John Pfahl, Waterfall, Nazraeli Press, Tucson, 2000

accordion with slipcase

A really beautiful accordion of color panoramic photographs of waterfalls printed on a deep black background. The locations of all the waterfalls are noted with sites from New York, California, Hawaii and inbetween. Pfahl (1939-2020) has created the perfect match between his panoramic photographs and the expandable nature of the accordion format.

The publication is accompanied by a sheet with a text by Deborah Tall musing about all the different ways that we understand the idea and the thingness of waterfalls.

16 double-sided pages, individually 4.5" x 8.5", and when unfolded 11ft 4".

Camille Solyagua, Cirque des Fourmis (Cirus of Ants), Nazraeli Press, USA/Germany/UK 1999, ed. 1000

the accordion with its slipcase

It took me a little while to settle into this accordion along with questions such as: isn't this a children's book, or maybe it's an adult's book in disguise? But in the end none of that matters because when you look closely at the illustrations you enter into the ant circus and their world of entertainment and fun, and the outside world quickly slips away!

24 single-sided pages, individually 6.25" x 5.75" and when fully extended 11ft 6"

intermission

Doug + Mike Starn, To Find God Not The Devil's Insides, The Print Center, Philadelphia, 2007, ed. 2000

front cover

The following review of this work is from Aperture's Curated Book Collection and was posted on The Print Center's website [The Print Center]:

"This unique, accordion-folded volume co-published with the artists accompanies the Starns’ recent exhibition Black Pulse 2000-2007.  The process of photosynthesis—the energy of light chemically transforming into the life force—serves as a rich analogy for the Starns’ work, which has always concerned itself with materiality, re-generation and entropy.  With obvious reference to our own corporeality, the images in this series accentuate the arteries of the leaves, the bold and graphic traces of this essential life function.

The piece is striking in its construction: in scrolling dual lines atop each page, the Starns’ engage in a poetic, pseudoscientific dialogue about the ideas in the series. The pages are printed on both sides, with the images and text looping around from the last page back to the first, underscoring the flow and ongoing, cyclical nature of the material. Each double-page signature is joined meticulously by transparent tape, emphasizing the physicality and three dimensionality of the surface. An introduction by The Print Center’s Executive Director Elizabeth Spungen and essay by Martin Barnes, senior curator of photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, provide context for this work; it is included in a narrow, map-folded pamphlet inserted in a clear plastic flap on the interior of the volume." 

26 double-sided pages, individually 13" x 9.5", estimated length 20ft 7" [note: every third fold represents a break in the paper, and these pages have been joined together by tape which means they do not open fully like a natural fold, so total length is an estimate]

back cover