R. Clarke-Davis, Untitled, Brazil, 2022

front cover

R. Clarke-Davis has been on the road again, this time to Brazil during the run up to the elections there, which thankfully Lula won. More folds than usual in this unexpectedly rich and compact accordion & folded book.

Of varying size, one side 4 pages, each 4" x 5.5", and another side 3 pages of same size. And then unfolding the pages results in sheets of 8, 16 and 12 images respectively. Expect the unexpected with Clarke-Davis' puzzle books.

back of above sheet

 

Dieter Schwarz, Sol LeWitt, Folds & Rips: 1966-1980, Walther Konig, Germany, 2020 and Veronica Roberts, Sol LeWitt, Not to be sold for more than $100, Radius Books, Santa Fe, 2020

The deeper I get into the world of accordions the more fascinated I become with the idea and nature of the 'fold', and how it transforms a simple piece of paper into a multi-faceted, and complex object. So, I was excited to discover these two recently published books that explore for the first time an ongoing activity of Sol LeWitt's that consisted of folding, ripping and cutting out sections of printed matter, that he created between the years 1966-1980. There's definitely a continuity between these works and his better known serial works, but these have an intimacy not found in the latter. A lot of the works were circulated within his friendship circles and their apparent simplicity belies the larger issues and themes that they raise.  

LeWitt (1928-2007) described these works as "...drawings without drawing" with lines being replaced by the folds in the paper, and both books explore in different ways the variety of themes and issues that all intersect in this simplest of activities - folding, ripping and cutting of paper.

Here's a link to an excellent article by Megan Liberty from the Brooklyn Rail (Oct. 2020) in which she reviews both books and explores their different coverage of this remarkable and relatively unknown activity of this important conceptual and minimalist artist: Sol LeWitt: Not to Be Sold for More Than $100 and Sol LeWitt: Folds & Rips – The Brooklyn Rail