I only recently discovered this really impressive accordion by the wonderful experimental Mexican artist Felipe Ehrenberg (1943-2017). This publication with its nine two-page stencil works, and pages of varying sizes, is really a mini-retrospective of his explorations in this medium — indeed the artist comments in the bilingual brochure accompanying the work, "For this book (which, like many other codices, should ideally be read like a detective novel) I have laid out my best beloved stencils. With these I seek to offer viewers various clues that you may unravel the wondrous and dramatic events surrounding the life of this artist, another witness to the end of a century." Further, he writes, "This work is also intended to serve as a musical score, perhaps to be composed by someone wishing to recreate the background music of our daily histories. The cutting of a paper stencil is like the soldering of a golden filligree."
This work came out of a residency Ehrenberg completed at Atlanta's Nexus Press. The images for the works came from what he called his Visual Information Bank which was a box with all sorts of ephemera that he would dip into for images for his stencils. In contrast to the frenetic energy of the stencils, the inside of the publication has a bucolic and calm feeling that is mirrored in the original stencil work Ehrenberg created across the front pages of each book.
18 double-sided pages, individually 17" x 17"(variable), and when fully opened approximately 72".
At the bottom of this post I'm including some images of a non-accordion version of the publication that reproduces the same sequence of two-page stencils. Published in 1990, the same year as the accordion version, this publication is slightly smaller in size at 17" x 11" and printed in an edition of 500.
on the ends of the pages Ehrenberg has created an original stencil work
(the palm tree & seascape)
the work's bilingual guide on the left with signature & edition number.
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