Sans Niveau ni Metre, Pli Selon Pli: Leporellos d'artistes, #63, with Simon Cutts, Universite Rennes 2, Rennes, France, 2023

Sans Niveau ni Metre is the house organ for the artists' book collection at the University of Rennes 2 and different issues serve as catalogues for the exhibitions & special projects curated from the University's archive and its partners.

This special leporello issue is a catalogue for an exhibition that myself and Marie Boivent (University of Rennes) co-curated with a combination of leporellos from the University's artists' book collection and some from my collection. One side of the catalogue is taken up with a text by us around the theme of the show as well exploring the varied issues related to the leporello format using examples from the show. While on the other side is a page work commissioned from Simon Cutts the longtime Brit publisher who with his partner Erica Van Horn run Coracle Press out of Ireland. His piece reflects upon the leporello and its own method of transmission and communication.

4 double-sided pages, individually 11.75" x 8.5", and when unfolded 2ft 10"

Simon Cutt's piece

Paul McCartney, Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eye of the Storm, National Portrait Gallery Publications, London, 2023

This accordion was a bit of a surprise to me.

Published by the National Portrait Gallery in conjunction with an exhibition of recently re-discovered photographs taken by McCartney, the exhibition was up from June 28 - October 1, 2023. Documentation of the exhibition [Paul McCartney Photographs] reveals a lively installation with quite distinctive settings for each different series of photographs. This publication displays none of this liveliness and the selection of photographs is nothing special, indeed at least two of them could not have been taken by McCartney as he's in them, and no special effort has been made to utilize the qualities of the accordion format to the book's advantage. A missed opportunity—but then Paul was never my favorite Beatle anyway!!

8 double-sided pages, individual pages 8.25" x 7" and when unfolded 4ft 8"

reverse side

back cover

Alice Guareschi, Je m'appelle Olympia, L'Olympia Music Hall, Paris, 2012

Inspired by a visit to this legendary Parisian music hall and its rich theatrical history, Guareschi was "...mesmerized by the silent wonder of the lights...," and subsequently created this work in response to this vivid experience. A text on the inside of the cover explains in greater detail the different elements that come together in this piece:

"Je m’appelle Olympia is an action for house lights performed by Alice Guareschi on just one occasion at the Olympia Music Hall, the legendary and iconic Parisian venue, on April 12, 2012. The sixteen photographs that make up the series on show at MAN were shot on the same day, right after the live activation of the light choreography in the theatre’s empty space, which involved all thirteen of the coloured lighting channels that are permanently integrated into the architecture. With a fixed framing, similar but not identical, following the precise original lighting score composed by the artist, the images present a sequence of different movements of lights in the auditorium. The photographic series thus becomes a new synthesis of the image-idea and intention behind the performance: to activate a theatre when no show is happening on stage, to play it live, to reawaken its latent memory and the secret life that eludes the spectator’s gaze. By breaking down the duration of the action into photograms that can be viewed either separately or all together, the spatial arrangement of the work now makes it possible to embrace the overall idea at a glance."

This book was made on the occasion of the exhibition Je m’appelle Olympia, Museo d’Arte Provincia di Nuoro (MAN), Italy, July 14–September 17, 2023.

Alice Guareschi (1976) is a visual artist and filmmaker based in Milano. She holds a MA in Philosophy from the University of Bologna with a thesis on experimental cinema. Over the years her work has included a wide range of media such as writing, sculpture and video. In 2005 she was resident artist at the Palais de Tokyo’s Le Pavillon in Paris, in 2012 and 2015 at the Cité Internationale des Arts. Other residencies include Triangle, New York, and Kaus Australis, Rotterdam..

19 double-sided pages, individually 5.5" x 7" and when unfolded 11ft 1"

back cover