Artists Newsletter Magazine - Jan 2000
Challenging Formats

Across the country, even as you read this, an author somewhere is writing a book. Across the same country, an artist somewhere is making/designing/creating a book too.

Generally speaking, the author works in isolation. We can all picture the frustrated writer surrounded by crumpled sheets of paper, torn from the typewriter and thrown to the floor in desperation as he/she seeks the perfect start/conclusion to the potentially prize-winning novel that will launch our writer to instant success. The image of the artist creating his/her own masterpiece, however, is less easy to visualise. Who are these lone book-artists? Where is the work produced? Who funds the publication of the work? Is there an audience for the work?

Artists have made books for centuries and as we witness the dawn of the latest, today's artists are no exception. Based in London, EC2, Book Works have been commissioning new works since 1984. Their name conjures up images of traditional tomes but nothing could be further from the truth. Of course, Book Works do publish and produce books but alongside other works in the form of multiples, videos, CD Roms and internet/new media projects.

A recent publication by Inventory for Book Works entitled 'Smash This Puny Existence' is presented as a set of six large-format double-sided prints packaged in a cardboard tube. What began as street actions in Glasgow and London, staged by Inventory in March 1999, flyposting busy public thoroughfares, creating 'public newspapers' have led onto this ambitious work documenting the events and inviting their audience to 'seize the city' and participate in Inventory's own brand of 'fierce sociology'. Further participation is encouraged with the tempting invitation to add to, amend, cut-up or flypost the posters.

A second Book Works publication, 'The World and Its Inhabitants' by Paul Etienne Lincoln published in 1997 takes a sideways slant at the history of the world. Again, not truly a book, twenty-four 'exploratory cards' and a small twenty-four page booklet are presented in a cigarette-pack style flip-top box. An exquisite piece of work, each card shows an 'inhabitant' of a microscopic and idealised world. The photographs on the cards are of small animated sculptures that Lincoln has created of his subjects and the narrative on the reverse outlines the historical background and descriptions of the previous performance details of each mechanical sculpture. Figures; Louis Pasteur and Robert Goddard (father of modern rocketry - we learn) sit strangely in the pack next to Britain's first celebrity Panda, Ming Ming, Hungarian twins the Dolly Sisters, Rosette de Lyon ('fine salami from the Lyon region of France') and Dyslexia. Paul Lincoln is an English artist resident in New York and a fine addition to Book Works quirky and maverick roster of artists that include Angela Bulloch, Tacita Dean, Tracey Emin, Cornelia Parker, Simon Patterson, David Shrigley and Sam Taylor-Wood.

Book Works operates a studio that offers a pool of resources and facilities with experience in producing, designing and printing editions and multiples on behalf of artists, galleries, libraries and designers for a what it hopes is a 'wide and varied audience'. An established leader in the field, Book Works have remained at the cutting edge. On the evidence of these recent publications they are attending to stay there.

Located across the river in London and working independently from the kind of support that Book Works offer is lone artist, Melissa Thompson. Her recent work - City Almanac 'a momento mori' is described as something to 'ponder over during those contemplative fireside evenings'. Sadly it would need to be a fairly short evening: although in twelve parts and at a metre in length the black and white photographic concertina images of two London streets are not gripping viewing. Each book represents the artist's walk along the two streets on the fifth day of each month recording what she saw with a 'movie camera'. No real distinctions mark the passage of time and no link between the locations are offered, the photography is weak and the use of typography adds very little to a project that breaks no new ground. Described as 'an aide memoire for the passerby' it is best forgotten. Would this work have been better had it had input from an organisation like Book Works? City Almanac appears to have suffered from the curse of the Vanity Publisher.

Travelling from our first two destinations in London north to Derby, the University of Derby to be exact, locates RGAP. The rather dry name; Research Group for Artists Publications, hides the fact that some interesting works have been taking shape since it's beginnings in 1994. The First Publication is no more book-like than the earlier examples. In fact, it is a box. The box does contain an assortment of editioned works. A pencil with the phrase 'choose one to use...' printed in repetition along it's length, four black and white printed cards entitled 'Postcards from Washington DC' with no visible reference to the city, in fact no visible reference to anything I recognise. 'Distributed Jigsaw' is a work that contains one jigsaw piece and a positional guide for it and the other missing 199 pieces of the puzzle, but without the picture to work from. I think my piece has some grass and flowers on it but it could be a rug or a green salad or a pullover. Where are the other pieces? It is worth trying to organise a meeting or event for owners to put the pieces together? I am not convinced that everyone would turn up and imagine one piece not arriving! Other items within the box include a roll of sticky tape with some words repeated in French and a 'Porcelain form fired to 1210-1240C (oxidising)' It has, it is claimed, a tiny eighteen page book inside but it seems such a shame to crack it open, so I leave it intact. Another one of the works is a set of swatches of different materials; perspex, sandpaper, corrugated card etc etc and on the final plywood swatch the words, '...there is an element of performance or ritual in the making of the edition.' I am beginning to think that there is a similar element in the viewing of these works.

Acoustic Shadows, another RGAP publication, looks the most like a book so far. It has a cover and a binding and pages and yet upon opening, one discovers a CD. It is not a CD Rom as could be expected from visual artists but a CD of 'soundworks by artists'. Of the tracks listed, 'Answering Machine' features a compilation of telephone messages left by the friend of artist, Jurgen Kierspel, over a two year period, whilst 'GridReference: Recorded Delivery' examines the sounds made from a keyboard using a system equating notes of the musical scale to the letters and numbers of postcodes of 100 visitors to a previous installation entitled GridReference. Fascinating as the project is, my guess is that it is a particular audience that will listen to CD more than once!

Leaving Derby and travelling further north and across the border into Scotland brings us to Weproductions based in Yarrow. Weproductions are Telfer Stokes and Helen Douglas. Established in London in 1971, moving to Scotland in 1976 and setting up a printing press in 1979 has enabled Weproductions to investigate an area of book arts that examines the structure of visual narrative in different book forms. Recent publications include: Wild Wood and Between The Two by Douglas and Song of The Thrush by Stokes and it is the latter that is perhaps the most thought-provoking. Upon his first exposure to the raw poverty on the streets of Bombay, Douglas has used the experience to produce a work that interweaves type and images in a dialogue that probes the huge population and economic problems of India. A powerful book, Song of The Thrush forces the viewer to confront the situation.

So, whilst across the land, authors continue to screw up sheets of paper in frustration book artists continue to create, design and publish works that challenge format, subject matter and the role of the book itself.

© Lawrence Zeegen