It was an exciting day when this wonderful book about artists' accordion books dropped into my mailbox. Coming in at just under 600
pages the book is comprised of 19 texts by eighteen authors, with thirteen
chapters in German, four in English and two in French. This book is exactly
what this neglected area of artists' book publishing has needed for many years,
and it succeeds admirably in filling out a history of this book form ranging from the
14th century to the contemporary moment.
Here is the publisher's description of the book:
The contributions of this
first international overview of the phenomenon of folded books cover 600 years
of Occidental book history: It ranges from medieval books and harlequinades of
the early modern period, through foldable pages in bound books, to Leporellos,
Folded Panoramas and Livres Accordéon and experienced a veritable heyday in the
19th century.
Folded formats were used for calendars and chronologies, for panoramas and overviews, as well as for parade and procession prints, as well as for typographical paper image galleries and illustrated children's books. In the 20th century, folded books experienced an international renaissance both in experimental literature and in the context of the artist's book.
The material expansion of the book body is far more than a surprising effect: it allows for other forms of staging content than are possible on the pages of bound books - and, accordingly, other reading experiences. Books that can be unfolded are transformed in the eyes of their beholders. When folded, a leporello can be leafed through and viewed sequentially, but it can also be unfolded selectively or unfolded in its entirety - and dissolve in that sense.
The haptic dimensions of appropriation and the semantic potentials of (de) folding processes play a central role in this process. As an aesthetic strategy, folding is multifaceted and complex, especially in the context of history of books. And so the richly illustrated stories of folded books collected here raise a hitherto undiscovered treasure of book history.
Christopher Schulz, the editor, introduces the book with a fascinating chapter on the early history of the
accordion fold through different time periods, and within diverse literary
contexts. I only wish my German was up to the task of translating this very important historical text! All the other texts explore accordions from both the
world of visual arts as well as the literary arts, and there's a nice range and
variety to the choices. I'm also happy to have a text by myself included in this selection. Schulz should be congratulated on bringing into the
world a book that explores so thoroughly, this totally unique book form and medium.
I'm listing below the
chapter titles and language of all nineteen sections of the book...and here's a link to PDFs of them all: The story (s) of folded books: Leporellos, Livres-Accordéon and Folded Panoramas in literature and visual arts | OMP Ruhr University Bochum
Chapter Headings and language
Christoph Benjamin Schulz (German)
The stories of folded books
Sebastian
Schmideler (German)
Leporellos in the work of the Munich book
artist Lothar Meggendorfer
Ulrich Ernst
(German)
Dynamic typography - orphist painting -
bruitist music. Blaise Cendrars' and Sonia Delauney's avant-garde simultaneous
book La Prose du Transsibériean
Susanne
Gramatzki (German)
Poetry in dialogue: Paul Éluard's poem Liberté as a Leporello
Viola
Hildebrand-Schat (German)
Conceptual and functional varieties of
leporellos in the context of Russian bookart.
Anne
Moeglin-Delcroix (French)
Three artists' points of view on the
leporello: Peter Downsbrough, Bernard Villers, Hamish Fulton
Anne Thurmann-Jajes
(German)
Between
artistic documentation and conceptual penetration - leporellos by Isidoro
Valcårcel Medina and Timm Ulrichs
Stephen Bann (English)
Ian
Hamilton Finlay's folding poems and concertinas
Thomas Hvid Kromann (German)
Foldable
flats with enigmatic signs: Danish avant-garde leporellos since the 1960s
Klaus Ottmann (English)
Objects
of seduction: James Lee Byars's scrolls and accordion-folded performative paper
sculptures
Carol Jana Ribi
(German)
Warja Lavater's folded stories. Work
genesis and aesthetic impact
Monika
Schmitz-Emans (German)
Leporellos in the work of Horst Janssen
Klaus
Meyer-Minnemann (German)
Octavio Paz: Blanco - an accordion poem
Christoph
Benhjamin Schulz (German)
Folded texts and leporellos in
avant-garde literature and experimental poetry
Katarzyna
Bazarnik (English)
A stroll through Polish leporellos: some
'Liberatic' and other accordion-folded works
Christianne
Dahms (German)
Leporellos as visual staging of literary
texts: Baudelaire, Rilke, Stein, Hofmannsthal
Jean Fremon
(French)
The accordion books of the artist/poet
Etel Adnan
Stephen Perkins
(English)
Accordions at the border: Codex Espangliensis (2014), Migrant (2014) and Detained (2011)
Melanie Unseld
(German)
Conducting applause: or Laetitia
Devernay's attempt at leporello as score
