Artist Books
I have been running over the idea of going down the lines of an artist book. I saw book artist Guy Begbie lecture today and he gave me some good ideas about how I could structure such a piece and well as adding outside elements. He also ran a workshop where he showed us his spin on the classic concertina book where he demonstrated techniques of adding in extra pages that could fold out. Bellow are some photos of the work I did during his workshop.
I thought I should do some research and see if there are artists books made on mountains out there as well as other books that I find inspiring in some way.
What is an Artist book?
V&A (2016) writes:
"Artists' books are books made or conceived by artists. There are fine artists who make books and book artists who produce work exclusively in that medium, as well as illustrators, typographers, writers, poets, book binders, printers and many others who work collaboratively or alone to produce artists' books. Many artists' books are self-published, or are produced by small presses or by artists' groups or collectives, usually in limited editions."
I thought I should do some research and see if there are artists books made on mountains out there as well as other books that I find inspiring in some way.
What is an Artist book?
V&A (2016) writes:
"Artists' books are books made or conceived by artists. There are fine artists who make books and book artists who produce work exclusively in that medium, as well as illustrators, typographers, writers, poets, book binders, printers and many others who work collaboratively or alone to produce artists' books. Many artists' books are self-published, or are produced by small presses or by artists' groups or collectives, usually in limited editions."
This book by Livingstone is a "series of 250 ink drawings of mountains made up into books for Durham University's Oriental Museum." This box structure is a great way to show so many concertinas and I like the idea that it would free stand. As this is a combination of the 250 ink drawings, I understand why they might only be on one side but with this format of book, I do find it a shame that there isn't something happening on the other side of the paper. In terms of the images, I love how they almost look photocopied or gone through a similar print process where they have had natural mistakes made.
360° Book: Mt. Fuji
I'm not sure that this is an artist book as such but it still has some cool paper engineering going on. I'm imagining this as it it where large scale, it would be cool to be able to walk around it through the pages. I like the minimal use of colour that is relevant to the Japanese paintings you see of Mount Fuji however I do not engage with the more graphic design look of the book and detail.
Caught my eye due to their scale. the images on these were made with gunpowder, "explosion events" which leave traces.
More research into Cau Guo-Qiang's work took me to more of his gunpowder pieces.
"Sentinels of the Enchanted Valley, gunpowder on paper, 300 x 1600 cm. Exhibition view at Fundación Proa. Photo by Wen-You Cai, courtesy Cai Studio." Retrieved from Cai Studio Blog
These large pieces are so impressive. It's amazing how he has made these with gunpowder. It mist have taken a lot of work to find out what would work in terms of depth and texture. This one above was inspired by the Argentinian landscape.
Though this I found Cai Guo-Qiang Studio's website where I then found out that there is a Documentary about the artist called Sky Ladder on Netflix.
Notes from the film:
He has a deep social conscience and (for the most part) does his art with integrity.
Big- if I cant be in the mountains, how can I reach them?
He says that playing with gunpowder changed his life. Turning the idea of what gunpowder is on its head I like this idea and it reminds me of the work I did with rinpulls, I felt like that material was mine. I'm wondering now whether I should go back to using them. I started this project to try something new but so far I am in a rut.
It's purirty of material.
Challanges the status quo with it being in your face but also entertaining.
It's full of "power and grandeur"
I like the way he draws out his large designs before using the gunpowder- he used a long stick with a pen/pencil on the end.
With his work on the sky ladder, it made me think of how mountains point towards the stars.
From this I also realise the importance of scale! scale scale scale. It needs to be big.
Jonathan Callan from here
This work is pretty interesting. I am more inclined towards this sort of book art rather than paper engineering. I think this is partly because I like to reuse objects and material. Here Callan uses old/vintage book together with screws creating large book art sculptures. Is this book art or sculpture? are they the same thing? I am also attracted to the various colours.
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