOURNAL OF ARTISTS‘ BOOKS 

ISSN 1085-1461 

JAB was founded in an attempt to raise the level of critical inquiry about artists’ books. 

Since 1994 we have published more than seventy articles, reviews, and interviews by fifty different authors. 

The wide range of opinion and depth of writing has made JAB an indispensible resource for practitioners and 

scholars interested in the growing field of artists’ books. 

JAB is published twice each year, once in the spring and once in the fall. It is usually 32 pages, always 8.5” x 

11”, with no advertisements. Subscriptions are by the year. Back issues are available. Sample issues are $9. 

All prices include shipping and handling. 

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payable to “JAB” to the following address: 

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USA 

tel. 434.244.33319 


nether wallop 

a new artist’s book by brad freeman 

will be available in spring, 2004 

$24.00 - individuals outside North America 

$45.00 - institutions outside North America 

“I’ve gone off on a tangent, but everything that organizes an individual is 

external to him. He’s only the point where lines of force intersect.” 

Viktor Shklovsky - A Sentimental Journey Memoirs, 1917 - 1922

Reference and related publications on the Book Arts 

Bicknell, Les Are There Any Limits To What Can 

Be Called Book Art? Essex, 1994 

Bury, Dr Stephen Artists’ Books: The Book as a 

Work of Art 1963-1995 Scolar Press, London, 

1996 (1998) 

ISBN 185928 163X 

Bury, Dr Stephen Artists’ Multiples 1935-2000 

Ashgate, Hants, 2001 

ISBN 0 7546 0075 0 

Castleman, Riva A Century of Artists’ Books 

MOMA, New York, 1994 

ISBN 0878781517 

Courtney, Cathy Private Views and Other 

Containers Estamp, London, 1992 

ISBN 1 871831 09 1 

Courtney, Cathy The Looking Book: 

A pocket history of Circle Press 1967-1996 

Circle Press, London, 1996 

ISBN 0 90138071 7 

Courtney, Cathy Speaking of Book Art: Interviews 

with British and American Book Artists 

The Red Gull Press, 1999 

ISBN 0962637254 

Doggett, Sue Bookworks: Books, Memory and Photo 

Albums, Journals, and Diaries Made by Hand 

Watson-Guptill Publications, 1998 

ISBN 0823004910 

Drucker, Johanna The Century of Artists’ Books 

Granary Books, New York, 1995 

Hardback ISBN 1887123016 

Paperback, 1997 ISBN 1887123024 

Findlay, James A. Pop-up, Peek, Push, Pull … An 

Exhibition of Movable Books and Ephemera from the 

collection of Geraldine Roberts Lebowitz 

Bienes Center for the Literary Arts, USA, 2001 

ISBN: 0 9678858 3 3 

Finlay, Alec (ed) Libraries of Thought & 

Imagination; an anthology of books and bookshelves 

Pocketbooks, Edinburgh, 2000 

ISBN 0748663002 

149 

Ford, Simon Artists’ Books in UK and Eire 

Libraries Estamp, London, 1992 

Gilmour, Pat Artists and Books in the 20th Century 


Holleley, Douglas Digital Book Design and 

Publishing Clarellen, New York, 2001, updated 

2003 ISBN 0 9707138 0 0 

Johnson, Robert Flynn and Stein, Donna 

Artists’ Books in the Modern Era 1870-2000: 

The Reva and David Logan Collection of Illustrated 

Books, Thames and Hudson, London, 2001 

ISBN 0 500 23948 

Jones/Turner/Tyson Contemporary Artists’ Books: 

Parts 1 & 2 published supplement in 

Artists’ Newsletter, April 1989 

Klima, Stefan W. Artists’ Books: A Critical Survey 

of the Literature Granary Books, New York, 1998 

ISBN 1887123180 

Lauf, Cornelia and Phillpot, Clive 

Artist/Author: Contemporary Artists’ Books 

Distributed Art Publishers (DAP) 1998 

ISBN 1881616940 

Lyons, Joan (ed) Artists’ Books: A Critical 

Anthology and Sourcebook Peregrine Books, 

New York, 1985, 1987, updated 1993 

Visual Studies Workshop Press, New York 

ISBN 0879052805 

Peixoto, Tanya (ed) Artist’s Book Yearbook 

1994-5, 1996-7 and 1998-99 

Magpie Press, Middlesex, 1994, 1996, 1998 

(all available from Bookartbookshop, London) 

Phillpot, Clive and Hendricks J. 

Fluxus: selections from the Gilbert and Lila 

Silverman collection MOMA, New York, 1988 

ISBN 0 87070 311 0 

Rolo, Jane and Hunt, Ian (editors) 

Book Works: A Partial History and Sourcebook, 

Book Works, London, 1996 

ISBN 1 870699 20 3 

Smith, Keith A. 200 Books: An Annotated 

Bibliography Keith Smith Books, New York, 2000 

ISBN 0 9637682 7 1

Smith, Keith A. and Jordan, Fred A. 

Book Binding for Book Artists 

Keith Smith Books, New York, 1998 

ISBN 0 9637682 5 5 

Smith, Keith A. Non-Adhesive Binding Vol I: 

Books Without Paste or Glue 


ISBN 0 9637682 6 3 

Smith, Keith A. Non-Adhesive Binding Vol II: 

1-2 and 3 Section Sewings 

Visual Studies Workshop Press, 1995 

ISBN 0 9637682 2 0 

Smith, Keith A. Non-Adhesive Binding Vol III: 

Exposed Spine Sewings 


ISBN 0 9637682 4 7 

Smith, Keith A. Non-Adhesive Binding Vol IV: 

Smith’s Sewing Single Sheets 


ISBN 0 9637682 8 X 

Smith, Keith A. Non-Adhesive Binding Vol V: 

Quick Leather Bindings 

Keith Smith Books, New York, 2003 

ISBN 0 9637682 9 8 

Smith, Keith A. Structure of the Visual Book 


ISBN 0963768212 

Smith, Keith A. Text in the Book Format 

Visual Studies Workshop Press, New York, 1989 

ISBN 0 9637682 3 9 

Stein, Donna Cubist Prints: Cubist Books 

Franklin Furnace, New York, 1983 

Strachan, W. J. 

The Artist and the Book in France Peter Owen, 

London, 1969 

Szczelkun, Stefan 

The First British Artists’ Bookmakers Conference, 

September 1993 

Copyart, London, 1993 

Szczelkun, Stefan 

UK Artists Books: Marketing and Promotion 

Estamp, London, 1993 

150 

Turner, Sylvie (editor) 

Facing The Page: British Artists’ Books 

Estamp, London, 1993 

ISBN 1 871831 11 3 

Reference and Contemporary Exhibition Catalogues 

A Tale of Two Cities: 

Artists’ Books from Bristol and New York 

(ed) Sarah Bodman, 

Impact Press, UWE, Bristol, 2001 

ISBN 0 9536076 6 6 

Artists and Books in the 20th Century 


Artists’ Bookworks 

British Council, London, 1975 

Between Poetry and Painting 

ICA, London, 1965 

Books As Art 

Boca Raton Museum, USA, 1991 

Books As Art (ed)Andrew Bick, 

Cheltenham & Gloucester College of HE, 1998 

ISBN 1 86174 067 0 

Books By Artists 

Art Metropole, Toronto, 1981 

Books by Artists (ed)Sarah Bodman, 

Impact Press UWE, Bristol, 1999 

ISBN 0 9536076 0 7 

Books By Artists 

Printed Matter, DIA, New York, 1992 

Book Works London, publications catalogues 

1994 onwards 

British Artists’ Books 1970-1983 

Atlantis Gallery, London, 1984 

Changing Places 

Collins Gallery, Edinburgh 2000 

Cooking the Books: Ron King and Circle Press 

Andrew Lambirth, 

Yale Center for British Art/Circle Press, 

London, 2002

Collaborations: Ian Tyson and Jerome Rothenberg 

Livres d’Artiste 1968 - 2003 

Eric Linard Galerie, 

Published by ed.it, France, 2003 

Greenwood Contemporary Books 

London, 1995 

Halifax Contemporary Artist’s Book Fair 

annual catalogue of exhibitors 

Inside Cover Jonathan Ward, MakingSpace 

Publishers, 2000 

ISBN 1900999 13 7 

London Artists’ Book Fair 

annual catalogues of exhibitors 

London Series 1990 


Looking At Words / Reading Pictures 

Hardware Gallery, London, 1994 

Modern Art Books 

Marcus Campbell, London, 1993 

Painters and Poets in Print 

South Bank Centre, London, 1990 

Repetivity: A Platform for Publishing 

Simon Cutts and Colin Sackett 

RGAP, Derby, 2000 

ISBN 0 901437 50 6 

The Artist Publisher: A Survey 

Coracle Press, London, 1986 

The Artist’s Book: The Text and Its’ Rivals 

Visible Language, Vol 25, 213, 1991 

The Book Made Art 

University of Chicago Library, Chicago, 1986 

The Consistency of Shadows: 

Exhibition Catalogues as Autonomous Works of Art 

Anne Dorothee Böhme and Kevin Henry, 

The Joan Flasch Artist’s Book Collection, 

School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2003 

The Coracle: Coracle Press Gallery 1975-1987 

Exhibition at Yale Center for British Art, USA 

November 1989 - January 1990, 

Coracle, London, 1989 

151 

The Open and Closed Book 

V&A Museum, London, 1979 

The State of the Book Arts 

Craft International, Oct/Nov/Dec 1984 

Turning Over The Pages: Some Books in 

Contemporary Art Pavel Büchler (editor) 

Kettles Yard Gallery, Cambridge, 1986 

The Body and the Book: Looking at the artist’s book 

and the body Dr Stephen Bury, Flaxman, 

London, 1996 

UK Artists’ Books 1992 

Working Press, London, 1992 

Work And Turn: Artists’ Bookworks From The UK 

1980-1992 Open Editions, London, 1995 

(paperback) ISBN 0949004065 

Words From the Arts Council Collection, 

Fiona Bradley, 

Cornerhouse, Manchester, 2003 

ISBN 1 853322261

Artist’s Book Reviews 

Andrew Eason 

Modern (Laundry) Production 


Here’s a world where the supply of soiled linen 

must be consistently maintained, and where 

special precautions must be taken to preserve 

the continued “bore and flow of the dirty 

liquor.” Despite the vivid language, this is the 

world of laundry. 

Susan Johanknecht’s Modern (Laundry) 

Production interposes the minute and arbitrary 

observations of 1940’s handbooks on 

industrial-scale laundry procedures, with 

images of a figure carrying out some arcane 

part of the processes described. The figure in 

these repetitive, grainy images is reduced to an 

arm and a torso, endlessly loading linen into an 

unknown machine. Cut off from their original 

contexts, both words and pictures take on the 

qualities of poetic statement, an effect 

intensified by Johanknecht’s decision to 

organise the text into free-floating units. 

Language used to describe the mundane 

routines of sorting, washing, ironing, etc, starts 

to constellate deeper meanings. Some 

meanings resonate with body imagery, others - 

those categorising materials and types - spark 

off ruminations on the definition of material 

substances, and how these definitions have 

been organised in many ways over the 

centuries. 

This field of play is an interesting way to cast an 

eye over the laundress’ activities. Repetitive as 

these activities are, the weave of description 

begins to suggest an alchemy, or a set of 

Aristotelian transmutations that turn the 

endless waves of cotton, silk and wool into 

the days and thoughts of the operator. 

153 

Turning back, though, to the descriptions in 

the book, there’s still a madly-impending, 

Brazil-like totalitarianism to the sorts of things 

categorized and commented upon. In this 

world, the people must be the right shape for 

the machines, and the text bristles with words 

and phrases of control and subjugation. 

Clothing is washed in a cage, processed 

through a cuff and yoke press. Time itself is a 

commodity to be used in the most efficient way, 

or it is wasted time. Every action, every 

movement is under observation (a method of 

control associated with 19th Century penal 

theories). Calibration, observation, control are 

the emphasised qualities. But still, the language 

of the text (mostly an apparently honest lift 

from the 1940’s originals) is rebellious. 

It springs into forms that rebel against the 

[1940’s] author’s original intention. The effort 

of maintaining the cyclopean rigidity of these 

incantations-against-waste struggles against the 

language’s tendency to suggest bodies, feelings, 

tactility. This in turn reflects back on the 

imagery. The grainy, boring-looking pictures, 

each with their original, hand painted numbers 

start off seeming identical. One notices 

eventually that there is movement. This, one 

discovers, is a picture of one of the processes 

described so minutely in the text. A woman 

(well, an arm, actually) is feeding clothing into 

a calendering machine. Eventually, through the 

repetition and the gradual drift between text 

and image, eventually our imagination steps 

out of the frame. Fills in, however sketchily, 

some of the gaps. Adds the missing head and 

limbs. Supplies the thoughts and boredom of 

the operator, supplies the texture of the 

clothing and the noise of the press. 

The last words of the text seem to turn from 

the voice of the machine/management to that

of the laundress, whose language is formed in 

the same mould. She uses phrases that indicate 

she is tied to the machine in some deep way. 

She is “pushing thoughts / into the machine”, 

she must “push the day on, push it through”. 

The interface (the material that lines and 

enables the smooth contact between surfaces) 

is fabric itself. The wools, silks, linens that have 

flowed through her hands and have become 

her time and thoughts. 

There’s also a parallel with the industry of 

print. Traditionally seen as a male occupation, 

print, too, has its presses, its mighty machines, 

its tactile materials and consistencies. Print has 

its human devotees, subservient to the great 

presses, and a similar network of language and 

custom to describe and account for such 

distinctions and processes. But printing has 

always been highly organised and unionised, 

and, though typically the conditions in the past 

have been as bad as in other industries, printers 

enjoyed privileges and traditional rights not 

extended to the laundry industry, for example. 

Printers, in fact, had also the benefit of a long 

history of insular development that gave them 

an almost priest-like identity, surrounded by 

jargon and secrets. This, I think, would have 

made for a different sort of interface between 

the worker’s identity and the work. 

The pictures in Modern (Laundry) Production 

look a lot like printing, too: that piece of pale 

154 

clothing looks a lot like paper. calendering 

(the process shown) is something we do to 

paper too, to smooth the surface. Something 

filters through to the book in one’s hands: the 

product of art and craft, rather than industrial 

labour, but nonetheless the product of hands 

and machines. 

Modern (Laundry) Production takes a (largely 

defunct) industry and subjects it to a scrutiny 

regarding the human experience of work in 

such circumstances, and wider issues 

constituting identity and roles in society at 

large. As such, it covers areas on the 

relationships with work prevalent in all such 

highly-managed, production-oriented 

environments. It constructs, largely successfully, 

the reverie of repetitive work and exposes the 

instability of the controlling language used to 

manage the thought and action of the workers. 

I would have liked more of the worker’s voice 

at the end. I’d have enjoyed a move into the 

abstract territory of the laundress’ thought that 

had time to allow certain movements to 

transpire, to reveal a little more of the possible 

involutions and complexities of the worker / 

machine relationship. But it functions perfectly 

well as a coda; the catalysing process of a 

different voice chanting the (by now worn-out 

and slipping) taxonomies of laundry 

accomplishes the mission of transformation. 

Modern (Laundry) Production uses its sources 

well, and presents them coolly and seriously. 

Paddle Notes 

Andi McGarry 

I’m scared of boats. But Andi McGarry isn’t. 

His Paddle Notes sets him right at home in an 

open boat, a situation that has me thinking of 

dehydration and eating the other hapless 

mariners in the outer reaches off Franz Josef 

land. Andi McGarry’s a more intrepid soul, and 

his comfort with and openness to the 

experience of being in a little boat; rowing 

about and diving off it, roaming about the coast 

and enjoying himself, shines through in this 

book. 

I like a book with a bit of something in it. This 

one has only drawings with a brush in black 

ink, but the quality of simple observation and

the assembly of poetic reflection achieves 

much. Several pages convey a sense of space 

with little more than a horizontal black line 

three-quarters of the way up the page. The 

background is on roughly marbled paper, with 

little broken-up mottlings of bright colour 

tapping in simple cues for space and 

atmosphere. McGarry works this (pretty good) 

trick in many of the pictures making up this 

book. The other one is to have swirly bits of 

marbling filling up the whole picture plane 

(no horizon)- this becomes a subsurface space 

where the diving and bubbling goes on. My 

favourite page has the line “clouds in double 

surface” and separates two groups of puffy 

shapes with a horizontal line across the page. 

The basic background is (as throughout) on 

marbled paper, this time quite open with 

hundreds of small sky-blue marks. It achieves as 

good a feeling of a calm, open sea as I’ve seen 

anywhere. 

Investigating this paper again just now I got a 

bit of a shock: I had assumed that the various 

spreads in this concertina-format book were on 

seperate bits of marbled paper, selected for 

their appropriateness to individual pages. 

It’s actually on one continuous sheet: so the 

artist has deliberately dipped the precise areas 

on the sheet into the differently-prepared 

marbling trays. I’d not suspected such a level of 

organisation: the playful line and unique 

character of the books prepares one for 

something of a dashed-off miracle. There’s still 

a lot of that to it: it takes tremendous poise, a 

clear vision and a good heart to plunge right in 

like this. It’s got that in common with Chinese 

brush painting. Every mark tells: no 

pentimenta. (In fact, regrets of any kind have 

no place in this book.) Preparing the paper like 

this ups the ante a little bit. To fail on this 

155 

surface would spoil the material and the effort 

would go in the bin. It also reveals more 

calculation in the effects achieved. Although 

the one-word review remains “charming”, 

I’ve got to look at the fact that the charm is 

intended. That the artist has been artful, rather 

than naive. 

These artful effects hold their own. The glow 

of the marbling and the swirling colours 

combined with the pouncing expressive line 

make several pages quite dramatic. I can’t 

get over the space that combining the two 

elements of the marbling and the inky line has 

produced. Either one of these elements on 

their own would tend towards a flattening 

effect. But in these hands they’ve been 

transformed. 

There’s an element of transformation in the 

narrative as well. The rowing, diving (and, one 

feels, probably pic-a-nicking) figures aren’t 

clothed: if this is happening off the Irish coast 

there’s gonna be shiverin’. Of course, it’d be 

daft to expect wetsuits. This is happening in a 

luminous world where the landmarks turn into 

chapters, the noticing of fish into events that 

penetrate with wonder. It’s a childlike view of 

the world in some senses: although there’s 

clearly adult wonder going on here too. In this 

way it’s a somewhat cinematic book. Shafts of 

illumination peep through as we open up 

concurrent pages, and build up into a narrative 

space that we travel through (“row through” 

seems appropriate). And we get a nicely 

cinematic ending too. The inky camera pulls 

back and isolates the tiny boat on a vast surface, 

“huge swathes of silver shadow”, then pulls back 

further, until our only connection is the sound 

we can still hear of the oars: “dip creak, dip 

creak” And fade out... 

I love this book even more for discovering that 

he meant it. What I mean is that I’d previously 

seen the effects and thought them happy 

coincidences, or as wise choices of material at 

the most complex. But in reality this is a 

carefully-planned work that artfully arranges 

itself to produce the effects that we experience. 

It tells us that we can be aware of the world 

around us, and experience it in all it’s 

sensational vibrancy, and still use our awareness 

to make and think in articulate ways.

A Chocolate Journey 

Isabell Buenz 

Isabell Buenz’s A Chocolate Journey is beguilingly 

packaged in dark & mysterious black and 

purple. One uncoils the purple satin ribbons 

from their fastening places and takes a peek 

into the dim underworld of chocolate - 

fixated womanhood. 

“If you had a box of chocolates all to yourself, 

what would you do?” I asked my girlfriends. 

“What, all to myself?” would some of them say, 

with shining eyes.” 

What follows is a vox pop, as it were, of various 

slightly-but-not-really-guilty pleasures. A series 

of pastel-hued commentators pop up airing 

their confectionary-based foibles alongside an 

equal number of pictures of chocolates in their 

gaudy wrappers. 

I’d expected more, really. The quality of 

workmanship on the box containing the book 

is good, and approaches its model - the 

industrially-produced chocolate box. 

I’d expected someone lavishing this degree of 

care over their selection and use of materials 

(correct weight of card, lovely-but-not-toosnooty-construction-quality, 

satin bows,little bed 

of faux-chocolates inside for the book to nest 

in) to have made something more of the 

content. Granted, if these are real interviews, 

then one is drawn away from possible answers 

to the question (“I run off to my tower in the 

woods and feed them all (except the strawberry 

cream) to the corpse of my murdered lover 

whilst my mad sister plays the organ in the 

crypt”) and drawn towards the mundanity of 

the actual answers “I only like sharing 

chocolates with my husband because he likes 

the ones I don’t” ( a statement whose veracity, 

at least on the husband’s side, I (unreasonably) 

156 

doubt.) Rather than the roiling turmoil of guilt 

and sensuous abandonment that could have 

been frothed up out of the subject, we get; 

“I will probably ration myself to a few a night” 

Which dry response might play well in a more 

documentary setting, but we’re camped out in 

Black Magic territory and the liner-pages 

between the pages are sighing “ecstasy...delight 

... satisfaction...fulfilment...luxury...paradise”. 

I want to grab the book by its lapels and shake 

it to demand more... more dammit! 

My friend has just walked through and said that 

Anthony Worral-Thompson is preparing a 

sumptuous repast of pickled scorpions and 

black ants on his TV show. A fact I’m including 

merely for contrast. 

Unfortunately this book doesn’t extract very 

much from its subject matter. I can’t fault 

the presentation, though, and while the 

photographs of the chocolates themselves are a 

bit same-y and miss out on the obvious trick 

of whittling a pile of them away as one goes 

through the book, they’re excellent 

photographs. 

Maybe I’m missing the point a bit with this 

book. It has a series of these unprepossessing 

confessionals whose effect is to swaddle what 

doesn’t seem all that horrifying a sin in yet 

more layers of innocuous cameraderie and 

harmless ritualisation. Perhaps that’s the aim. 

Certainly there’s no particularly convincing 

sense of journeying into private pleasures, nor 

is there a sense of identity carried over the 

book’s development. Rather, it’s a continuation 

of the themes already prevalent in the way the 

product (chocolate) is advertised: it’s a tiny bit 

naughty. It’s a tiny bit luxurious. It’s a tiny 

gratification. I wish there had been more of an 

attempt to tease out the further uses, abuses 

and anxieties chocolate engendered in the 

respondents. 

The way that the posited “Chocolate Journey” 

might have gained depth would be, I think, 

through a reading from one character to the 

next. How they use chocolate. How it affects 

them. In short, to ask more questions. I think a 

dialogue between word and image would have 

been fruitful too, rather than the (nicely 

composed) repetition that dominates the book.

Judging by the quality of image and 

construction, I’d want the artist to have 

achieved more here. The capability 

demonstrated in producing a work of palpable 

material luxury such as this one, is capable of 

twisting that luxury into forms that do more 

than play into the patterns of advertising. I 

think there were glimmers of intention behind 

this book that wanted to present something 

more subversive than the final product. I don’t 

mean uncomfortable, or challenging in that 

sense: I think there may have been an intention 

originally to create a much more voluptuous 

response. 

There was an initial situation created by the 

excellent packaging and construction of the 

book. Very effective in setting the scene for 

some sort of metaphorical chocolate combat, 

but let down, unfortunately, by the interior. 

But on this showing, I would hope that the 

artist will continue making books, and working 

more on how they create the content for them. 

Paradise is Always Where You’ve Been 

Sandy Sykes 

Paradise usually suggests and pre-supposes its 

opposite. And the threat of transition from one 

to the other. This book’s title “paradise is always 

where you’ve been” denies us the distinction, 

and challenges us to look at paradise depicted 

in the round. It’s a shocking place. 

I’m writing here, looking out at a bright sky, a 

few russet trees not touched yet by spring. 

A herd of placid animals seem to be looking at 

me. All very peaceful. Yet this is only removed 

geographically from hell, and is less than the 

width of an instant away from airwaves 

saturated with panic, recrimination, lawlessness, 

157 

confusion and the absence of justice. But here, 

all is peaceful. There’s a box of paper from a 

supplier on the table. The supplier’s name is 

Paradis. I wonder if the paper is made from the 

pulp of forbidden trees. 

I pick up this book, with its heavy wooden 

covers. There’s a hole in the front of the book. 

I take a deep breath and heave myself into it, 

descending (if that is the word) into the 

torments of paradise. It’s a tight squeeze, and 

when I make it I’m not sure that I don’t prefer 

my previous world. At least there I have 

luxuries. I can wear the shroud of ignorance 

from time to time. 

My guide is a dog. A survivor, but not a 

reassurance. An accomplished accompanist, 

his howl counterpoints the main themes and 

drags my attention around as I bump along the 

bottom. I’m bombarded with texts and images 

that seem to burst all around me like shells. 

There’s no peace here, not even in the fabrics 

of the body itself. The appeal to Gerald Manley 

Hopkins’ Windhover, usually a source of 

satisfied perfection in nature, is winged: a hurt 

hawk spirals down and is consumed. There’s 

hunger, destruction death, accusation. 

Paradise, though. There are tiny glimpses of 

what has failed. It just makes the absence 

harder to bear. There are territories, loves, losses 

touched upon. There was supposed to be a 

design to which everything conformed. There 

was supposed to be justice: here the notion is 

poked fun at. It’s just another criterion in 

God’s box-ticking management-style, and 

subject to change without notice. But power 

remains. There’s plenty of that, for those that 

have it, and precious little for those that don’t. 

The only power left to some is the accusation 

their bodies make after their death. Their 

power is in the vacuum made by their removal 

from life. The dog’s howling again. I wonder

that he has the breath, so rarefied has the 

atmosphere become. Most of the oxygen taken 

up by burning or sucked into the lungs of the 

weeping survivors. Power doesn’t seem to need 

the air, but would deny it to those that do. 

“Why?” takes breath to say. 

There’s a great deal of activity here, a great 

deal of exercise to be had. Bracing actions that 

mean something, or don’t. Setting yourself 

alight. Being executed. Starving or being 

beaten. 

I wish the dog would say something. Perhaps 

the best, the only thing to say is what he’s 

already saying. Perhaps better not to try to 

articulate a précis, a meaningful pattern in this 

best of all possible worlds. Certainly it’s a 

blessing to have power without responsibility in 

this world. The power to wear ignorance like a 

shroud, the power not to have to tread the 

knife edge of action, which would surely show 

one up as the less-than-omniscient strategist 

one really is. Not to take action, to dwell in 

insularity and protection. With all you can eat. 

That’s paradise, isn’t it? The most precarious 

stage in the world. A backdrop for hubris to 

unroll like a wave upon. 

One of the several reasons we still have so many 

intact Roman ruins in Italy is because of their 

mortifying religious effect. They are possessed 

of what some Pope or other called an 

“exemplary frailty”. The ruins of a great 

empire, now festooned with the garlands of 

chaos nature throws around to cover up the 

starkness of our failures. They were spared 

complete destruction partly because they 

remind us of the transitory nature of all things, 

even civilisations. Sykes has prearranged some 

contemporary ruins for us, so that we get an 

odd time warp effect of looking in at our 

civilisation in ruins before the fact. It’s already 

in ruins in my mind. The force of my own 

inevitable hypocrisy advances through my life, 

smashing up all the fine facades and everything 

158 

in its path. I’ve got to get out of here. 

Fortunately, there’s another hole in the back of 

the book. 

Made it. Phew. So that’s all right then. 

I needn’t say, really, that I found this a 

disturbing book. I can’t respond to its beauty, 

because I don’t like it that way. I feel that a 

ranged and imaginative assault has been made 

on my complacencies. I’m not as shattered as 

I’ve suggested, a bit melodramatically, above. 

But I am, at least for now, haunted. This book 

is from a series Sykes has made from Dante’s 

Divine Comedy. The foreword notes how she’s 

jettisoned a close-reading illustrative approach. 

She’s kept the book “in the Terrestrial here and 

now” Not in Dante’s heaven. Just as there’s no 

escape from heaven, there’s no escape from the 

profound moral flimsiness that seems to be part 

of being mortal. 

Paradise is always where you’ve been also suggests 

that the only safe haven for perfection is in the 

past, in memory. Beyond the reach of the 

powers to contain or control it, or subvert it to 

its ends. It doesn’t insist that there ever was a 

good place to be in the past, just that it’s now as 

untouchable as the possible outcomes of action 

are, somewhere out there in the future. 

Pitt Rivers Museum: An Eccentric Collection 

Rosemarie Shortell 

Rosemarie Shortell’s book :Pitt Rivers Museum: 

An Eccentric Collection brings together a large 

number of drawings, paintings and prints based 

on artifacts in the museum. It’s been a while 

since I’ve handled a book that contains so 

much unique material, and I’ve seldom 

handled books where the text is 100% hand - 

drawn calligraphy. It’s rather nice. In a way, it’s 

also the first “non-fiction” artist’s book to come 

my way. I’d usually expect the graphic 

requirements of a book like this to be taken 

care of by more conventional means, but the 

result, though a little eccentric, is neat and tidy. 

The illustrations likewise, uniformly accomplish 

their graphic duties. 

I’ve always been shy of saying anything that 

distinguishes illustration from other book-andtext 

practices, but here I have a book which is

a labour of love, showcasing the artist’s 

illustrative skill. I can appreciate the difficulties 

of being faced with a tidal wave of information 

like the Pitt Rivers Museum, and I can also 

identify with the impulse to take examples, 

to structure simply, to tread lightly over the 

surface of the vastness embodied in the source. 

But I also wanted the artist to zoom in: to close 

off some area and work it more investigatively. 

This a book superior to any guide book. 

No commercial publication will ever give you 

the sense of the hours spent looking at and 

researching these objects. I wish, though, that 

I could have had some glimpses of the artist’s 

own thoughts, and what these treasures 

inspired in them. 

Beachy Head 

Christine Kermaire 

Over the last couple of years I’ve made several 

stabs at acquainting myself with 3-D computer 

programmes, with a view to creating animations 

(which have never actually emerged). One of 

the neat things I found one could do, was 

to fix the virtual camera on a point in the 3-D 

space you’d just so painstakingly crafted. The 

camera keeps looking at this point wherever 

you move the camera’s point of view, which 

gave me a nice filmic thrill. 

Christine Kermaire’s Beachy Head blasts away 

from my nerdy desk exploits and sets me down 

in the channel, my camera pointed firmly at 

the mass of Beachy Head. The book sets its stall 

out early: a title page with a course plotted 

carefully overlaid with a screen of plastic mesh 

suggesting latitude and longitude. The book 

159 

then sails, page by page, from one plotted 

position to the next, a photograph 

accompanying the parallel page showing the 

evolving course, and the course data tabulated 

alongside it, giving all the essentials like time, 

bearing, speed and windage. Enough data to 

recreate the course as an animation, I wonder? 

It’s a quite successful juxtaposition, one given 

in a lot of descriptions of sailing: the 

combination of exacting skill, the positivist 

obsession of establishing place without 

reckoning, and placed beside that, the vivid 

light, the ponderous apprehension of the land 

seen from the sea. The feeling of being at sea, 

detached and independent, yet wholly 

dependent on one’s charts and measurements. 

Beachy Head is one way of envisaging this 

relationship- a dual description, one technical, 

immediate, of the moment and projected as a 

course of such moments over time, the other 

represented by photographs, paradoxically far 

from instantaneous, depending instead on 

looking ahead, looking behind. The closest the 

photographic gaze gets to its object, the closest 

it is to Beachy Head itself, and this moment of 

the gaze, of the most immediate photograph, is 

punctuated, appropriately, with a lighthouse. 

That moment, achieved, gradually recedes, as 

the course continues, still reliably plotting the 

now. 

I found the simplicity and scope of the book 

exhilarating. The spare conceptualisation 

benefits from the good material. The photographs, 

whilst being apparently fairly 

documentary, are nonetheless pretty dramatic, 

with the chalky headland looming majestically 

in the patchy light looking huge, and the 

improbable lighthouse looking almost 

comically isolated at the bottom of the cliff. 

Having said I liked the book very much, I don’t 

think the way it’s presented works very well. 

The patterned brown nylon drawstring bag it 

comes in looks like a washbag and has kitschy 

connotations that don’t benefit the book (even

if it does keep the book nice and dry). The 

acrylic painting done in some sort of thick, 

pallete-knifed medium, depicts the headland as 

a sort of expressive glyph but lacks the light, 

subtlety and poise of the photographs inside 

the book. It has no apparent relationship to the 

printed matter inside the book beyond the 

depiction and detracts from my experience of 

the body of the book by suggesting a conflict of 

intentions within the artist. The binding, whilst 

enjoyably chunky, is done in brown cloth and 

gives the book a sacklike appearance not in 

keeping with the subject and approach inside. 

The binding of the book itself involves a novel 

use of nylon line and a section of rubber 

tubing, which, although redolent, perhaps, of 

the materials and intrepid solidity of sailing 

gear, does not belong in this book. The book 

inside this cover is a nicely poised piece that 

pits control and and wonder against one 

another in a setting that allows the proposed 

oppositions plenty of imaginative scope. I think 

the cover and binding for this piece is a very 

infortunate defect in an otherwise admirable 

book. 

Salomé 

Rebecca Cartwright 

Noel Coward’s play Salomé uses colour 

symbolically: the white of moonlight, madness 

and death and the black of darkness, the 

ineffable mysteries of silence and reserve are 

accompanied by the red of blood and lust. 

The tensions between these formal devices are 

played out within the tale of the magnetic 

Salomé , who maddens those who gaze upon 

her, bringing them misfortune and death. 

The play examines the mysteries of desire and 

fate in a fatalistic melée that ends badly for all 

concerned, dragged downwards, freighted with 

their human burdens of lust, iniquity and 

pride. 

Rebecca Cartwright’s book of the same name is 

a book of illustrations drawn from extracts of 

160 

the Noel Coward play. It’s a good example of 

this type of book: formally excellent, the dark 

and tensely-read etchings build with the play 

to a climactic ending. The illustrations are 

powerfully rendered, enlivening the reading of 

the play extracts with imagery that conveys 

something of the erotic charge Salomé is 

supposed to have confused and maddened her 

victims/voyeurs with. Occupying a symbolic 

range that frames the play’s own formal 

construction in a powerful new way, the book 

and its illustrations do not stray too far from 

the original’s spoken imagery. For me, much of 

the original work’s web of connotation is left 

intact. We have a new, post-feminist context 

within which to experience the play and its’ 

imagery, but my feeling is that this book does 

not, despite its’ expressive qualities, add new 

layers of interpretation to the original. 

Whether or not this is a thing to be desired is a 

matter of personal choice: I would have liked to 

have seen the artist introduce some more 

obvious themes of her own, to build a new 

arrangement to accompany the original figures. 

As it is, the themes of the original are 

performed exquisitely, and with some finely 

impassioned virtuosity. There are movements 

away from depiction, conflations of parts of the 

play’s symbology that pick up some of the 

formal undercurrents of the original in a new 

and more forthright way, but the book does not 

depart from the original text. 

Viewed as a livre d’artiste, in a more illustrative 

role, however, the work is very successful. 

Elaborately realized, it characterizes the moral 

darkness and fatalistic impulses of the play in a 

darkly woven tide of marks and figuration that 

sweeps through the printer’s paces. 

The expressive and technically impressive 

combinations of intaglio techniques have 

produced a work where one feels the 

ponderous dread of fatalism, dragged onwards 

by lust, itself as evanescent and unpredictable 

as flame. The blackness of ink seems as heavy as 

real darkness, real dread.

The physical production of the book is good 

and benefits the work as a whole: a smooth 

bookcloth in a sharky-grey gives way to welldeployed 

luxury materials within, couching the 

the fine printmaking in fine papers. Black, 

white and red echo the symbolic colours of the 

text, and translucent ruby-plastic text pages 

veiled the images in a suggestive, half-seen 

suspense. I found the book production hightly 

professional and enjoyable to handle. 

Buenos Aires 

Ral Veroni 

Ral Veroni’s Buenos Aires is a book in the form 

of a series of related cards, accompanied by a 

colophon and notes. It features the figures I’ve 

seen before in prints by Veroni: glyphic 

personages impinging on the skyline like 

Japanese monsters, by way of Mexican hero - 

wrestlers, accoutred strangely, with their 

godlike accessories. Hammers, sickles, 

improbable decorations and masks. Staring 

skywards and raking the horizon with their 

electrical-impenetrable gaze like socialist 

sculpture produced directly from the 

unconscious of the workers. Ral is from 

Argentina but lives in Glasgow now. One figure, 

a representation of the She-Wolf suckling 

Romulus and Remus, is described by Veroni in 

his notes: 

“The wolf was the symbol of Rome. In a city like 

Buenos Aires it also marks the presence of the 

massive Italian immigration... The Wolf Departs is 

an attempt to symbolise in an image the return 

of the discouraged sons of the immigrants to 

the land of their forefathers.” 

It made me think also of the Scottish/Italian 

sculptor Edouardo Paolozzi, whose work 

showing massive, fragmentary feet and hands 

recall the broken statues one finds in Rome. 

They pop up in conurbations across Scotland 

(and elsewhere), where they’re well liked, and 

161 

routinely covered in chip papers tossed away by 

our homegrown urchins. Both these bits of 

statuary, and Veroni’s autochthonic sky-geezers 

look out across their environments with the 

mixture of insecurity and hope we get from any 

sense of history. There’s a lingering 

communication implied in these glances 

though: a communication between generations 

and continents that asks in which direction the 

communication is going. Are the discouraged 

sons finding their courage again? When they 

return, where will they return to? Are these 

personages on the skyline above our cities 

ready for us to use, or are we, like the one 

holding the sickle, simply not able to control 

the dominating and rapacious power of these 

heroes? The sickle man is bent-backed, unsure, 

so the sickle twists around, becomes a question 

mark instead. Who knows what the real 

character of this power is? This figure is 

Absurdity: he’s maybe taking the piss out of us 

mortals for having a go at controlling our lives. 

On other pages the figures biff each other with 

hammers, are poised, ready to smash up the 

forest of communications around them like 

Gods disgusted to find that their worshippers, 

becoming bored, have turned to other things to 

fill their world. 

In other pages the figures - I’m starting to think 

of them as a family of Gods, irascible, powerful 

and unpredictable - are looming over bleak 

skylines of clocks without hands. In another, a 

red skull, eyes obscured by a bone and looking 

like something out of the Codex Borgia 

(a collection of Mexican (Aztec) writings) 

hovers threateningly in a district of faceless, 

hermetically dull buildings. Ready to smash the 

puny mortals. Well, history does that - we’ve no 

need of Gods to do the same: rather these are 

the parts of human character that’d like to

smash all this stuff up. In another page still, 

Destiny (for it is he) is masturbating genteely 

from a roof-top onto the houses, spilling the 

seeds of consequence into the lives of the 

humans going about their business in the 

rooms and streets below. Behind, on the skyline, 

huge signs rise above the city, survivors 

from abroad who’ve weathered the local 

storms. They’re now cruising all over the 

surface of the city like hubristic Titanics 

broadcasting their confidence and overbearing 

success to the discouraged people. Destiny’s 

sowing some seeds in this field. 

Here’s a place with a history of its own, with its 

own character and history, its own problems 

and destinies. Here’s a corner, where a café 

honoured the name of a poet. Then it’s gone. 

Then it returns again - perhaps not the same, 

but there at least, so there’s something to work 

with. The same old characters cruise the 

skylines, ready to beat the culture into the 

shape of their choosing for good or ill. 

The Hammer is right here, waiting for the new 

material. He’s patient, at least, but a bit 

unpredictable. Smashing up the old building 

has, though no one expected it, made it 

possible to bring back something of the good 

that was there before which had been lost. 

Time’s here too, using his pair of Mjolnir-like 

hammers to bash everything around, but he’s 

also using them to semaphore out to the 

horizon, perched atop a communications tower. 

Or he might just be threatening: his big 

hammers are aloft in the air. Where will they 

come down? If he is signalling, who’s he 

signalling to? Another God? Destiny perhaps? 

Veroni’s already shown us that those two have 

an argument to sort out: it’s them who we see 

on another page, going at each other with their 

weapons. Destiny has just smacked Time in the 

head and seems to have won a temporary 

ascendancy. What will it mean for us all? Veroni 

says of these divinities 

“When in kindness they try to make good, 

things get worse. When enraged they are 

merciless with us; then, sometimes, things get 

better.” 

It seems to be in the nature of these beings that 

they can’t act with subtlety, that they get too 

snarled up in humanity if they slow down and 

162 

compromise their agency. It seems to be, as 

well, that they have something in common 

with us - they, like us, can’t be sure of the 

consequences of their actions. But they need to 

act or be subsumed into nothingness. In fact, 

that’s what they are themselves: their power is 

ours. If we speak and act according to 

something we’d ascribe to a principle or a 

higher cause, we’re engendering these Gods 

and all their shaky leverage. 

Veroni wraps things up with a little old- 

fashioned hope. He began the series with an 

image of the Argentine flag: two bands of pale 

sky-blue with a band of cloud-white between. 

Where the sun should be, in the centre of this 

picture of the sky, he’s placed the image of 

Absurdity, wielding his discouraging question 

mark to scythe down our hopes. But by the end 

of the book he’s replaced the blue colour with 

the sky itself, the white colour with the clouds. 

In the centre, two figures shake hands: 

friendship. The next page: a windowless white 

beaten-up building stands against the sky. 

Phonelines run across it, connecting it to 

heaven and earth. It looks like it will stand as 

long as it has to, but it looks tired. 

On the last page, the Hammer is waiting to 

fashion a new world from the destruction of the 

old. It’ll be a bit of a shock. It’s always been 

that way. The Gods know, because they were 

here first.

A Fishy Wish 

Hannah Grice 

Hannah Grice’s A Fishy Wish sets a series of 

colourful prints alongside letterpress verses 

about catching a fish. Tissue paper overlays the 

images, in many cases depicting the outlines of 

the images underneath, perhaps suggesting the 

world of difference between the reflected 

surface of the water and the fluid world below. 

A Fishy Wish uses a variety of papers, and 

utilises a Japanese-style stab binding. Hopefully 

the artist’s success with this small book will 

encourage her to develop a more in-depth 

project and, er, catch some bigger fish. 

Digital Book Design 

Douglas Holleley (ISBN 0 9707138 0 0) 

Joan Lyons, in her preface to Douglas 

Holleley’s Digital Book Design and Publishing tells 

us that the book which follows places digitally 

produced books in an historical continuum. 

Certainly digital forms of working are at the 

forefront of technical development in our time, 

and the prospect of placing some of digital 

artworks’ protean identity in historical 

perspective is welcome. 

More immediate, though, at least for me, was 

the way Holleley has locked on to technical 

issues that place digital book design in a 

technical continuum. Much of the life of 

debate around artists’ books arises from 

matters of technique and production. For many 

artists, artists books’ appeal lies in the way they 

remain undefined in any one easy description 

and can take on the mantle, and the cultural 

frisson of many different guises. So perhaps 

questions of technique, and how technique is 

presented in (or as) the finished artwork, are 

the contentious issues that give shape to the 

historical continuum of book-making. The 

scope of Holleley’s book positions digital book 

design squarely as a legitimate part of artists 

books’ practice, describing digital techniques 

163 

alongside traditional ones in a manner 

calculated for ease of use and meaningful 

transference of skill and inspiration across 

media. It includes core digital skills like 

scanning and DTP alonside canonical craft 

skills in printing and binding in a way I’ve only 

previously been able to see in my head or in my 

own experiences as an artist who combines 

many of the skills shown. 

My first few days with the book were spent 

exploring the familiar technical territories I’d 

previously surveyed for myself through a 

combination of instruction and trial-and-error. 

What held my fascination was the way in which 

I could consult a chapter on constructing hard 

covers, and flip a few pages over to find out 

about the various tools of Quark Xpress . 

In fact, when I read in the acknowledgements 

of the author’s admiration for the works of 

Edward Tufte, I felt as if someone had sneaked 

a look at my bookshelf and assembled some 

sort of hybrid book from the evidence of my 

own interests. (Tufte’s Envisaging Information is 

the best book on organising information I’ve 

yet seen, and is a wonderful design experience 

as a book to boot.) The point is that works on 

both the construction of books, and the 

technical how-to of Quark and Photoshop , 

share space on the same shelf in my house: 

seeing them together here was sort of 

life-affirming for me. 

Detail from page 57 of 

Digital Book Design and 

Publishing showing 

examples of “found 

typography”, these 

images, made in 

Mexico are taken 

from Holleley’s artist’s 

book Past and Future 

Tense, 1998 

The fact that Holleley has chosen to include 

quite detailed technical information that deals 

with such digital matters as scanning, page 

layout and so on, alongside chapters on paper 

and binding makes a bold statement - one I’ve 

already touched on above; digital book design 

is part of this group of techniques. If the artist 

takes a little care, their artwork can be part of 

the permanent legacy that traditional 

techniques are at the heart of.

Whilst it’s true that computer programmes 

(even the unsinkable Photoshop and Quark 

XPress ) may not be around as long the 

average Columbian press, other computer 

programmes fulfilling the same functions will 

be around for as long as there are computers to 

run them. Inevitably, as time goes on, some of 

the technical information contained in this 

book will lose its relevance (it gives good advice 

on the current technologies). But the book’s 

strength lies in its defence to this pitfall. 

Wherever possible, Holleley relates the 

principles of the computer applications to their 

actual purpose (which, in this specialised book, 

we have the luxury of knowing - ie, to design 

books) The effect of this is to make more sense 

of why you’d want to use the programme in the 

first place. (Answer: because of the things 

computers make easier, and because there 

are ways to use them alongside all the other 

techniques you like.) 

As far as the technical advice offered is 

concerned, the book keeps its brief in mind, 

and moves through the programmes in a very 

biased way. This is a good thing. I’ve spent a 

long time coaxing the techniques I wanted to 

use out of the existing manuals and courses on 

various computer programmes, and I’ve often 

wished for something less generalised. (On the 

other hand, computers always keep something 

in reserve to spanner you with the moment you 

think you’re on top of things. If you’re new to 

computers, I’d get general guides too, or a 

more experienced friend to help with the more 

rarefied digital problems you might encounter.) 

But a generalised guide couldn’t give the depth 

of context this book offers; that’s the main 

trade-off. I wouldn’t expect, for instance, to be 

told (in a chapter about Quark ) that I should 

get my images to size before I got them into 

Quark in the first place. Neither would I, in 

my usual, generalised manual, expect to be told 

to simply ignore bits of the programme that are 

largely of "academic interest" to someone using 

it for book design. The usual guide books 

howitzer one with information and leave one 

sorting through the wreckage afterwards, 

casting about for clues. 

The most compelling point in the book’s 

trade-off between technical information and 

context is the continuity each chapter has with 

164 

the others. The most technical pages still have 

pages showing real artists’ books; it’s somehow 

comforting to know that pages detailing glues 

and awls and thread are never far away (or, 

conversely, if your home team is electrical and 

encased in beige plastic, there’s a cosy chapter 

for you too.) 

When I say that the book brings together things 

from books I already own, I think I will be 

describing its appeal to many of its readers. 

As a practical guide to new bookbinders it’s a 

thoroughly usable guide and sourcebook of 

ideas that covers its subject well and introduces 

important concepts that would serve to 

inculcate the unity of production media in new 

book makers. It would be entirely possible to 

learn from this book and go on to make many, 

many books: both form - the main construction 

techniques are well covered, and content too, 

is covered; the very many illustrations of artists’ 

books are a continuing delight. 

If you don’t know about the technical aspects 

of artist’s book production, I’d recommend this 

book to get a great overview on how it all 

works. If you do, I’d recommend it simply to 

see so much useful stuff in one place at the 

same time. It had to happen. 

Andrew Eason is a book artist and writer living in 

Bristol. He has produced artists’ books for over 

ten years and has work in diverse public and 

private collections from Tate Britain in London 

to the Joan Flasch Collection at the Art 

Institute of Chicago. A recent retrospective 

show at the University of the West of England, 

entitled Interpreter showcased the ongoing 

literary and investigative concerns prevalent in 

his work. “I use artists’ books to put stuff in. 

They have a privileged narrative condition 

that allows me to approach subjects in a selfcontained 

manner that I couldn’t work with in 

any other way. With books, I can set up an 

environment where I can intervene on a 

subject under conditions prescribed and 

controlled by me.” Andrew Eason’s books can 

be seen at www.andreweason.com

Artist’s page contributors 

For each issue of the Artist’s Book Yearbook we invite a 

selection of artists to contribute a page (or more) of 

artwork, which is interspersed throughout the 

publication. Some of the featured artists have also 

listed their books and contact details in the Artists’ 

Books Produced section on the following pages. 

This year’s contributors are: 

Kate Farley (page 89) Printing, folding, a title, late 

nights and a fascination with the seeing, feeling, 

responding, and recording process from an 

experience. I make small editions of books and 

prints inspired by both physical and emotional 

journeys. As a tutor at Central Saint Martins, and 

schools and colleges further afield. I also enjoy 

teaching the possibilities of book art to a broad 

range of student groups. (kate.farley1@virgin.net) 

Alec Finlay (pages 81, 127, 215) is an artist and 

publisher who has been working as artist-in-residence 

at BALTIC: The Centre for Contemporary Art since 

July 2001, producing a series of twelve books co 

published by BALTIC and Morning Star. Some of the 

forthcoming publications will be based upon the 

participative projects that Alec is running: Bynames 

(Hamish Fulton / Hermit Futon), Wind Blown Cloud, 

and The Book of Questions. Details of how to take part 

in any of these projects are available at: 

www.balticmill.com. (alecf@balticmill.com) 

Paul Laidler (page 132) During my time of being 

alive I have enjoyed breathing oxygen, this has 

allowed me to make art. Also my brain telling my 

hands and eyes what to do has been a real bonus in 

this area. Working in print has really brought me out 

of my shell. I now like saying “photo spectrometer” 

to people whenever possible and always encourage 

using gradient blends on a stochastic mesh. This 

sense of belonging is second to none, and has 

awoken me to the fact that it is not blood that 

flow’th through my veins, for it be but ink. 

(Paul.Laidler@uwe.ac.uk) 

Andrew Lanyon (page 165) The hollow books evolved 

because one of the characters in one of my books 

had an accident in a laboratory and cloned himself, 

not as a scientist, but as an artist. Within a fortnight 

there were 900 clones. To Walter’s horror, not only 

were these all artists, but each inaugurated a new art 

movement! To give the whole idea credibility I had 

to appear to invent at least one new art form – 

the result was the hollow books, and 10 years later 

I’m still making them… in fact they have led on into 

new areas in which writers quarry language. 

(see listings section for contact details) 

166 

Steve McPherson (page 140) Taking a couple of years 

to complete each volume, I see my Diary/journal 

making as a way of mapping and organising, visually 

and conceptually. Where found objects, images, 

motifs, symbols and text repeat themselves - forming 

streams of conscious and unconscious thought, idea 

and meaning amongst layers of everyday debris and 

detritus. Each double page is treated as potential 

space for endless possibilities. On completion, there 

lie in the bloated pages, created and re-created - 

invented and re-invented - lost and shared - archived 

- collected and collated histories of individuals and 

others, known and unknown. Forming in the viewer 

distant memories of undiscovered places. 

(fgp7297@hotmail.com) 

Kristen Merola (page 152) has recently finished her 

two years postgraduate study for the Master of Fine 

Arts at the Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester NY, 

where she specialised in photography. She is currently 

doing an internship at Lake Affect Magazine, a 

regional arts magazine in New York State, USA. 

(kmerola@rochester.rr.com) 

Otto (page 15)I am interested in narratives that are 

expressed visually rather than verbally. Usually I use 

the book as the medium, as it is the obvious way of 

presenting a continuous series of images. Often the 

book breaks out of its function of being merely a 

carrier of a message and becomes part of the 

message. The illustration shown is the first of a 

planned series of illustrations for scenes in Ovid's 

Metamorphosis, a subject popular with painter - 

illustrators of the Renaissance. 

(otto@ottoillustration.com) 

Lucy May Schofield (page 38) Romance can be found 

in the quietest and most insignificant of places, a shy 

look, an innocent touch of the knee, a secret smile. 

There’s not much time for love anymore, so in an 

attempt to capture a bit of true romance, I make 

secret love note books. Designed to be popped into 

the pockets of those whom you find it difficult to tell 

you love, fancy, lust after or need forgiveness from. 

They are a shy girl’s guide to expressing herself and 

a modern boy’s guide to romancing the old 

fashioned way. For those who want pure fun, ‘teaser 

books’ are designed to help entice or just break the 

ice. (lucymayschofield@hotmail.com) 

Genevieve Waller (facing page 1) is a postgraduate 

student at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, on the 

Masters of Fine Arts in Photography programme. 

She has recently completed a Bachelor of Arts in 

Art History, and one year of postgraduate study at 

the Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, New York. 

Genevieve has also interned at Afterimage for the past 

8 months, and has been an intern at the George 

Eastman House for 3 months. 

(anneholyoke@hotmail.com)

Listings of Artists’ Books Published between 2002 and 2005 

Adams, Becky 

Castle View 

Cardiff Road 

Creigiau 

Cardiff 

Wales 

CF15 9NL 

Tel: 02920 890017 

beckymoth@hotmail.com 

Analecta 

Analecta refers to the collected ephemera that 

creates the book and the fragmentary nature in 

which the images appear, a personal reponse to 

the notion of the Object of Desire. Mixed media 

on paper with rose petals, fabric and stitching. 

8.3 x 8.3 cms (boxed) 

2002, UK 

Edition of 40, £55 each 

Altman, Louise 

Lou Lou Loves Books / The Cat’s Me-ow Press 

1 Malting Villas Road 

Rochford 

Essex 

SS4 1AE 

Tel: 01702 545651 

louisealtman@hotmail.com 

Summer Holiday 

Louise Altman 

The artist and the disco girl went to sea in a 

beautiful sea green box. 

15.5 x 2.5 cms 

April 2003, UK 


Because My Blood Can Sing and Dance 

Louise Altman 

Origami flower folded book. 

4 x 4 cms 

February 2002, UK 

Unlimited edition, £3.50 each 

Analecta 

167 

Because My Blood Can Sing and Dance 

Sweetsleeps 

Louise Altman 

A book of heartbeats and pulse rates, french 

folded, japanese bound in white and red. 

10.5 x 13 cms 

January 2003, UK 


Ambeck, Mette-Sofie D. 

MSD Ambeck 

Hovsørvej 19 

DK-7700 

Thisted 

Denmark 

www.ambeck.mdd.dk 

msambeck@hotmail.com 

Boy Met Girl - MSDA 2003 

Mette-Sophie D. Ambeck 

Congratulations it’s a book! A colourful sequel 

to MSDA 0300/M+F - Boy Meets Girl 2000. 

Come and see the babies. 

8 x 12.5 cms 

2003, Denmark 

Edition of 40, £35 each

The Jante Law 


A refugee crosses the tracks (Aksel Sandmose, 

1933) outlines ten commandments said to 

reveal how Danish identity is dogged by 

inferiority and inadequacy. This book 

investigates and reassembles these 

commandments in both physical construction 

and applied design. 31 x 31 cms 

2003, Denmark 


Punch and Beauty 


The neglected beauty of the punched hole. 

A portfolio containing 234 randomly punched 

pieces of information, six of which are enlarged 

by 2000 percent and then cut out. 

Each copy is unique. 

15 x 15 cms 

2002, Denmark 


Artgoes 

The Major ’art Surgery 

Baddox 

NE46 2PX 

Tel: 01434 60 80 70 

www.artgoes.com 

sales@artgoes.com 

Introducing Artgoes For Beginners 

Artist: c-more-tone 

Author: Chris Morton 

The 3-in-1 Artist’s Book that’s more than just an 

Artgoes primer – it’s a … 

• reflexive critical reader/study guide; 

• a special edition B&W Artgoes superstore 

catalogue; & 

• an intriguing ‘reasearchypothesis’ – 

“Is language a virus masquerading as our soul..?” 

168 

20 x 14 cms 

ISBN 1 904309 00 3 

2001 Artgoes, UK 

£8.99 each 

Readymade 5 Pack O’ Unreadymade Flatpacks 

Chloe Daykin & Chris Morton 

The development of “we make ’em so you don’t 

have to” readymades – the “you make ’em so we 

don’t have to “unreadymade flatpacks” – 5 

pack for the IDEA Bag; critical art viewers; art 

compass; foldyopenychooseything & the haiku 

box set…. 

25 x 40 cms 

ISBN 1 904309 01 1 


£15.99 a pack 

(S)Pin The Tale On The Donkey (Hotey) Chapmap 

Chloe Daykin & Chris Morton 

Text: thanks to Cervantes..! 

The Survey Ord ance Pathfinder series chapmap 

that unfolds to reveal a don’t-get-bored game 

that includes a cut-out-spin-the-tail tale (that 

compliments the Donkey Hotey & Shado Panza 

part the first & part the second chapbooks) 

15 x 12 cms, A3 sheet folded (inc. slipcase). 

ISBN: 1 904309 06 2 


£4.99

Ashby, Lyn 

Bashplate Books 

New South Wales, Australia 

lyn_ashby@hotmail.com 

The Sweetest Six Kilometres 

Lyn Ashby 

The intertwining of three journeys, three 

stories in text, photographs and symbols. 

16.5 x 15 cms 

2003, Sydney, Australia 

£20 each 

Atkinson, Andrew 

24 Mayflower Avenue 

Pentwortham 

Preston 

PR1 0LJ 

Tel: 07717 376094 

www.andrewatkinson.net 

mail@andrewatkinson.net 

Street Life in London Redeemed 

Artist: Andrew Atkinson 

Author: Jaldaboath 

A reworking of ‘Street Life in London’, a 19th 

Century photographic social documentary of 

the living conditions of the capital’s poor, as 

seen through eyes of the Jaldaboath, a 

character from gnostic myth. The book is 

published as part of the mid-C20th findings 

of the C4th Egyptian Nag Hammadi Library. 

20 x 15 cms 

2003, Center for Book Arts, New York, USA 

£75 each 

170 

Barton, David 

45 Wellmeadow Road 

Hither Green 

London 

SE13 6SY 

Tel: 020 8244 4238 

Visible and Invisible 

David Barton 

Searching for the precise, subtle, volatile 

structure which supports, contains and projects 

the invisible presence of the body, 65 full page 

line drawings and texts. 

21 x 14.7 cms 

February 2003, London 

ISBN 1 902639 65 0 

£6 each 

Holding a Breath 

David Barton 

Drawing a breath, holding a breath, feeling a 

growing inside. Beginning with nothing, 

becoming nothing, holding nothing within 

nothing. 37 full page line drawings and texts. 

21 x 14.7 cms 

June 2003, London 

ISBN 1 902639 64 2 

£4.50 each 

Held 

David Barton 

I am the flaw, the flinch, the shudder, the split 

in the emptiness in which I am held. 

12 full page line drawings and text. 

21 x 14.7 cms 

July 2003, London 

ISBN 1 902639 66 9 

£3 each 

Baake, Frans 

Schumannlaan 22 

7522 KE 

Enschede 


Tel/fax: 0031 53 4777 802 

www.fransbaake.nl 

info@fransbaake.nl 

Ilhas 

Frans Baake 

A step by step guide through the Azores (Ilhas

is Portuguese for islands). An oblong book 

containing eight characteristic photographs. In 

the first part of the book, each picture has been 

divided into two parts, containing half of the 

information. In the second half of the book, 

the photos are shown in their original size, 

being complete. Relief printed texts have been 

used to support the images. 

10.5 x 29.5 cms 

2002 Enschede, The Netherlands 


Meer 

Frans Baake 

On the island of Flores, Azores, the artist 

photographed all seven crater lakes with an 

unpredictable Lomo-graphic camera, in order 

to get four images on one picture. Presented as 

a leaflet in a plastic box. The title refers to the 

two meanings of a Dutch word: Meer, which 

means ‘lake’ as well as ‘more’. 

8.5 x 2.3 cms 

2002 Enschede, The Netherlands 


Les IlÔts de L’ eau 

Frans Baake 

A cloth bound leperello containing four 

photographed lakes as seen in the Netherlands, 

Germany and the island of Miquelon. The title 

is French for ‘small islands out of water’ as the 

artist considers them. 

5.3 x 8.1 cms 

2003 Enschede, The Netherlands 


Bastiaans, Rudi 

AKI 

Hallenweg 5 

7500 BK 

Enschede 


Tel: 0031 53 482 4404 

R.Bastiaans@aki.nl 

Me, Myself and I 

Rudi Bastiaans 

An ongoing book project which is added to 

annually as the artist changes each year. The 

images are hand printed in negative on metal 

pages, giving the effect of an x-ray. Boxed as a 

set of loose leaf pages 

171 

15 x 10 cms (boxed) 

2000 onwards, Enschede, The Netherlands 


Begbie, Guy 

15 Kingsley Road 

Cotham 

Bristol 

BS6 6AF 

Tel 0117 924 7190 

guy@begbiebook.freeserve.co.uk 

New York Dolls: Flipbook series 

Guy Begbie 

New York Dolls is produced in a series, from 

original video footage shot by the artist in 

order to produce a bound document. These 

flip books are about people watching in an 

unfamiliar city. They provoke pertinent 

questions concerning issues of anonymity, 

surveillance, voyeurism and the fleeting 

moment. Repetition in the editing of single 

frames has produced choreographed 

momentary movement which has been 

translated into a cinematic flip book structure. 

6 x 10 cms 

2003 Bristol 

Open edition, contact artist for price. 

Held & Contained 

Guy Begbie 

Held & Contained is one of a series of paper 

engineered books that challenge and redefine 

shifting parameters of the book form, through 

interpretations alluding to landscape. 

Conceptually these works investigate ways in 

which the book structure may hold and contain 

the experience of buildings and the landscape.

11 x 11 cms 



Demountable Camper 

Guy Begbie 

“If you go down to the woods today, you will 

have a big surprise.” Demountable Camper 

Volume one and Expanda Store, Volume two in a 

slip cased boxed set, are a visual treatise on the 

rural retreat. 

16 x 22 cms 


Open edition, £95 each 

Bently, John 

Liver and Lights Scriptorium 

Flat 3 

2 Wyneham Road 

Herne Hill 

London 

SE24 9NT 

Tel: 020 7501 9566 

johnbently@hotmail.com 

Liver and Lights No. 29: 

A Handful of Memories, Dundee 

Editor: John Bently 

Artists: John Bently, Sarah Derrick, 

Graham Esson, Mark McKay, Irene Shearer, 

Lynn Cunningham 

A collection of souvenirs and mementos from 

the lives of five Dundee residents - somehow 

constituting a portrait of a community through 

a handful of memories. 

21 x 15 cms 

March 2002, London 

ISBN 0 9533961 5 0 

£5.99 each 

Liver and Lights No. 31: Orange 

John Bently 

Held & Contained 

172 

The story of an orange, from peeling to 

nothingness. Hardback, bound and made 

entirely with brown paper and rubber stamped 

text and image. 

8 x 5 cms 

September 2002, London 


Liver and Lights No. 30: Thirty People 

John Bently 

The 30th Liver and Lights publication contains 

30 portraits created from collected secondperson 

descriptions of people’s lives overheard 

in the course of the last year. Hardback, cloth 

binding, red bolt bound. 

13 x 10 cms 

April 2003, London 

Edition of 100, £19 each (detail below)

Bicknell, Les 

Eva’s Place 

Sibton Green 

Saxmundham 

Suffolk 

IP17 2JX 

lesb@tinyonline.co.uk 

Idea 

Artist: Les Bicknell 

Author: Robin Brooks 

An audio tour of an idea. A collaborative 

project that questions the creative act and its 

relationship to object making; along with truth, 

imagination and the role of the artist and the 

de-objectification of art. 

6 x 10 cms 

May 2003, Published by Sibton Green, UK 

£100 each 

Bodman, Sarah 

2 Handel Avenue 

St George 

Bristol 

BS5 8DS 

Tel: 0117 32 84747 


Sarah.Bodman@uwe.ac.uk 

Time Itself 

Sarah Bodman 

Made as the result of a residency at the Jenner 

Museum, Berkeley, Gloucester, in July 2002. 

The museum is the former home of Edward 

Jenner who discovered the cure for smallpox. 

The book is based on aspects of Jenner’s work 

and the isolation hospitals used to house past 

victims of the highly contagious disease. 

Hardbound in red buckram with silver foil title. 

16 x 15 cms 

2002 Bristol, UK 


173 

The Marsh Test 

Sarah Bodman 

Marie Lafarge was found guilty of poisoning 

her husband Henri, in Paris, in 1840. Her trial 

was the first publicly documented use of James 

Marsh’s highly sensitive test for the detection of 

arsenic in natural compounds. This book is 

based on the court case, presented as a folio, 

bound in blue buckram as a series of letters 

and an etching, discovered by a pathologist. 

16 x 19 cms 

November 2002 Visual Studies Workshop, 

Rochester, New York, USA 


Pace Bend 

Sarah Bodman 

A book based on climbing routes through Pace 

Bend Park, Texas, USA. The climb is detailed 

with instructions, heights and ability guides but 

soon develops into an ambiguous and uneasy 

situation. Bound with a simple fold card cover, 

with screenprinted title. The format of the 

book unfolds as a map with an individually 

numbered map pin. 

12 x 16 cms 

2002 Bristol, UK 




Brooklyn NY11222 

New York 

USA 

Tel: 001 718 383 9621 


mweber@booklyn.org 

Eleven 

Artists: Marshall Weber, Isabelle Weber 

Authors: Marshall Weber, Ellis Avery, Euripides, 

Judith Foster, M T Karthik, Jane LeCroy and 

Peter Spagnuolo 

Photographs of New York City in the weeks 

after 9/11 with texts by six local witnessing 

writers. Alternating vertical and horizontal 

page-spreads evoke the disorientation of the 

city. Hand bound, 72 pages with an audio CD 

of the authors reciting their texts. Book 

designed by Marshall Weber, Christopher Wilde 

and Sara Parkel; page design by Marshall Weber 

and Alison E. Williams; text designed by Alison 

E. Williams and binding by Sara Parkel. 

23 x 15 cms 

09/11/2002 Brooklyn, New York, USA 

Edition of 29, £1,500 each 

Souvenir 

Artist: Marshall Weber 

Layout and printing: Amy Mees 

Design and binding: Mark Wagner 

174 

Over the course of three years, a 1969 New 

York City high school yearbook was torn by 

hand and reconstructed into a vintage stamp 

album. This 28 page deconstruction poignantly 

evokes the idealism of the 1960’s. 

20 x 14 cms 

2003 Brooklyn, New York 


12/11 

Artist: Marshall Weber 

Author: Katherine Bates 

Design, printing and binding: Mark Wagner 

Three months after 9/11 the artist spent one 

day in New York City photographing the 

plethora of decaying American flags. The 

Japanese stab bound photographs have the 

lyrics from America the Beautiful letterpressed on 

their verso. 

12.7 x 17.8 cms 

2002 Brooklyn, New York 


Book Works 

19 Holywell Row 

London 

EC2A 4JB 

Tel: 020 7247 2203 

www.bookworks.org.uk 

mail@bookworks.org.uk 

Romanov 

Adam Chodzko 

June 1995, a young woman’s car is illegally 

parked in Soho. Inside the car, police find 

ammunition and weapons; when arrested she 

refuses to speak. In this book, Chodzko 

attempts to reclaim the woman’s identity and 

her voice. 

21 x 14.8 cms 

October 2002 Book Works, London 

ISBN 1 870699 51 3 

£9.95 each 

Trying to Get In Between 

Maria Lindberg 

Maria Lindberg is an influential Swedish artist, 

this new book presents an overview of her 

career and has been constructed so that no 

hierarchical or sequential relationship dictates 

the reading. 

22.5 x 19 cms

December 2002 Book Works, London 

ISBN 1 870699 64 5 

£20 each 

Magazine 

Mike Nelson 

Mike Nelson is well known for his labyrinthine 

installations. He has chosen the title ‘Magazine’ 

to suggest the book as a storeroom where 

previous works can be encountered and 

recreated anew. 

24.2 x 17.1 cms 

March 2003 Book Works, London 

ISBN 1 870699 62 9 

£15 each 

Borbonesa 

PO Box 3429 

Brighton 

BN1 5UR 

www.borbonesa.co.uk 

mail@borbonesa.co.uk 

Turtle Soup 

Borbonesa 

A publication unlike much else concerning 

175 

Natural Wonderland. Turtle Soup comprises of a 

concertina paper, a poster of illustrations and a 

3-inch CD of precious audio matter. 

22 x 11 cms 

2003 Brighton 

ISSN 1477 8629 

£6 each 

Emitron 

Lee Sherman 

An occasional Micropaper for the 21st Century 

detailing the mixed particulars of Emitron’s past, 

present and future. It comprises of a single 

sheet of A4 drafting paper folded into 24 pages 

52 x 49 mm. Each copy is cropped, folded and 

stamped by hand. 

5.2 x 4.9 cms 

2003 Borbonesa, Brighton 

£2.50 each 

Bristol Art Library 

10 Maycliffe Park 

Ashley Down 

Bristol 

BS6 5JH 

Tel: 0117 904 7609 

headlibrarian@thebristolartlibrary.co.uk 

My Place 

Annabel Other / The Head Librarian 

A 7-inch picture disc featuring the Head 

Librarian of the Bristol Art Library singing a 

specially commissioned song written by 

Jesse Morningstar and a B side remix by 

David Hopkinson. 

7 cms across 

July 2003 Disco-ordination Records, Bristol 

£25 each 

Buenz, Isabell 

5 Cleuch Road 

North Middleton 

Midlothian 

EH23 4RB 

Tel: 07751 649161 

www.papermagic.co.uk 

isabuenz@hotmail.com 

A Chocolate Journey 

Isabell Buenz / Papermagic 

A one-off bookwork of a box containing

ecreated chocolates and a book made in the 

format of a photo album. This leads the reader 

through a visual and tactile ‘journey’ revealing 

the personal chocolate eating habits of the 

artist’s girlfriends. A Book Project Exhibition 

publication. 

22 x 19 cms 

2003, UK 

NFS 

Burns, Bill 

7 Silver Avenue 

Toronto 

M6R 1X9 

Canada 

www.safetygearmuseum.com 

bburns@canada.com 

Urban Fauna Information Station 

Artists: Bill Burns, Trevor Gould, Mark Vatnsdal 

(Flock, Gaggle, Herd) 

The story of the Urban Fauna Information 

Station’s journey from Toronto to Montreal in 

the summer of 2002. 64 pages, four-colour 

176 

offset printed. Published by Flock, Gaggle, 

Herd and Mercer Union. 

15 x 15 cms 

2003 Toronto /Montreal 

ISBN 0 921427 62 4 

Regular edition of 950 copies £20 each 

Special edition of 50 copies which also include 

trading cards and stickers £30 each 

How to Help Animals Escape from Degraded Habitats 

Bill Burns 

A guide to the rescue, relocation and 

rehabilitation of animals living in degraded 

habitats. French and English text, printed as 

two-colour offset. Published by Flock, Gaggle, 

Herd and Optica. 

12 x 16 cms 

1997 Montreal 

ISBN 2 9800981 9 1 

£15 each 

Footprints of Animals Wearing Safety Gear 

Bill Burns 

An exquisite blueprint in a book cover, showing 

the effects of safety gear on animal tracks. Part 

of a series including Songs of Birds Wearing Safety 

Gear (Plugin 1999) and Safety Gear for Small 

Animals (303 Gallery, New York 1994). 

18 x 15 cms 

2000 William English Editions, London 

£10 each 

Burwitz, Neils 

Libra Press 

Calle Rosa 22 

Valldemossa 

Mallorca E-07170 

Spain 

Tel: 0034 9716 12838 

Fax:0034 9716 12839 

burwitz@arrakis.es

El Miró Invisible 

Nils Burwitz and 20 contributors. 

This boxed, bibliophile set of The Invisible Miró 

is an homage to Burwitz’s spiritual mentor Joan 

Miró. After his death in 1983, Burwitz 

discovered an as yet unpublished graffito of 

Joan Miró. It was a charcoal drawing on the 

plaster wall of his studio, “Son Boter” with the 

words ‘The artist with his true palette’ written 

next to it. This inspired Burwitz to interview 

some of the friends and contemporaies of 

Miró and the result is this bibliophile edition of 

20 personal texts, prose and poetry along with 

20 graphic prints by Nils Burwitz. 

44.5 x 32.5 cms 

Libra Press Valldemossa, 

Mallorca 

ISBN 84 605 9933 7 


Bush, Tracey 

Fathom Five Books 

The Gallery Workspace 

Pennybank Chambers 

33-35 St John’s Square 

Clerkenwell 

London 

EC1M 4DS 

Tel: 07941 958 402 

www.cga.org.uk/traceybush 

fathom5books@hotmail.com 

River Stairs 

Tracey Bush 

River Stairs is a photographic exploration of the 

Thames through Docklands. Eight densely 

inked indigo flexo prints on Korean paper 

describe these liminal places. Accompanied by 

letterpress text, written by the artist. Bound in 

indigo bookcloth, blocked in silver. 

177 

29 x 18 cms 

2002 Fathom Five Books, London 


British Butterflies 

Tracey Bush 

British Butterflies is a stamp album, containing 

cut-out butterflies from maps of Britain 

(general collection) or recycled envelopes 

(browns and blues). Bound in green, navy or 

dark red cloth, with striped ribbon ties, blocked 

in gold. 15.5 x 12 cms 

2003 Fathom Five Books, London 

Numbered open edition, £45 each 

Cartwright, Rebecca 

45 Honor Oak Rise 

London 

SE23 3RA 

Tel: 07773 287 192 

rfcartwright@hotmail.com 

Salomé 

Rebecca Cartwright 

Text by Oscar Wilde 

Salomé is a hand bound artist’s book including 

twenty four etchings illustrating the text by 

Oscar Wilde. Extracts from the original play, in 

French are screenprinted opposite each image. 

22.5 x 38 cms 


Chamberlain, Ian 

114 Grattons Drive 

Poundhill 

Crawley 

West Sussex 

RH10 3JP 

Tel: 07765 662916 

i-chamberlain@hotmail.com 

Odyssey 

Ian Chamberlain 

The book contains a series of images and text 

depicting various scenes and characters from 

Homer’s Odyssey. Hand printed in letterpress 

with collage and mixed - media. 

16 x 22 cms 



Claire, Paula 

International Sound and Visual Poetry Archive 

11 Dale Close 

Thames Street 

Oxford 

OX1 1TU 

Tel: 01865 727529 

paula.claire@talk21.com 

Sunflowerpower 

Paula Claire 

A book of 20 transparent pockets with 11 pages 

of poems and text in English / Portuguese. 

Colour illustrations include 10 visual poems 

and 6 photos. A video of a performance with 

100 sunflowers at Porto 2001 International Poetry 

and Performance Festival, is also included. 

31 x 24 cms 

2002 ISVPA Publications, Oxford 


Still Bemused 

Paula Claire 

180 

Seven typewriter ‘text-iles’ digitally enhanced 

poems, significantly interleaved with varying 

densities of tracing paper: veils we must pass 

through in quest of the muse. A book of 20 

transparent pockets. 

31 x 24 cms 



Concrete Poetry x 6 

Paula Claire 

My definition of concrete poetry typed in 

computer graphics, successively overprinted by 

hand to form a set of six sound / visual poems, 

each unique. 10 transparent pockets. 

31 x 24 cms 



Collins, Patricia 

2 Litchfield Cottages 

Rattlerow 

Mileham 

Norfolk 

PE32 2PY 

Behind the Scenes 

Patricia Collins and Jorg Seifert 

Dual language publication of photographs and 

text exploring life behind the scenes of an 

English country garden. The text is taken from 

a 1928 jobbing gardener’s diary. 

29.7 x 21 cms 

2003 Germany 

£25 each 

Roosters Dictionary 

Patricia Collins 

An A5 book recording what cockerels say 

throughout the world: ‘cocorico’ in France, 

‘ko ki ko ko’ in Japan and ‘cock a doodle do’ in 

England. Illustrated with hand coloured rubber 

stamps and maps. 

21 x 14.5 cms 

2003 Norfolk 

£7.50 each 

The Practical Home Archaeologist 

Patricia Collins 

The interface between D.I.Y. and field 

archaeology explored in text and image. “ And 

in the space between ceiling and floor - a line

of flints, untouched, existing only in time.” 

2003 Norfolk 

£7.50 each 

Colverson, Ian 

34 West Hill Road 

London 

SW18 1LN 

Tel: 01274 423267 

icolverson@bilk.ac.uk 

A Bolt Through Barnett Newman 

Ian Colverson and Louise Parsons 

A collaborative book comprising of a jointed 

strip of paper measuring 570 x 5 inches with a 

vertical 9/16 inch etched band of words, words 

running down the centre - complete words and 

fragmented words - derived from random 

vertical cuts through the pages of Kate O’ 

Riordan’s 1995 novel Involved. 

13 x 1,140 cms 

2002 Bradford 


Calm 

Berina Anderson and Ian Colverson 

Calm consists of 4 etchings printed on 

Somerset paper in black, Japanese bound in an 

edition of 10 copies. 

26 x 35 cms 

2003 Bradford 


181 

Cowie, Heather 

Beckstones 

Buckfast Road 

Buckfastleigh 

Devon 

TQ11 0EA 

www.heathercowie.com 

heathercowie@btconnect.com 

Beating re-Sonance 

Heather Cowie 

A book focussing on percussion in terms of 

original pencil markings on paper, overprinting 

with digital images of instruments and text on 

transparent overlays. Image and text pages 

hand sewn into an accordion book, casebound 

with slipcase. 

21 x 19.5 cms 

2003 Buckfastleigh 

Edition of 10, Contact artist for price. 

Fingering re-Sonance 


A partner book to Beating re-Sonance focussing 

on piano, celesta and harp. Black and white, 

24 original drawings plus inkjet overprints and 

transparencies. 

21 x 19.5 cms 


Edition of 10, contact artist for price. 

Earth Bound 


Earth strata variations represented in image, 

symbol and bound text. Images derived from 

original oil paintings, digitally printed on 

Arches satine, partially hand coloured. 

Overstitching in silk, sewn sections, casebound 

in cloth. 

19.5 x 19.5 cms 


Open numbered edition, contact artist for 

price. 

Cronin, Marian 

The Cat’s Me-ow Press 

90 Crest Road 

Cricklewood 

London 

NW2 7SL 

Tel: 0208 452 2522 

marz_cronin@yahoo.com

A Storm Passing Overhead 

Marian Cronin 

A slot - together mobile constructed from six 

printed circles. The circles bear images of rain 

clouds with accompanying text. Colour photocopies 

on card, flatpacked in 10cm 2 envelope. 

15 x 13 cms 

2003 UK 


Dilnot, John 

24 Yardley Street 

Brighton 

BN1 4NU 

Tel: 01273 684250 

urbantree@ntlworld.com 

Boundaries 

John Dilnot 

Contains 13 photographs of urban trees taken 

at various times and places over the last 20 

years. One of a series of themed books. 32 

pages, wire binding. 

13 x 10 cms 

2002 Urban Tree, Brighton 


Trees 

John Dilnot 

Facsimiles of illustrations from children’s 

dictionaries, 12 pages. 16 x 14 cms 



Little Museum 

John Dilnot 

Made with Joe Dilnot. Contains 9 photographs 

of hands holding a: book, fossil, photograph, 

stamp, card collection, lorry, cow, postcard, 

coin. 16 pages. 

10.5 x 14.8 cms 



Doñaque, Manya 

7 Hollydene 

17 Beacon Road 

Hither Green 

London 

SE13 6ES 

manyadoñaque@hotmail.com 

182 

Traces of Me 

Manya Doñaque 

This book was printed in silkscreen, using water 

based black ink. It has a dust jacket of printed 

tracing paper with an attached pair of white 

gloves (also printed). 

22 x 15.5 cms 

2002 Bradford College, UK 


Match Book 


This book has been made using photopolymer 

print techniques. Each of the match plates were 

individually printed on white Somerset papers 

and folded into a concertina. The book is 

housed in a cardboard (match) box. 

12.5 x 7.5 cms 



Twenty Six Drawings 


Letterpress printed in cream and terracotta ink. 

Each page is printed with a single word, it has 

to do with things I cannot draw. Printed on 

thick white card. 

24 x 20.5 cms 



Downes, Penelope 

Queriendo Press 


Bristol 

BS3 4NS 

Tel: 0117 963 3010 

www.axisartists.org.uk/all/ref/5570.htm 

penny@queriend.dialstart.net

In the Time of Crow 

Artist: Penelope Downes 

Author: Alyson Sarah Hallet 

A small book of predictions with images of 

crows leading to the text pages through a 

foldout chart. Printed at Doveton Press, Bristol 

in offset - litho from original etchings, hand 

bound, 36 pages. 

15 x 15 cms 

2001 Queriendo Press, Bristol 

ISBN 0 9541484 0 1 

Edition of 500, £22.50 each 

Letter from Timbuktu 


Ceramic Artist: Deborah Prosser 

In collaboration with ceramic artist Deborah 

Prosser, Timbuktu is a series of 12 individual clay 

books that are exhibited on bundles of cloth or 

in boxes. There are three categories; covers 

with a page, closed covers and single tablets. 

Sizes vary from 26 x 21 cms large cover with 

page format, to 10 x 18 cms in tablet format. 

2002 Queriendo Press, Bristol 

Prices from £75 to £250 each. 

Casa 


Printer: Cornelio Garcia 

About a conversation with a young daughter, 

183 

in a house, in a city, in Mexico. A book of six 

folds made from four etchings in two colours. 

Hand bound, the book can be displayed wide 

open. 

21.5 x 16 cms 

2003 Queriendo Press, Guadalajara, Mexico 


Dupré, Marie-Fred 

Allende 224 

La Cañada, Sanata Ana Tepetitlán 

Zapopan 44230 

Jalisco 

Mexico 

mariefred_2000@yahoo.com 

Anatomy of the Chimera 

Marie-Fred Dupré 

Anatomy of the Chimera is a wink to Leonardo da 

Vinci and his beautiful anatomical drawings. It 

brings 20 monsters from classical / mediaeval 

mythology to life. A skeleton is a splendid 

architecture of 12 vertebrae and 24 ribs that 

breathe or have been breathing. If it is the 

symbol of death, it is also the symbol of life. 

Hardbound, with a series of etchings. 

42 x 36 cms 

2003 Mexico 


Eagle Gallery, 

159 Farringdon Road 

London 

EC1R 3AL 

Tel: 020 7833 2674 

emmahilleagle@aol.com 

A Little Flora of Common Plants 

Artist: Jane Joseph 

Author: Mel Gooding 

A contemporary botanical of English common 

plants. Nine drypoint images and nine 

letterpress poems. 

29.x 18.5 cms 

October 2002 EMH Arts, London 

Edition of 12 plus 4 Artists Proofs, £950 each 

caranicino 

Artist: Nicola Schrudde 

Author: Mel Gooding 

Artist’s book evolving from a series of abstract 

paintings made about the landscape around 

Olevano Romano, Italy. 

23.x 28.8 cms 

ISBN 0 9531793 7 0 

May 2003 EMH Arts / Parerga Verlag GmbH, 

London 

Standard edition of 1000 at £30 each 

Special edition of 20 at £200 each 

Variant 

Artist: Andrew Bick 

Author and Artist; Gad Hollander 

Description: Artist’s book of texts, notes and 

images collected from 1999 – 2003, printed 

offset litho. 

12.3 x 16.2 cm 

ISBN 0 9531793 9 7 

July 2003 EMH Arts, London 


Eason, Andrew 

41 Upton Road 

Southville 

Bristol 

BS3 1LW 

Tel: 07771 533 810 

www.andreweason.com 

andreweason@hotmail.com 

184 

Radio 

Andrew Eason 

Digitally - produced imagery touching on the 

particle/ wave problem in describing 

electromagnetic radiation. How do light and 

radio waves propagate themselves across space? 

How do people communicate? 

12 x 15cms 

2003 Bristol, UK 


Nilometer 

Andrew Eason 

Digitally -produced. The Nilometer is one of 

the longest-serving pieces of scientific 

apparatus in existence. Used to measure the 

annual inundation of the Nile, it also records 

humanity’s continuing attempt to codify and 

control nature. Data from ancient records has 

been used to support research into global 

warming. 

19 x 13.5cms 

2003 Bristol, UK 


Firmament 

Andrew Eason 

Digitally - produced. The ceiling of St Mary 

Redcliffe in Bristol is covered with over 1000 

unique bosses. Stone ribs vaulting the space 

suggest a tree pattern reminiscent of Kabbalist 

imagery. However, Greek, Hebrew and 

Phoenicean alphabets co-exist, constructing a 

complex involution of culture and history. 

26 x 111.5 cms (spread) 

2003, Bristol, UK 


Editions Signum 

Wanda Mihulear 

5 Rue des Pruniers 

Paris 75020 

France 

Tel: 33 (0) 1 43 6670 27 

editions_signum@hotmail.com 

L’Epave d’une Parole 

Artist: Karl-Heinz Bogner 

Author: Brigitte Gyr 

A dual language edition (French and German) 

of six original drawings, with text. Printed on 

Hahnemühle papers, bound in a calfskin box. 

21 x 28 cms 

2002 Editions Signum, Paris, France 

950 Euros 

Or (Gold) 

Artist: Wanda Mihulear 

Author: Jacques Derrida 

Three engravings and a CD (Derrida’s voice 

and electronic music) texts on gold paper with 

gold leaves, housed in a sculptrual metal box 

made by R. Pervoloriq. 

32 x 22 cms 


763 Euros 

185 

Pierre a Encre 

Artist: Danielle Loisel 

Author: François Cheng 

A French - Chinese translation: Liu Nei, with 

nine stone lithographs on Hahnemühle paper. 

25 x 20 cms 


460 Euros 

Enitharmon Press 

26B Caversham Road 

London 

NW5 2DU 

Tel: 020 7482 5967 

www.enitharmon.co.uk 

books@enitharmon.co.uk 

Jane Eyre 

Artist: Paula Rego 

Introduction by Marina Warner 

Paula Rego’s lithographs based on Charlotte 

Brontë’s Jane Eyre, paired with extracts from the 

text, and with a long introduction by Marina 

Warner. The de luxe edition is accompanied by 

a signed original lithograph. 

38 x 26.5 cms 

October 2003 Enitharmon Press, London 

ISBN 1 900564 44 0 (de luxe) 

ISBN 1 900564 49 1 (regular) 

£550 and £95 respectively

The Disappeared and Other Poems 

Artist: Tony Bevan 

Author: Harold Pinter 

A selection of Harold Pinter’s poems from the 

1950’s to the present, paired with images of 

paintings by Tony Bevan. The de luxe edition is 

accompanied by a signed original etching. 

32 x 23.5 cms 

October 2002 Enitharmon Press, London 

ISBN 1 900564 98 X (de luxe) 

ISBN 1 900564 04 1 (regular) 

£475 and £100 respectively 

Farley, Kate 

96b Southwell Road 

Camberwell 

London 

SE5 9PG 

Tel: 020 7274 5712 

kate.farley1@virgin.net 

Inside - Out 

Kate Farley 

A flat sheet, folded and relief printed to suggest 

the complexity and the awkwardness of self - 

awareness. 

8 x 8 cms (30 x 40 when open) 

2002 London 

£32 each 

Along the Lines 

Kate Farley 

The search for summer sun and a day out at 

the seaside resulted in Along the Lines. 

14 x 30 cms (open) 

2002 London 

£38 each 

186 

Ferry, David 

df@soton.ac.uk 

Views from the Window Seat 

Artist:David Ferry 

Essay by Bernard Sharratt 

Designed by John Gillett 

A spiral bound album of photomontages. The 

images were made during a recent coast to 

coast North American visit. Published on the 

occasion of the exhibition From the Window Seat 

at the Avram Gallery, New York, USA in 2002. 

17 x 17 cms 

2002 The Avram Gallery, New York, USA 


Field Study 

P. O. Box 1838 

Geelong 

VIC 3220 

Australia 

Tel: 61 3 5277 2478 

fluxusstudy@hotmail.com 

Field Report 

Mixed authors/artists 

Published by Field Study International 

Field Report is the annual of the neo-fluxus 

group Field Study International. Since 1996 

reports have taken the form of an assemblage. 

Participants contribute an edition of 100 pages, 

conceived as a “Field Study Emanation.” 

Works include performances, instructions, 

manifestos, journey works, etc. comb-bound, 

hand stamped and numbered. 14.5 x 21 cms 

Published annually from 1995, Australia 

(back issues also available) 


Wipe 

Mixed authors/artists 

Published by Field Study International 

Wipe is a light-weight bookwork, assemblage of 

toilet tissue. Twenty participants contribute to 

each issue. 

11 x 15 cms 

Published from 1998 to present, Australia 


(back issues also available) 

Finlay, Alec 

Artist in Residence 

BALTIC The Centre for Contemporary Art 

South Shore Road, Gateshead, 

NE8 3BA 

Tel: 0191 478 1810 x 237 

Fax: 0191 478 1922 


alecf@balticmill.com 

Irish 2 

An artist’s book by Alec Finlay, with 

photographs by Guy Moreton and an audio CD 

composed by Zöe Irvine; exploring real and 

imagined pathways,interweaving poetry and 

place, from Paul Celan’s Irish, to Wittgenstein’s 

hut at Skjolden, and his cottage at Rosroe. 

Paperback, 28 pages, printed in colour. 

Published by Morning Star and BALTIC 

ISBN 0 9527669 5 7 


Football Moon 

An artist’s book featuring illustrations and 

poems by Alec Finlay and type by Jon Harker; 

a gentle and amusing evocation of football and 

play. Paperback, 24 pages, printed in colour. 


ISBN 0 957 669 4 9 


Cowboy Story 

A collaboration, with poems by the American 

artist Richard Tuttle, drawings by Heather 

Deedman, and an audio CD Slide Sunset by Zöe 

Irvine. Paperback, 28 pages, printed in colour. 


ISBN 0 9527 669 3 0 


187 

Flynn, Danny 

c/o Middlesex University 

Cat Hill 

Barnet 

Hertfordshire 

EN4 8HT 

Tel: 07951 704306 

dannyamosflynn@hotmail.com 

Beetle Black! 

Danny Flynn 

Softbacked, wallpaper covered booklet printed 

in letterpress with large woodcut letterforms. 

Derogatory text concerning beetles and war. 

24 x 24 cms 

January 2004, Barnet 


Foundry 

43 - 47 Raven Row 

Whitechapel 

London 

E1 2EG 

Tel: 020 7247 6365 

foundry.press@virgin.net 

From Cradle to Grave 

Foundry 

Reading Halsbury’s Statutes so you don’t have 

to. Fourteen full colour, double page spreads, 

hard back bound. 20 x 30 cms (open) 

February 2003 Foundry, Whitechapel, London 

Un-numbered edition, £20 each 

Day in the Life 

Foundry 

A day in the life, defined within the pages of 

the Daily Mail. Fourteen full colour, double 

page spreads, hard back bound. 


February 2003 Foundry, Whitechapel, London 

Un-numbered edition, £20 each

A Modern Olympia 

Foundry 

The same as Manet’s Olympia only modern. 

Nine double page spreads printed onto tracing 

paper, hard back bound. 


March 2003 Foundry, Whitechapel, London 

Un-numbered edition, £20 each 

Freeman, Brad 


Charlottesville 

VA 22901 

USA 

Tel: 434 244 3319 


Day in the Life 

Nether Wallop 

Brad Freeman 

Nether Wallop is a visual/textual poem exploring 

the intersection of the personal vision of the 

artist and the public sphere of social definition. 

192 pages, printed in black and white and 

colour hardbound casing. 

13 x 13 cms 

2004 Charlottesville, Virginia, USA 


188 

Fruitmarket Gallery Bookshop 

45 Market Street 

Edinburgh 

Scotland 

EH1 1DF 

Tel: 0131 225 2383 

Fax: 0131 220 3130 

www.fruitmarket.co.uk 

bookshop@fruitmarket.co.uk 

Midwest Girls from Hamaniora by Rosalind Nashashibi 

Home 

Dalziel and Scullion 

The first major publication documenting 

Dalziel and Scullion’s projects from 1993 to the 

present day. 96 pages, with essays by Keith 

Hartley, Judith Findlay and David Ward. 

22 x 22 cms 

ISBN 0 947912 08 8 

January 2002 The Fruitmarket Gallery, 

Edinburgh 

£14.95 each 

Love is Lovely 

Graham Fagen 

Tackling contemporary identity and its 

associated myths and fictions. Fagen works with 

video, photogrpahy and installation, using a 

particular combination of sculpture and 

language to explore personal and cultural 

influences on the individual. Suggesting fiction, 

his work nevertheless deals with social, cultural 

and historical accuracies. 

17 x 22.5 cms 

ISBN 0 947912 43 6 

December 2002 The Fruitmarket Gallery, 

Edinburgh 

£12 each

Hamaniora 

Rosalind Nashashibi 

Chronicles the work to date of 2003 Beck’s 

Futures winner Rosalind Nashashibi, including 

new work commissioned for the Visions for the 

Future V the fifth exhibition in The Fruitmarket 

Gallery’s four-year exhibition series of new art 

in Scotland. Texts by Francis McKee, Lucy 

Skaer and Sarah Tripp. Image shown: Midwest 

Girls, 2002. 

22.5 x 17 cms 

ISBN 0 947912 58 4 

May 2003 The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh 

£10 each 

Gee, Arthur 

31 Karen Close 

Burtonwood 

Warrington 

Cheshire 

WA5 4LL 

Tel: 01925 222368 

Serendipity 

Arthur Gee 

Each book is a compilation of original watercolours, 

drawings, monoprints, plus editioned 

etchings and relief prints. Landscape and Birds. 

Six works plus text per book. Paper covered 

boards with gold embossed motif, with 

stencilled hawthorn leaves, in slipcase. 

30 x 29 cms 

December 2003 The Green Man Press, 

Burtonwood 

£150 

Geelong Arts Alliance 

PO Box 1229 

Geelong 

VIC 3220 

Australia 

Tel: 61 3 5222 8300 

gaa@swift.net.au 

Contact: Susan Hartigan and Glen Smith 

FAST (24 Hour Actions) 

Artist: David Morison / Geelong Arts Alliance 

The FAST catalogue, designed by David 

Morison, documents the 14 actions of Geelong 

Arts Alliance’s 2002 project, FAST (24 Hour 

Actions). Each individualised catalogue is 64 

189 

pages on 150gsm uncoated paper, it is fully 

illustrated and bound in a white A5 ring binder. 

The catalogue documents each action with 

images and text and contains ephemera from 

the various actions. 

24 x 20 cms 

2003 Geelong Arts Alliance, Geelong, Australia 


Lights Out 

Artist: Geelong Arts Alliance 

Limited edition handmade spiral bound book 

documenting an exhibition and installation 

in the Old Geelong Gaol by over 30 young 

unemployed people, exploring the themes 

of darkness, surveillance, punishment and 

discipline. 15 x 21 cms 

2003 Geelong Arts Alliance, Geelong, Australia 

£10 each 

Such Fertile Ground 

Artist: Regional Arts Victoria and 

Geelong Arts Alliance 

A set of 12 coloured postcards documenting 

each large-scale land art action by 12 regional 

Victorian communities working with local 

artists. The first card is blue sheep, a work 

made up of over 300 blue and white sheep by 

Koori artist Glenn Romanis and the Geelong 

Arts Alliance. 11.5 x 23 cms 

2001 Regional Arts Victoria, Melbourne, 

Australia 

£10 each 

Gilligan, Rosie 

2 The Knoll 

Chesterfield 

Derbyshire 

S40 3PS 

Tel: 01246 568321 

rosie_gilligan@yahoo.co.uk 

The Stream of Consciousness 

Rosie Gilligan 

A visual journey across various states of mind. 

The eleven drypoint images form one 

continuous strip 7 1/2 metres in length and 

folded in a concertina, not attached to the 

cover. Printed in black. 

19 x 34 cms 

2003 Bradford College, Bradford 


Griffiths, Noëlle 

Hafod Y llyn 

Maentwrog 

Gwynedd 

LL41 3AQ 

Wales 

Tel: 01766 590 638 

www.hafod-art.co.uk 

hafod.art@virgin.net 

Hands Books 

Noëlle Griffiths 

Three concertina books, 6 pages each with 

three colour collograph prints on TH Saunders 

300 gsm paper. Each has indigo khadi covers. 

Children’s hands, semi abstract and revealed 

images. 

14 x 12 cms 

2002 Hafod Press, Snowdonia, UK 

Edition of 3 sets, £500 per set 

Letters Books 


Three concertina books, 6 pages each with 

three colour collograph prints and hand 

written text on TH Saunders 300 gsm paper. 

Each with burnt sienna khadi covered card 

covers. Each book is a love-message from three 

imagined victims of September 11 2001 to their 

loved ones. 

14 x 13.5 cms 

2002 Hafod Press, Snowdonia, UK 

Edition of 3 sets, £500 per set 

India Books 


Three books with centre fold - out, 7pp each. 

Colour digitally printed images including: 

photographs, paintings, rubber stamps, text on 

300gsm watercolour and Japanese paper. 

Each sewn into khadi handmade paper covers. 

Visual experience of temples of Tamil Nadu 

(Seeing Book), nature of Kerala (Breathing Book), 

palaces of Rajasthan (Being Book). 

14 x 25 cms 

2003 Hafod Press, Snowdonia, UK 

Edition of 50 sets, £40 per set or £15 each 

190 

Hand and Eye Letterpress 

9 Railway Street 

London 

N1 9EE 

Tel: 020 7278 9606 

www.handandeye.co.uk 

handandeye@mac.com 

Getting There 

John Hunter 

Lino cut alphabet book, printed direct from 

blocks with accompanying letterpress type 

printed in two colours. 

21.3 x 26.4 cms 

2003 Hand and Eye Letterpress, London 

£49.50 

Harris, Stina 

5 College Terrace 

Ackworth 

Pontefract 

West Yorkshire 

WF7 7LB 

Tel: 01977 611251 

destina@harrides.fs.net.co.uk 

Sectioned 

Stina Harris 

Sectioned is an account of three weeks in a 

loony bin. It consists of 13 drypoints on 

Saunders Waterford paper and text on 

Japanese semi - transparent kawagata paper. 

Made in two editions; the above and a lower 

cost computer generated version. 

30 x 27.5 cms 

March / April 2003 Bradford College, Bradford 

and Yorkshire Arts Circus 

Edition of 10 drypoint copies, £200 each 

Edition of 20 computer copies, £20 each 

Hazell, Rachel 

Top Flat 

3 Kirk Street 

Edinburgh 

EH6 5EX 


rachel.hazell@virgin.net

Believe Me 

Artist: Rachel Hazell 

Author: Ali Smith 

A very limited edition of a quirky story by 

acclaimed writer Ali Smith (shortlisted for the 

Booker prize). Monoprints and text stitched 

onto flannel sheet, explores the trust and 

humour of a relationship. 

18 x 25 cms 

August 2003 Hazell Designs Books, Edinburgh 

£133 

Healey, Lauren 

19 River View Close 

Holme Lacy 

Hereford 

HR2 6NZ 

Tel: 07779 578 713 

lolskibushbaby@yahoo.co.uk 

Moroccan Book 

Lauren Healey 

20 page handmade book, leather bound with 

various processes used: etching, screenprint, 

collograph, lino and collage. Based on travel 

experiences around Morocco, my work aims to 

recognise the subtle layers that separate the 

outsider’s gaze from what is real. 

23 x 22.5 cms 

2003 Leeds 


Hill, Andrea 

75 Vanbrugh Hill 

Greenwich 

London 

SE10 9HB 

Tel: 020 8305 1148 

Sanctuary 

Andrea Hill 

A locket with a key, containing a map and old 

sepia photograph fragment, encased within an 

old jewellery box. Inside, a secret compartment 

191 

is found which lifts up to reveal text within torn 

silk. Unique book box. 

3.5 x 11 cms (3.5 x 23 cms open) 


£150 

Holleley, Douglas 

116 Elmwood Avenue 

Rochester 

NY 14611 

New York 

USA 

Tel: 001 585 436 0735 

www.clarellen.com 

douglas@clarellen.com 

The X Portfolio 

Douglas Holleley 

The X Portfolio contains a short story which 

begins by re-calling a somewhat traumatic 

childhood event and concludes with a 

speculative vision of the nature of life after 

death. Comprising of 16 images each 13 x 17 

inches, the portfolio is published on demand 

with a final edition limited to 32 copies. 

The images are made with a digital camera, 

printed on watercolour paper and are housed 

in a portfolio case, hand made by the artist. 

43 x 48.5 cms 

2003 Clarellen, Rochester, New York, USA 

Edition of 32, $800 USD each 

Hunter, Heather 

46 Stokes Croft 

Haddenham 

Aylesbury 

Bucks 

HP17 8DZ 

heather.hunter@tesco.net 

Patterned Landscape 

Heather Hunter 

A special garden’s landscape, observed

throughout a year, “follow a path, follow a 

pattern.” 

19 x 20 cms 

June 2003, UK 

Edition of 25, contact artist for price. 

Treasures 

Heather Hunter 

The beauty of things incomplete and / or 

impermanent. Collected as a record of 

memories similar to those found in museum 

collections. Digital images bound in a Japanese 

bookcloth covered case binding. 

13.5 x 13.5 cms 

2002 Heather Hunter Books, Haddenham 

£60 

Hurlstone, Nigel 

Garden Flat 

18 Victoria Road 

Clevedon 

Bristol 

BS21 7SB 

Tel: 0117 32 84760 

nigelhurlstone@hotmail.com 

Peephole: Caught Looking 

Nigel Hurlstone 

A unique bookwork consisting of 35 Mills and 

Boon paperbacks. The books were scorched, 

fixed and manipulated into a cast lead base. 

Placed consecutively in a horizontal row to 

allow a view through the peephole. 

15 x 10 cms (95 cms as installation piece) 

2000, Manchester 

Unique bookwork, contact artist for price. 

192 

Hyslop, Jane 

7 Durham Place 

Bonnyrigg 

Midlothian 

EH19 3EX 

Tel: 0131 654 1624 

jane@print.freeserve.co.uk 

Legacy 

Jane Hyslop 

A collection of 27 digital prints of labels from 

home made frozen food, jams, preserves, dried 

herbs etc. Dedicated to my mother. Bound in 

white buckram. 

10 x 11.5 cms 

March 2003 Midlothian 


Wild Plants Collected in Midlothian 

Jane Hyslop 

A concertina book with each page representing 

a month, extending to a continuous frieze 305 

cms long, showing the year through changing 

plants. The title is screenprinted on Somerset 

satin white, images etched on BFK Rives grey 

and contained in a white buckram slipcase. 

16.5 x 26.5 cms 

March 2003 Midlothian 


Idaho Center for the Book 

MS 1525 

1910 University Drive 

Boise 

Idaho 83725 

USA 

Tel 001 208 426 1999 

www.lili.org/icb 

ttrusky@boisestate.edu 

Idaho Authors 

Kathy Robinson and Tom Trusky 

Hemingway, Pound and nine other literary 

notables appear in this updated version of the 

classic card game. 8.8 x 6.3 cms 

2003 Boise, Idaho 

$9.95 USD each 

Joan Flasch Artist’s Book Collection 

The School of the Art Institute 

37 South Wabash 

Chicago 

IL 60603 

USA 

Tel: 001 317 899 5098 

aboehme@artic.edu 

The Consistency of Shadows: Exhibition Catalogues 

as Autonomous Works of Art 

Concept and Design by: Anne Dorothee Böhme 

and Kevin Henry 

Seven folded, die-cut leaflets housed in a 

custom fitted vacuformed clear acrylic box, 

193 

with CD-ROM. The whole package is from an 

exhibition featuring catalogues as artists’ books 

and includes essays by: Anne Dorothee Böhme, 

Anthony Elms, Barbara Moore, Mary Jane 

Jacob, with excerpts from an interview with 

Christian Boltanski, and excerpts from email 

conversations with Alan Cravitz, a Chicago 

based collector. 29 x 15 cms (box size) 

2003 The School of the Art Institute 

Chicago, USA 

$45 USD (approx £27 GBP)each 

Johanknecht, Susan 

Gefn Press 

5 Elmwood Road 

Herne Hill 

London 

SE24 9NU 

www.pauperspublications.com 

gefnpress@ntlworld.com 

Modern (Laundry) Production 


Text derived from 1940’s laundry trade 

manuals and imagery from time and motion 

studies of a woman feeding a calendar 

machine. Horizontal concertina structure in 

slipcase, printed offset litho at the Pauper 

Press, London. 14 x 38 cms (open) 

December 2001 Gefn Press / Paupers 

Publications, London 

ISBN1 902596 26 9 


Jones, Shirley 

Red Hen Press 

Byddwn Uchaf 

Llanhamlach 

Brecon 

LD3 7SU 

Tel: 01874 665 297 

ken@tkjones.2x3.net 

Etched Out 

Shirley Jones 

A triptych on custom made paper; the text 

describes the 1940 eviction of 52 Welsh farming 

families: their land comandeered for an army 

firing range. Six landscape etchings and a 38 

inch pull - out mezzotint overprinted with the 

farm names. 

41 x 31 cms 

2002 Brecon, Wales 


Kermaire, Christine 

32 Avenue Henin 

6000 Charleroi 

Belgium 

Tel/Fax: 0032 (0)71 32 00 66 

Beachy Head 


Photographs of the prominent chalk headland 

Beachy Head (the cape between Dover and 

Brighton in England) with a 6PS Global 

Positioning satellite. The 36 page booklet has 

16 illustrations, bound in ochre cloth with a 

decorated landscape (Beach Head) in a red 

and black synthetic bag. 

17 x 24 cms 

2003 Charleroi, Belgium 


Survival Phylactery Yarvis Syndrom 


Photographs of a Russian submarine (inside, 

torpedo…). A 24 page booklet, each page is 

illustrated with one plate mounted between 

pivoted cloth - covered boards in a camouflage 

194 

pattern. Dual French and English text. 

30 x 30 cms 

April 2001 Charleroi, Belgium 

Edition of 300 copies, £48 each 

Cenotaph 


Photographs of an atomisation funeral urn. 

Presented on dark grey wool cloth boards with 

six grey decorated leaves of hieroglyphic text 

on a sand like surface. Inside the back cover is 

an original artwork mounted behind plexiglass, 

the front cover contains a metal air vent. 

30 x 30 cms 

May 2002 Charleroi, Belgium 


Kirby, D.G. 

Typecast / The Paperboy Press 

20 The Friary 

Friary Close 

Southsea 

Hants 

PO5 2LS 

Tel: 07766 283 693 

davidgkirby@hotmail.com 

Urban Wildlife 

David G Kirby 

A whimsical meditation based on the song by 

Tom Lehrer, “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.” 

Fold - out colour maps of London, with origami

irds, and text in middle slipcase. Bound in 

green handmade covers. 

9.5 x 10 cms 



Free-ad Poetry 

David G Kirby 

An idea based on the classified adverts in our 

local ‘Free-ads’ paper. Adverts are placed in the 

form of poems. Or poems are placed in our 

local ‘Free-ads’ paper in the form of classified 

adverts. Result? (mostly) free publishing. 

21 x 29.7 cms 

2002 and onwards as they appear in the paper. 

Kirby, Éilis 

61 Aubrey Road 

Bedminster 

Bristol 

BS3 3EZ 

www.southbank-bristol.co.uk 

mikeilis@yahoo.com 

Handbook 

Éilis Kirby 

Subtitled “Elementary Cataloguing” this 20 

page black and white volume contains 

information and intriguing illustrations which 

combine to assist the reader in ‘being’. 

15 x 11 cms 



195 

Foot and Mouth 

Éilis Kirby 

Sealed in an openable, clear plastic bag with 

warning label. Contains gloves and an 

illustrative box for the object - orientated. 

18 black and white pages of tell - tale signs and 

precautions. 4 copies made with cows and 1 

made with sheep. 

29.5 x 20.5 cms 

2002 Bristol 


Klein, Randy 

30 Homeleigh Road 

London 

SE15 3EE 

Tel: 020 7635 8627 

www.randyklein.co.uk 

randy@klein.f9.co.uk 

Home Truths 

Randy Klein with Farouk Campbell and 

residents of Thames Reach Bondway 

Documenting an artist’s residency by Randy 

Klein with a homelessness charity in Thames 

Reach Bondway. Former rough sleepers made 

an award winning video, a 5 1/2 metre sculpture 

and this book. Full colour 24 pages. 

21 x 21 cms 

2003 Taking Shape Books, London 

ISBN 0 9542951 1 0 

£7 each (£8.50 inc. p&p)

Laidler, Paul 

27 Deanery Road 

St George’s Place 

Bristol 

BS1 5QH 

Tel: 07952 194 310 

Paul.Laidler@uwe.ac.uk 

Holy Bible 

Paul Laidler 

This book is just so clever. 

15.7 x 10.4 cms 

AD 2003, Laidler Productions, Bethlehem 

Unique edition £75 

Thinking of You 

Paul Laidler 

Courtesy of the Thanks for Nothing range. 

25 x 12 cms 

2003, Laidler Productions, Bristol UK 

£100 

Lanyon, Andrew 

Polcrebo Moors 

Helston 

Cornwall 

TR13 0BG 

Tel: 07748 465 020 

196 

Aide Oubli 

Andrew Lanyon 

Unique hollow book. The first of Mervyn 

Rowley’s Aides Oubli from Vera’s Tower of Silence 

an edition to be published in 2004. Vera and 

Mervyn are two of the main characters in a 

series of 10 books published in the last twenty 

years and now being made into films. 

18 x 12 cms 

2004 Cornwall 


Lucey, Conor 

89 St Stephen’s Green 

Dublin 2 

Ireland 

Tel: 003531 478 5137 

www.aspectable.com 

conor@setanta.ie 

Spiritual Spectrum 

Conor Lucey 

Metaphysical colour guide in the form of a 

swatch book. 14 colour pages digitally printed 

on 200gsm silverblade gloss. 

11.8 x 4.9 cms 

2002 Dublin, Ireland 


The Planets 

Conor Lucey 

A perspective on the difficulty of being within 

the larger context of infinite space. Black and 

white, 24 numbered pages. Third (enlarged 

edition). 

14.8 x 14.8 cms 

ISBN 190177659 X 

2002 Mermaid Tubulence, Leitrim, Ireland 


Within Without 

Conor Lucey 

Pinhole photographs and polaroids, duotone 

plates, 4-8pp. 

ISBN 190177611 5 

Mermaid Tubulence, Dublin, Ireland 


Lydia Megert Editions 

23 rue de Chéroy 

75017 Paris

France 

Tel: 0033 1 4522 1228 

lydiamegert@gmx.net 

Red Jasper 2001 

Helmut Dirnaichner 

Two handmade pages, one with a poem in 

German by the artist. Wrapped in Japanese 

paper and case bound in hand - made paper. 

69.5 x 34 cms 

2002 Lydia Megert Editions, Paris, France 

Edition of 7, 1600 Euros each 

Grey and Gray - From Earth 

Herman de Vries 

The fourth volume in the series Library of Earth 

Colours nine sheets with earth rubbed in by the 

artist. One coverpage in a case, the fifth volume 

published in summer 2003. 28.5 x 21 cms 



Serifos / Simi / Albi 

Antonio Scaccabarozzi 

Three different editions, each an object in 

resin in a case with one coverpage of text by the 

artist. One page also with biography and 

bibliography in German and Italian. 

32.5 x 23 cms (box size) 


Edition of 5 for each of the 3 editions, 

1200 Euros each 

197 

Lyons, Joan 

176 Rutgers Street 

Rochester 

NY 14607 

New York 

USA 

Tel: 001 585 473 3046 

www.vsw.org/faculty-students/joanlyons1 

jlyons1@frontiernet.net 

Mexico City - Walls 

Joan Lyons 

Sequence of colour photographs of the rich 

iconography of Mexico city. Pigment - based 

inkjet on rag paper, 40 pages, hardbound. 

51 x 32 cms 

2002 Rochester, New York, USA 

Edition of 5, £$500 USD each 

Twenty - Five Years Ago 

Joan Lyons 

A lost wallet, its contents intact is returned 

along with some long ago memories. 24 pages, 

saddle stitched, black and white with colour 

cover. See www.vsw.org for details and images. 

23 x 20 cms 

ISBN 0 89822 075 0 

VSW Press, Rochester, New York, USA 

Edition of 250, $12 USD each 

Martin, Jenny 

6 Pathfield Cottages 

St Cleer 

Liskeard 

Cornwall 

PL14 5DD 

Tel: 01579 342097 

jenny.martin@su.plymouth.ac.uk

Drawrite 

Jenny Martin 

a single sheet folded page of drawn writing, 

photocopy on cartridge papers, re-used card 

and string. Hand made. 

9.5 x 9.5 cms 

2002 Liskeard, Cornwall 

Unlimited edition, £6.50 each 

Remains to be Seen 

Jenny Martin 

A handmade book of rubbings on folded lining 

papers, wax and graphite, eight pages. 

14 x 9.5 cms 

2002 Liskeard, Cornwall 

Edition of 25, un-numbered, £12.50 each 

Marking Time 

Jenny Martin 

A record of a simple solar clock made by 

visitors to the studio on the exterior wall during 

August / September 2002. A brief investigation 

of time (Marking Time is a working title, please 

contact the artist for more details). 

Scroll (approx 25 cms x 6 cms diameter) 

2003 Liskeard, Cornwall 

Maufe, Imi 

16 Picton Street 

Montpelier 

Bristol 

BS6 5QA 

Tel 0117 944 6521 

www.axisartists.org 

bluedogtours@hotmail.com 

Cycle Ride 

Imi Maufe 

An accordion screenprinted book of blue 

photographic images of signs, from photos 

taken on a bike ride from Bath to Frome. 

10 x 10 cms 

2002 Bristol 


Getting Lost 

Imi Maufe 

A short journey, made long by getting lost, 

journey interpreted onto one sheet of paper, 

screenprinted in two colours, with arrows, cut 

and folded to create the illusion of getting lost 

in a book. Folds up into slipcase. 

198 

10 x 10 cms 

2002 Bristol 


Malbik Endar 

Imi Maufe 

121 words on 121 pages: one for each day of my 

cycling trip to Iceland via Orkney, Shetland and 

the Faroes; returning through Norway and 

Denmark. Letterpress printed text, perfect 

bound and tied, in a flip-book style. 

6 x 15 cms 

2002 Bristol 


McDowall, John 

Flat 2 

259 Manningham Lane 

Bradford 

BD8 7EP 

Tel: 01274 543912 

Mask - Canadian Eclipse 

John McDowall 

Continuing the series of Mask and Mask - 16 

details, this presents a collection of 52 black 

discs of varying sizes and positions as found in 

certain Canadian publications. Perfect-bound 

in hard cover, 112 pages, screenprinted. 

22 x 15.8 cms 

2002 Bradford 

£40 each 

Atlas 

John McDowall 

360 photocopied, hand - numbered loose 

sheets, contained in a fluted card box with 

screenprinted title. As these are dispersed a 

shifting, expanding atlas will form, with a 

conceptual and yet physically actual geography

created in the space between the pages. 

27.5 x 21 cms 

2002 Bradford 

£55 each 

Kakusu - a graphic score 

John McDowall 

Sewn folio, 20 pages, photocopy. Following the 

theme of the Mask books, the shapes, in this 

case, are from Japanese mangas. 

Open, indeterminate visual notation to be 

interpreted and improvised from by a solo 

performer, for any instrument or voice. 

27.8 x 20.3 cms 


£15 each 

McGarry, Andi 

Sun Moon and Stars Press 

Kilmore Quay 

Wexford 

Eire 

www.geocities.com/sunmoonstarspress 

sunmoonandstarspress@hotmail.com 

Paddle Notes 

Andi McGarry 

Marbled entirely with indian ink drawings, the 

narrative charting a trip in a boat one day in 

high summer. 

14 x 11 cms 

2002 Sun Moon and Stars Press, Eire 

£40 

McPherson, Steve 

Tel: 07968 970 277 

fgp7297@hotmail.com 

Occasional Stranger Diary 

Steve McPherson 

This bloated one-off book was created during 

199 

1997 - 2001 and is the fourth book of a 

continuous diary project in its 11th year. 

Its pages are covered with photographs, found 

objects and texts creating a rich and unique 

diary / artwork. 35 x 30 cms 

Skeleton Diary 


This is the third book of five created in the 

process of an ongoing collaged diary project. 

Taking two years in the making (1995 - 1997) 

it holds the everyday detritus, thoughts and 

images of the life of the artist from that period. 

26 x 22 cms 

Compass Diary 


The fifth, current and incomplete book of a 

continuous diary project in its 11th year. 

Started in 2001, this original and unique diary 

continues and refines the collage techniques 

formulated in the previous books. 27 x 21 cms 

Mugridge, Stuart 

40 Edward Street 

Southborough 

Tunbridge Wells 

Kent 

TN4 0HB 

Tel: 01892 523 615 

www.smabs.co.uk 

stuartmugridge@smabs.co.uk 

Seven Short Walks 

Stuart Mugridge 

A set of walk route cards and a magnifying 

glass. Based on walks made in Grizedale Forest, 

Cumbria, inspired by moss, lichens and Ruskin. 

20 x 14 cms 

ISBN 0 9542577 4 X 

June 2002 Grizedale Books, Grizedale 

£10 each

NTL / VTC 


A record of time spent sitting by and strolling 

around the Helford River in Cornwall. The 

book is bound in a groundsheet - type material 

sleeve. 

7.5 x 15.5 cms 

July 2002 Tunbridge Wells 

£22 each 

Sea I - Wave 


A hardback book, with printed pages, based on 

the cross - section of a wave. 

14.5 x 20.5 cms 

February 2003 Tunbridge Wells 

£36 each 

New Arcadian Press 

Patrick Eyres 

13 Graham Grove 

Leeds 

LS4 2NF 

www.leeds.ac.uk/fine_art/external/press/nap/ 

Kew Gardens 

New Arcadian Journal No. 51 / 52 

Artists: Catherine Aldred, Chris Broughton, 

Howard Eaglestone and Andrew Naylor 

Authors: Patrick Eyres, Richard Quaintance 

The New Arcadian tradition of artist-writer 

collaborations on landscape continues with 

an ‘archaeological’ investigation at Kew – 

in search of the politically and sexually 

controversial Georgian royal pleasure grounds 

that have been so thoroughly overgrown by the 

contemporary botanical gardens. 

21 x 14.8 cms 

2001 Leeds 

£20 each 

200 

Arcadian Greens Rural 


Artists: Catherine Aldred, Janet Boulton, Chris 

Broughton, Ron Costley, Howard Eaglestone, 

Gary Hincks and Andrew Naylor 

Authors: Stephen Bending, Michael Cousins, 

Patrick Eyres, Harry Gilonis, Sandy Haynes and 

Robert Williams 

This epic collaboration between seven artists 

and six writers celebrates the NAJ’s 21st 

birthday by exploring the gardens created by 

two poets: the Georgian, William Shenstone, 

at The Leasowes, and the contemporary, 

Ian Hamilton Finlay, at Little Sparta. 

21 x 14.8 cms 

2002 Leeds, £20 each 

Hollis at Halstock 


Artists: Catherine Aldred, Chris Broughton, 

Howard Eaglestone and Andrew Naylor 

Author: Patrick Eyres 

This collaborative venture ‘unearths’ a 

forgotten conceptual landscape in Dorset – 

Thomas Hollis’s Georgian Pantheon of Liberty. 

Work-in-progress engages with Lister Park’s 

restored landscape of civic virtue in Bradford, 

and Wentworth Castle’s landscape of Jacobite 

treason in South Yorkshire. 21 x 14.8 cms 

2003 Leeds 

£20 each 

Nicholson, Mike 

Stokey Comics 

The Basement Flat 

104 Shakespeare Walk 

Stoke Newington 

London 

N16 8TA 

Tel: 020 7249 2187 / 07711 334 913 

ladnicholson@yahoo.co.uk

Immoral Compass 

Artist / Author: Mike Nicholson 

Edition Six of the series one reader called “the 

definitive paper - based hallucinogen.” Where 

are The Hills of Home, how do the disturbing 

Agony Uncles seek to exploit them, and why 

doesn’t Sheriff Ron seem to give a damn? 

29.7 x 21 cms 

October 2002 Stokey Comics / Ensixteen 

Editions, London 

£3.50 each 

Pun Amnesty 


Edition Seven: There’s New Badness in the Old 

Town…Mutinous pets and a neighbour who 

wants more than a cup of sugar are just the 

beginning for Ron. ‘Comics International’ 

called it “intelligent and amusingly inventive,” 

see what you think. 

29.7 x 21 cms 

September 2003 Stokey Comics / Ensixteen 

Editions, London 

£4.00 each 

Cog and Balls 


Big Town rings to the crash and bang of all - 

out Robot Sex War, and Ron’s caught in the 

middle! An exotic one-off collaboration 

between Ensixteen Editions and Danish 

designer and robot-smith M. S. D. Ambeck 

29.7 x 21 cms 

Winter 2003 Ensixteen Editions, London 

£3.50 each 

Otto 

Top Floor 

Spike Island Studios 

133 Cumberland Road 

201 

Bristol 

BS1 6UX 

Tel: 07979 952 982 

www.ottoillustration.com 

otto@ottoillustration.com 

BOGOF 

Otto 

Visual narrative with text, photography and 

illustration. BOGOF deals with the cultural 

phenomenon of shopping, consumption and 

advertising. Photocopied. 

13 x 15 cms 

September 2002 Otto, Bristol 


Parraman, Carinna 

Centre for Fine Print Research 

UWE, Bristol Faculty of Art, Media and Design 


Bristol 

BS3 2JT 

Tel: 0117 32 84770 


Carinna.Parraman@uwe.ac.uk 

Consequences / Gevolgen 

Artists: Rudi Bastiaans and Carinna Parraman 

A book of an image-based exchange between 

the two artists; one in the UK and one in The 

Netherlands. The book is a two-year project 

looking at the visual similarities yet cultural 

differences of ‘place’. The postal exchange of 

images will result in a digitally printed book of 

photographic consequences. 

26 x 21 cms 

2005, Bristol 

Edition of 20, contact artist for further details.

Phillips, Benedict 

www.thebenedict.com 

river river - Dry Dock 

Benedict Phillips 

Installation / performance, a fleet of 6 

cardboard boats displayed in a window . 

From this base, over six weeks the boats were 

launched into the River Hull or Humber. 

Photo concatenate book. 

11 x 9 cms 



A Book For Loozing In The Street? 

Discarded products collected and documented. 

A catalogue of once treasured objects discarded 

in the streets of York. A vac-packed book placed 

in the locations marked within, 600 copies were 

‘lost!’. 

10.5 x 14.8 cms 


Scratched 

Miniature skateboards displaying photographic 

evidence of skating marks that are made when 

skateboards come into contact with the urban 

landscape. On small boards in paper envelopes 

Photo, plywood and grip tape. 

28 x 7cms 

Edition of 72 x 5 boards, £100 each 

202 

Porteous, Susan 

116 Totley Brook Road 

Sheffield 

S17 3QU 

susan_porteous@talk21.com 

dick 

Susan Porteous 

cock, bone, knob, bishop, wang, thong, hot 

rod… and 53 more terms. The subject is 

echoed in the shape and size of the book. 

Hand produced in an accordion fold format 

with screenprinted text forming a continuous 

line. 

4.5 x 18.4 cms 

2002 Leeds, UK 


Drinking Games 


Rules for an alternative version of Chess, where 

forward thinking, logic and concentration are 

thrown out the window and replaced by large 

amounts of alcohol. An accordion fold book, 

hand printed and bound. 

8.4 x 12.7 cms 

2002 Tempe, Arizona, USA 


piss 


Ever thought about the number of ways the 

word piss can be used and interpreted? This 

book combines terms and their definitions, 

illustrated by 17 images of public bathrooms. 

Screenprinted and handbound. 

12.8 x 13.5 cms 

2003 Leeds, UK 


Red Fox Press 

Cashel 

Foxford 

Co Mayo 

Ireland 

Tel: 00353 94 57848 

www.redfoxpress.com 

info@redfoxpress.com 

The Old Grey House 

Artist: John Behan 

Author: John F Deane

Limited handprinted edition signed and 

numbered in plexiglass slipcase. 29 x 20 cms 

2003 Red Fox Press, Foxford, Ireland 


Norma Jean 

Francis van Maele 

A pictural work on Marilyn Monroe, 

screenprinted on maculation paper. 

30 x 21 cms 



Knock on Heaven’s Door 

Various artists 

Screenprinted edition on Marian Art paper, 

25 artists contributing from 3 continents. 

Housed in a wooden box. 10 x 15 cms 



Reid, Brendan 

Glentworth 

4 North End Road 

Yatton 

Bristol 

BS49 4AL 

Brendan.Reid@uwe.ac.uk 

An Artificial Sense of Security 

Brendan Reid 

“The invisible ground from which it is possible 

to scaffold moving layers of construction 

enables us to recover modes of awareness quite 

removed from the initial hypothesis or 

rationality” - Daniel Libeskind Countersign 

Academy Editions, 1991. “Build it and they will 

come” - Kevin Costner Field of Dreams 1989. 

20 x 20 cms 

2003 Bristol, £75 

203 

Rindl, Deb 

Talk Sense Press 

8 Newick Road 

Clapton 

London 

E5 0RR 

Tel: 020 8533 7561 

deb_rindl@yahoo.co.uk 

A Recipe for Disaster 

Deb Rindl 

This was made as a response to the conflict in 

Afghanistan, but applies equally to the war in 

Iraq. The perspex ‘stealth bomber’ holds a 

bomb, containing the recipe, and two smaller 

bomblets. Photocopied and inkjet printed. 

29 x 22 cms (boxed) 

2002 Talk Sense Press, London 


Night Flier 

Deb Rindl 

In this Ancient Roman example of a 

palindrome, I found the poetic quality of the 

English translation particularly evocative. 

It conveyed to me the notions of being cleaned 

and reborn, which can sometimes be painful. 

Laserjet printed. 

19 x 12 cms 

2002 Talk Sense Press, London 


To Be Or Not To Be 

Deb Rindl 

This piece was made in response to a difficult 

time I was going through, and illustrates the 

feeling of being cut off from the rest of the 

world. Laserjet printed, contained in a grey 

card box. 

2003 Talk Sense Press, London 


Roe, Trudy 

22A Somersall Lane 

Chesterfield 

S40 3LA 

Tel: 01246 569487 

Kaleidoscope 

Trudy Roe 

This work is dominated by the theme of 

understanding developing life forms. 

Kaleidoscope takes me on a questioning 

photographic journey through plant evolution. 

This is a 28 page folded book with embossed 

card cover. Inkjet printed. 

9.5 x 8.5 cms 

2002 Chesterfield 


Processes of Change 

Trudy Roe 

A questioning book about the processes that 

drive life forms to grow and change, focussing 

on plants. An illustrated philosophical treatise 

of 30 pages in a folded book, covered in 

embossed card with photo inserts. 

9.4 x 8.5 cms 

2003 Chesterfield 


Rosenberg, Maddy 

63 Tiffany Place #407 

Brooklyn 

NY 11231 

Tel: 001 718 797 1005 

maddrose@hotmail.com 

Dystopia 

Maddy Rosenberg 

Relief printed accordion book that transforms 

its pages of hand-cut skyline into a threedimensional 

town. 

204 

18 x 10 cms 

2004 Evil Prints, St Louis, Missouri, USA 


Show and Tell: the Secrets of the Sex 

Maddy Rosenberg 

Images of women carved in stone are hand 

drawn, digitally printed, and interspersed with 

overlays of text. Hard cover, Japanese binding. 

22.5 x 27 cms 

2003, NYC, USA 


The Spiral Maze 

Artists: Maddy Rosenberg / Hubert Sommerauer 

A pop-up book folded in multiple directions to 

reveal cavernous spaces woven together with 

pieces of structures. The artists alternate and 

incorporate their drawings for their second 

collaboration in this digitally-printed book. 

13.5 x 13.5 cms 

2004, NYC, USA 


Schofield, Lucy May 

20 Kingsbury Street 

Brighton 

East Sussex 

BN1 4JW 

Tel: 07775 762 230 

lucymayschofield@hotmail.com

Perforated Love Notes 

Lucy May Schofield 

A small concertina booklet of love sentiments, 

separated by perforations; to be torn off and 

placed in the pockets, under the pillows and in 

the hands of the ones who you sometimes 

forget to tell how you feel. 5.7 x 5.7 cms 

2003 The Cat’s Me-Ow Press, London 


Sheen, Nicola 

80 Hazlehurst Brow 

Daisy Hill 

Bradford 

BD9 6AQ 

nikkisheen@blueyonder.co.uk 

Contents 

Nicola Sheen 

An ongoing series: studies of the contents of 

people’s handbags, briefcases etc. Can also be 

commissioned (medium Docutech binding, 

report style). 20.5 x 20.5 cms 

2002 Bradford 

£25 each 

Dog 

Nicola Sheen 

Flick book of the same image of a moving dog, 

medium Docutech format, bound by hand. 

10 x 15 cms 

2002 Bradford 

£20 each 

Live to Work 

Nicola Sheen 

Repeated images of a diary page with hand 

written “work” in each daily entry. Medium 

Docutech format, with handwriting, 

perfect-bound by hand. 

20 x 20 cms 


£50 each 

Smith, Philip 

The Book House 

Yatton Keynell 

Chippenham 

Wiltshire 

SN14 7BH 

Tel: 01249 782 597 

205 

The Song of Solomon 

Philip Smith (MBE, ARCA, MDE) 

Book printed in Ascona - “Altered Book” with 

extra pages painted in acrylic with sayings on 

love, wisdom and consciousness. Printed on an 

Epson Stylus Photo 1290 (A3), two copies 

bound in leather with patent lap-back book 

structure, image created in maril and leather 

onlays. 

24.7 x 17 cms 

2002 Centro Del Bel Libro, Ascona 

£25,000 each 

Sowden, Tom 

93 Raleigh Road 

Southville 

Bristol 

BS3 1QU 

Tel: 0117 939 1673 

www.cafeshops.com/tomtruck 

tom.sowden@blueyonder.co.uk 

I See You Baby, Watching Them Pass 

Tom Sowden 

A collection of the Coach Performances stages 

from 2003. A book of seats. 

16 x 11 cms 

2004, Bristol 


38 Mondeos in a One Night Stand 

Tom Sowden 

Performance number 13 in the Coach 

Performance Series. A book of 38 Mondeos. 

10 x 10.5 cms 



King of the Road 

Tom Sowden 

Performance number 17 in the Coach 

Performance Series. A book of lorries and drivers. 

14 x 10.5 cms 



Stamp, Catriona 

38 Coverdale Road 

Lancaster 

LA1 5PY 

Tel: 01524 840 530 

catrina@catandcoat.co.uk 

Moon Myths 

Catriona Stamp 

Coptic-bound miniature book. Four traditional 

stories from North and South America, China 

and Africa, retold with 14 original scraperboard 

illustrations by Catriona Stamp. Inkjet printed 

on calligraphy paper. Cream cover ‘hide’ paper. 

7 x 4.7 cms 

2003 Cat and Coat, Lancaster 


Crysalis 1 


Scroll 10 cms x 180 cms approx, held in a 

papier maché crysalis with knob for winding. 

Inkjet printed on Japanese paper - reflections 

on names, physiology and behaviour of British 

butterflies, with poem, printed over coloured 

butterflies. 

6 x 24 cms 

2003 Cat and Coat, Lancaster 


Signs of Christmas 


206 

Piano-hinged concertina book with 9 sewn 

single sections. Tiny chapters giving a childs-eye 

view of The Christmas Pudding, carol-singing 

etc. Illustrated with figurative and abstract red 

and green papercuts; pockets with songs, games 

and recipes. 

10.6 x 13.1 cms 

2002 Cat and Coat, Lancaster 


Sykes, Sandy 

12 Kirkley Road 

London 

SW19 3AY 

Tel: 020 8540 8528 

www.sandysykes.co.uk 

sandy@sandysykes.co.uk 

Paradise is Always Where You’ve Been 

Sandy Sykes 

Linking Dante’s “Paradiso” with current world 

events, the imagery is an assemblage of found 

texts and photographs and the artist’s original 

drawings. Throughout time, physical and 

mental lines have been stepped over in search 

of an earthly paradise. It is rarely obtained 

but hopefully looked for. It is our human 

condition. Paradise is in many major collections. 

26 x 33 cms 

ISBN 1 90 21 1 1002 

2000 Marty Apple Graphics, Britain 


Tacq, Christine 

The P’s and Q’s Press 

2 Essex Road 

Thame 

Oxon 

OX9 3LT 

christine.tacq@talk21.com

Sample Book 

Christine Tacq 

Inspired by free samples from magazines and a 

1900’s department store almanac. Six colour 

etchings on Somerset paper with interleaving 

Japanese tissue, letterpress printed with 

Helvetica. Ledger bound and held in colour, 

relief printed nylon sleeves. Published in two 

editions; special (with four extra etchings) and 

standard. 

23 x 22 cms (special edition) 

23 x 12.5 cms (standard edition) 

Autumn 2002 The P’s and Q’s Press, 

Thame, Oxon 

Special edition £180 each, standard £90 each 

Vindication: Escape from the Endless Sleepover 

Christine Tacq 

Jane Fawcet made a sampler seven years after 

“A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” was 

published. Mary Wollstonecraft’s written 

imagery and arguments for change, are linked 

207 

with images from museum artefacts. Letterpress 

and collagraphs with chine collé on sewn 

Arches, with moving parts. 

23 x 22 cms 

Autumn 2002 The P’s and Q’s Press, Thame, 

Oxon 

£90 each 

Taylor, Finlay 

Pupa Press 

134A Landells Road 

East Dulwich 

London 

SE22 9PL 

finlaysc@hotmail.com 

Trail 

Finlay Taylor 

Trail is a book of screenprinted images of a 

garden taken from a low vantage point. These 

images and pages have been eaten by snails, 

some spelling out texts such as “Song Thrush.” 

Trail was first shown at the Museum of Garden 

History, London. 

18 x 27.5 cms 

2002 Pupa Press, London 


Sucker 

Kate Scrivener and Finlay Taylor 

This collaborative work is a zig zag binding 

held in a slip case covered in an image of 

convulvulus (bind weed). The book’s imagery 

displays a hawk moth specimen with a proboscis 

of tiny handpainted text. 25.2 x 11 cms 

2002 Pupa Press, London 


Great Piece of Turf 

Artists: Jasone Miranda-Bilbao, Phil Coy, 

Dalziel and Scullion, Peter Dukes, Sophie 

Lascelles, Denis Masi, Kate Scrivener, Jem 

Southam, Finlay Taylor and Sarah Woodfine. 

A collaborative work with 10 artists dealing with 

landscape and natural history. Conceived as an 

exhibition space to outline the gallery 

exhibition of the same name at Danielle 

Arnaud Contemporary Art in 2003. 

See www.coverup.org for more details. 

Curated by Finlay Taylor. 

19.5 x 25 cms 

January 2003 Pupa Press, London 


The Old School Press 

The Old School 

The Green 


Bath 

BA2 7TJ 

Tel: 01225 723 822 

www.theoldschoolpress.com 

mao@theoldschoolpress.com 

Jump of the Manta Ray 

Artist: Philip Hughes 

Author: Carmen Boullosa 

An epic and erotic poem by Mexican poet 

Carmen Boullosa, with a parallel English 

translation by Psiche Hughes, printed 

letterpress with fifty digitally manipulated 

photographic images by Philip Hughes. 

37 x 33 cms 

2002 The Old School Press, 


Edition of 60, £1,500 each 

The Yew Tree Press 

Park Place 

Aldsworth 

Glos 

GL54 3QZ 

yewtreepress.com 

colin.h@yewtree502.fsnet.co.uk 

Dolphin 

Guido Arderne 

Folio landscape poem and images in woodcut 

and drypoint. Hardbound in Irish Linen, 

208 

printed on mouldmade paper. 

27 x 34 cms 

2002 The Yew Tree Press, Aldsworth, UK 

£70 each 

A Bestiary 

Guido Arderne 

Large quarto bestiary after the Comte de 

Buffon’s Histoire Naturelle. Illustrated with 

drypoints, engravings and woodcuts in colour. 

Hand bound in full cloth, printed on Fabriano 

paper. 

31 x 25 cms 

2002 The Yew Tree Press, Aldsworth, UK 


Venice - Venus 

Guido Arderne 

Landscape folio prints of Venice with literary 

texts from Henry James, Ruskin and Mark 

Twain. Hardbound in full cloth, printed on 

mould made magnawi paper. 

27 x 34 cms 

2003 The Yew Tree Press, Aldsworth, UK 


Thingsnotworthkeeping 

38 Stanesfield Road 

Cambridge 

CB5 8NH 

Tel: 01223 576017 

www.tnwk.net 

thebooks@tnwk.net 

Scrap Books One Hundred 


Polythene bag containing selected shredded 

excerpts from The Books. 29 x 26.5 cms 

ISBN 0952931131 

March 2000 Object Books, Devon 

Edition of 100, £1.50 each

The Enduring Freedoms Mystik Writing Pad 


A campaign organiser including 52 acrostics 

from The Books of the operation name for the 

War on Terror - “Enduring Freedom”. 

29 x 21 cms 

November 2001 TNWK, Totnes, Devon 


Millennium Collection 


Images, nominations, stories and reasons for 

100 things not worth keeping for the new 

millennium. Full colour throughout. 

See www.tnwk.net for more details. 

10.5 x 17 cms. Object Books, Cambridge 

ISBN 0952931125 


Tsang, Kin-Wah 

Room 17D Ewen Henderson Court 

40 Goodwood Road 

New Cross Gate 

London 

SE14 6BL 

kinwah02@yahoo.com.hk 

209 

Futhreek Fucharacterck Fuprimerck 

Kin-Wah Tsang 

A set of 30 books with transformed classic 

Chinese “Three Character Primer” which 

at first sight, looks like a specific local foul 

language. 

1254 x 59 cms 

2002 Hong Kong 

O-PENis 

Kin-Wah Tsang 

A book-like object with a silicone Barbie’s leg 

attched inside which allows the viewer to open 

and pull/play the leg. 

32 x 30 cms 

2002 Hong Kong 

Unique book 

Turley, Sandra 

50 Crowhill Rd 

Clare 

Waringstown 

Co. Armagh 

N. Ireland 

BT66 7SL 

Tel: 02838 881816 

sturley321@aol.com 

This Original Self 

Sandra Turley 

Explores issues surrounding adoption and lost 

identity. The search for self is gradually 

revealed using a method of devoré printing, a 

process of burning away natural fibres. 

Accordion bound, letterpress, screenprint, 

with hard cover, 14 pages. 13.7 x 11.5 cms 

ISBN 1 893125 21 1 

Women's Studio Workshop, New York, USA 


Tyson, Ian 

ed.it 

F84290 St Roman de Malegarde 

France 

Tel: 0033 4 9028 9394 

Fax: 0033 4 9028 9708 

The Case for Memory 

Artist: Ian Tyson 

Author Jerome Rothenberg 

Twelve poems with four images, screenprinted. 

28 x 20 cms (28 x 40 cms open) 

2001 Granary Books, New York and ed.it, 

St Roman de Malegarde 


Pavan (In praise of John Dowland 1563 – 1626) 

Artist / author: Ian Tyson 

One poem with an image, in four parts, 

screenprinted. 

15 x 15 cms (15 x 75 cms open) 

2002 ed.it, St Roman de Malegarde 


A Propos Le Livre (d’ après Stéphane Mallarmé) 

Artist / author: Ian Tyson 

Six pages of text with six images, screenprinted. 

32 x 24 cms 

2002 Granary Books, New York and ed.it, St 

Roman de Malegarde 


 

Uta Schneider and Ulrike Stoltz 

Frankfurter Strasse 80 

Offenbach am Main 

D - 63067 

Germany 

www.boatbook.de 

usus@boatbook.de 

210 

Boundless 

: Uta Schneider and Ulrike Stoltz 

Seven folded sheets about books and boats, 

both containers and a means of transport. 

Texts by USUS with some quotations from 

other sources and a documentation of our 

search for the legendary bookbinding ships. 

Seven photographs add up to one large boat. 

28 x 17.5 cms 

2002 Nexus Press and , Atlanta, USA 

£40 each 

Visual Studies Workshop 


Rochester 

New York 

NY 14607 

USA 

Tel 001 585 442 8768 

www.vsw.org 

press@vsw.org 

Book of Contemplation 

Anne Iott 

Six folios of images and an audio CD based on 

historical Books of Hours. Includes Book of 

Hours, Xerox Zen, The Dharma Body, Edible Tickets, 

Mandalas and Sound. Hardback portfolio. 

23 x 18 cms 

2003 VSW Rochester, New York, USA 

Edition of 40, $300 each 

Florida Family Portrait 

Judy Gelles 

The story of “everyfamily” photographed in a 

fixed pose over twenty years, in a trailer park in 

Florida. Printed in duotones throughout, 48pp. 

20 x 20 cms ISBN 0 89822 081 5 

2002 VSW Rochester, New York, USA 

$20 each

Waller, Angie 

2330 Stanley Hills Drive 

Los Angeles 

CA 90046 

USA 

Tel: 001 213 944 9704 

angie@couchprojects.com 

Data Mining the Amazon 

Angie Waller 

Amazon.com has one of the most diverse 

databases than can link books to music to 

DVD’s to toys to electronics. Amazon’s own 

‘Recommendation Services’ tracks customers’ 

purchases and offers additional items that 

match their profile. For this book, I focused on 

recommendations linking books to CD’s based 

on other customers’ purchases. The phrase 

“political aesthetics” allowed the distinction 

between right-wing conservatives and left-wing 

liberals, to link choices of political books to 

find a list of music that would best describe 

each political idealogy. 23.3 x 16.2 cms 

March 2003, Couch Projects, Los Angeles, USA 


Ward, Helen 

28 Wilkie House 

Cureton Street 

Pimlico 

London 

SW1P 4EH 

Tel: 07734 697691 

helen@artserve.net 

Gentlemen Prefer Pin-Ups 

Helen Ward 

A pamphlet style book containing transluscent 

pages depicting paper doll versions of Monroe’s 

famous outfits, complete with mini Marilyn. 

Be a pin-up and wear her masks. 15 x 10.5 cms 

2003 ©xyzeeproductions, London 

£7.50 each 

211 

the story of h & two others 

Helen Ward 

Softback collection of text - a play in book 

form, each act a character, a player in a living 

play: h = me; butterfly = music; moth = master. 

All events are real, all characters are real. 

15 x 10.7 cms 


£7 each 

The Holy Qur’antine 

Helen Ward 

A collection of fragmented and juxtaposed 

pornographic magazine images of women. 

Potato prints of an Islamic veil on each 

woman’s head. An examination of a social 

inclusion / exclusion parody. 

18.5 x 12.5 cms 


£10 each

Ward, Melanie 

121 Ashley Road 

Montpelier 

Bristol 

BS6 5NU 

Tel: 0117 907 8819 / 07967 948 056 

melaniemayward@yahoo.co.uk 

Stripey Dress Mutations 

Melanie Ward 

A dress mutates in various unexpected or 

disturbing ways, only to return to its starting 

point. A concertina book, screen, frieze with 

sixteen screenprinted images on Somerset satin 

paper. Tied with red ribbon. 9.5 x 7 cms 

2002, Bristol 


Pretty-Dress-With-Matching-Collarless-Jacket-Mutations 

Melanie Ward 

Concertina book, screenprinted in brown on 

Newsprint colour Somerset satin, tied with blue 

ribbon. 11.5 x 6.5 cms 



Weproductions 

Deuchar Mill 

Yarrow 

Selkirk 

Scotland 

TD7 5LA 

Tel: 01750 82231 

www.weproductions.com 

zwep@weproductions.com 

212 

Pivot 

Artist: Helen Douglas 

Author: Thomas Evans 

A tentative probe in spatial relations taken with 

female presence and a decorative twist. 

15 x 10.5 cms 

ISBN 0952328402 

2003 Weproductions, Yarrow, Scotland 

£10 each 

8 Minutes 

Telfer Stokes 

The sequence of pages joins two different 

cultures in a seamless sequence from dominant 

blues on white to reds, pinks on black. 

19 x 14 cms 

ISBN 0952328445 

2002 Weproductions, Yarrow, Scotland 


Wild Conversations Press 

30 Richmond Park Road 

Clifton 

Bristol 

BS8 3AP 

iainbiggs@tantraweb.co.uk 

Between Carterhaugh and Tamshiel Rig: 

A Borderline Episode 

Artist/Author: Anon and Iain Biggs 

Designed by MakingSpace (Isle of Wight)this is 

a 176 page book with 64 colour images printed 

on 200 gsm silk finish paper. The book uses the 

border ballad Tam Lin as a starting point for an 

exploration, in text and image, of place and 

identity. Published in collaboration with 

TRACE, Weymouth. 

20 x 20 cms 

ISBN 1 902595 06 8 

2004 Wild Conversations Press, Bristol 


Wild Pansy Press 

School of Fine Art, History of Art & 

Cultural Studies 

Old Mining Building 

University of Leeds 

Leeds 

LS2 9JT 

www.leeds.ac.uk/fine_art/ 

Email: c.a.taylor@leeds.ac.uk 

Tracing Echoes 

Artist: Nicky Bird 

Authors: Nicky Bird, Pamela Gerrish Nunn, 

Russell Roberts and Phillipa Wright 

Through informed texts and archive 

reproductions (primarily from the National 

Museum of Film, Photography & Television 

collection) this 72pp, full colour publication 

explores the life and work of Victorian 

photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron, a freak 

of her time who, though being female, was 

respected as a ‘master’ of her trade. 

The descendants of Cameron’s sitters and the 

house where she lived are all beautifully 

illustrated through Nicky Bird’s own mastery of 

the camera. Combined with the historical 

accounts, the publication becomes an 

intriguing jigsaw of complex interelations. 

30cm x 22.5 cms 

ISBN: 1 900687 13 5 

2001 Wild Pansy Press, Leeds 

£12.95 each 

213 

All Things Considered 

Artists / Authors: Sally Butcher, Nevan Carey, 

Amelia Crouch, Jo Finkel, Natalie Long, 

Alex Marden, Richard Morgan, Susan Porteous, 

Sarah Robinson, Rebecca Sumner and 

Rebekah Thompson 

An interweaving of ideas, thoughts and practice 

illustrated through a complex design of 

overlapping pages, text and imagery. 

Full colour, 24pages. 

21 x 10 cms 

ISBN: 1 900687 14 3 

2003 Wild Pansy Press, Leeds 

£5.00 each 

Yoshimura, Aki 

12 Richmond Park Road 

Clifton 

Bristol 

BS8 3AP 

maron_june@hotmail.com 

Hoarder’s Album 1996 - 2003 

Aki Yoshimura 

A variable open edition book of random images 

and scribbles collected and hoarded since 1996. 

Multicoloured papers with inkjet, cut-outs and 

some hand drawn imagery, hand bound with 

coloured ribbons. 

14.5 x 10 cms 


Open edition, contact artist for price.

Artist's Book Yearbook 2003-2005 - Book Arts - University of the ...

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