LL'Editions: The Leporello Series: #6: Maurizio Nannucci, #8: Jonathan Monk, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2022

The Leporello Series is a really smart series of artists' accordions published by the Swedish LL'Editions. Inhabiting a space between the book and paper sculpture, the leporellos are printed on delicate Mohawk Eggshell paper. Each volume in the series is limited to 250 numbered copies and come in a bespoke rigid box, with the title hot foiled both onto its front and its spine, allowing it to sit comfortably in a bookshelf when not on display. [from publisher's statement]

For The Leporello Series, LL'Editions has been inviting a select group of international artists to contribute. Each artist is given carte blanche, restricted only by the accordion format and its ten panels. Previous issues featured the following artists: #1: Heimo Zobering, #2: Micah Lexier, #3: Fiona Banner, #4: Ryan Gander, 2021. Here's a link to 4 other LL'Editions in this blog: LL'Editions: The Leporello Series, #1: Heimo Zobering, #2: Micah Lexier, #3: Fiona Banner, #4: Ryan Gander, 2021- , Gothenburg, Sweden

                     Leporello #6, Maurizio Nannucci, 2022

This is a curious work by this Italian contemporary artist known for his photography, video, neon & sound installations, artists' books and more broadly his conceptual and concrete poetry language practice. This text work with its doubling effect and its circularity left me feeling unsatisfied, coupled with the sense that Nannucci had missed an opportunity to create something much more engaging with the accordion's wonderful format.

10 single-sided pages, individual pages 5.5" x 4", when opened 3' 4"

upside down view

back of the box

              Leporello #8, Jonathan Monk, 2022

Brit appropriationist and concept artist gives us his sly interpretation of the iconic artists' accordion book — Edward Ruscha's Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966). The original featured images taken from a car of both sides of this historical 'strip' printed at the top and bottom of the accordion with a large white space between them indicating the space of the road coupled with the street numbers of each building.  Monk in this leporello gives us only one side of the street accompanied with the street numbers for both and then he reveals that he shot this work from the original accordion "...with an iPhone 12 in pano mode." This piece makes me smile. 

Check out Monk's other works on this site — People Looking at Art (2021) is a good one to start with: accordion publications: Jonathan Monk, People Looking at Art, Fifth Syllable, UK, 2021, ed. 50

10 single-sided pages, individual pages 5.5" x 4", when opened 3' 4"

back of the box