- Venue
- Phoenix Gallery
- Location
- South East England
What is the best way to exhibit artists books? Usually they are either are available in the scrum of an artists book fair or are shown in galleries as art objects, like tribal artefacts in ethnographic museums; in other words dead, since the meaning of the object is in its use. Neither option does justice to the artists book, as Sharon Mangion(1) and Margaret Tran(2) point out in recent AN Unedited reviews. As a maker of artists books I would expect my interest to prevail in such conditions, but I have often found that I cannot overcome the obstacles to understanding and concentration posed by these venues.
So I have been delighted by imaginative attempts to find new ways to exhibit, the most recent of which is ‘Press and Release’. It fulfilled the original intention to fully occupy the gallery space and utilise various other media eg audio and video, to engage the interest of the public. Curator Karin Mori and sculptor Ben Thompson deserve enormous credit for the vision to create such a maze of intimate, irregular, protected spaces – some with seating, some without. The spaces encouraged an exploratory attitude, and enabled a large group of people to disperse, and each feel alone with the books in their chosen alcove, and also provided the calm space to concentrate on the artists books. It was far superior to the restless passageways created by the tables and open gangways at book fairs, or the excluding cabinets in a gallery. As I saw ‘For the Love of Books’ in South Hill Park Galleries, Bracknell on the same day, where the cabinets isolated the work, the contrast with the accessibility of ‘Press and Release’ was notable.
The only other exhibition of artists books which I have seen which has attempted such a change in relationship between book and public is ‘Sitting Room’ curated by Tom Sowden and Lucy May Schofield. There the emphasis was on the creation of a familiar, homely environment with a sofa and small shelf of books. This succeeded in enabling full engagement with the books. Karin Mori and Ben Thompson have succeeded in something far more ambitious with ‘Press and Release’, because they created not just one space, but a series of interlocking spaces with quite different atmospheres, which I had not fully investigated even after two hours.
This exhibition was also a wonderful collection of work by top makers of artists books, and showcased work from collectives from Europe and South America which I had not seen before. There were too many gems to mention in a short review, but a few seemed to me outstanding. Chisato Tamabayashi’s work was beautifully executed, especially his delicately cut books about trees.
‘Off The Wall’ by reassemble’s John Say and Sheena Vallely, showed how found debris can be used in direct print in beautiful layered colours. I have seen their small books before, but I thought their work showed to even better advantage in their two large books and in the wallpaper installation.
The collective Knust deserves special mention for some inventive book structures, as well as the notion of slots in their wallpaper for the placement of books.
The Mayan collective, Taller Lenateros, was an inspiration. It was lovely to be able to see a video detailing the full range of their practice from collecting fibres, processing, paper making, printing, and collating in a low tech and labour intensive way, and hear their pride at making their culture accessible. The resulting work was beautiful – such as the sculptured book cover made from recycled cardboard boxes.
The sewn accordian books by Batool Showgi, using intensely layered drawing, painting and print, worked sufficiently well in a cabinet, as did John Dilnot’s ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’.
However I found that I could not engage with the cabinets with long gloves entering the space, which were intended to enable the reader to turn the pages. I thought it was a worthy attempt to keep the book safe, while allowing more than one page to be seen by the viewer – but for me too reminiscent of nuclear power plants or science labs working with dangerous viruses. The cabinets affected me on a subconscious level with a message that the books were dangerous and contaminated. No doubt a book artist could produce work with that effect in mind, but that did not seem to be the intention here.
I am still left with the query – how should books be shown in gallery spaces? ‘Press and Release’ has demonstrated the powerful effect which manipulation of the gallery space can have on the attitude of the viewer, and I hope other galleries will take note and build upon their example. However I think that makers of artists books must also engage with this dilemma. My own conclusion at present is that one way forward would be to create different structures of the same book – some to be read in the hand, either at home or in a library setting, and others which work in a gallery. There are already some book artists who work in this way, such as Peter Sramek, in America, for example in the four entirely different presentations of his book, ‘In Search of Paradise – Night Vision’. Unless makers of artists books find ways to reach out to a passing audience, artists books as an art form will not flourish to their full potential.
Catriona Stamp
1 Sharon Mangion, Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Art
2 Margaret Tran, Martha Rosler E-Flux Project
