Maurizio Cattelan and Myriam Ben Salah, FAQ, (Le Dictateur #5), Milan, Italy, 2016

Front cover

This is a really wild 25 foot accordion that serves as the 10th anniversary issue (2006/16) of the Italian magazine Le Dictateur. Double-sided and totally visual the curated images are an uneven series of very disparate works that rub up against each other in an unsettling manner. However, this book fits well with the other experimental magazines with their layouts and subject matter that has been the focus of Cattelan's activity within the magazine genre.  Included also is a small booklet with a brief interview about FAQ and a listing that includes details of the 110 works featured in the publication. Le Dictateur was started in 2006 by Frederico Pepe and Pierpaolo Ferrari, and is published in Milan, Italy.

The interview in this booklet answers some questions regarding the publication:

What is FAQ?

FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions, referencing an attempt to synthesize a recurrent flow, a tenor, an ideal visual representation and very subjective "now."

How was FAQ conceived?

Born out of an acute image eating disorder, FAQ reflects the mental assimilation of a relentless roving within physical and virtual art spaces: from galleries to tumble account, museum or artists studios.

Why is FAQ developed on an accordion paper format?

FAQ is conceived as a portable exhibition, a show on paper, a project of restitution, a hybrid object that you can both leaf and scroll through. It allows the immediacy of a linear exhibition display while being contained in terms of space, time and resources. 

Is FAQ based upon a theme or concept?

Far from being a rational enterprise because of its lack of rules, hierarchy, order - or concept for that matter - it is expressly and brazenly as personal and biased as possible and only reflects the obsessive mannerism of its authors.

What do the artists featured in FAQ have in common?

Like the above, in theory, nothing. In retrospective, they all produce - in different realms, times and materials - strong images that speak loudly through their immediacy.

Booklet of interviews with the artist and a list of the images in the publication.

Back cover. Double-sided, individual pages 8.25" (h) x 5.75" (w), with a total of 54 pages and fully extended at 25ft 10.5 inches.

Scott Helmes, 5, Stamp Bad Press/The Hermetic Press, 2016 [ed. 30]

A quiet little one person exhibition of a 5 piece series by this Minnesota-based visual and concrete poet. 

Individual pages 7.25" (h) x 5.5" (w) with a total of 8 pages, and fully extended 3ft 8inches.

And a big thank you to the infamous scott macleod (oakland) for sending this accordion to me!

Allyce Silva, Thanksgiving, mixed media, c. 2016

Back 

Back cover

A fun mixed-media accordion that has a nice folksy quality and I especially like the paperworks and the cut-out stencils.

Individual pages 8" (h) X 6" (w), 8 pages fully extended at 4ft.

Reijo Karkkainen, Money Tox, Le Dernier Cri, 2003 [ed. 200]

Back cover

Another of Le Dernier Cri's fantastic multi-accordion accordion publications and this one features the work of the Finnish artist Reijo Karkkainen. This silkscreened book combines two distinctive sets of drawings that are used to good effect on the different sides of the expanded pages and they only reveal themselves when the book is activated by the reader. According to Reijo the title is a slang phrase that means an addicted person.

 Individual page 6" (h) x 6" (w), 36 pages in total.

Carole King, Treeline, nd, [ed. 28/50] and, How to make a Concertina Book, 2014

Front

Back

Back cover

Treeline, nd 

I was in a small Welsh town called Crughywel that was deep in the countryside this summer, and stopped to check out a lively little art gallery and found these two accordions by this English book artist. I particularly like the concertina book on how to make a concertina book - way to go!

How to make a Concertina Book, 2014

Both books are 8 pages in length, and individual pages are 5.5" (h) x 3.75" (w), and when fully opened each book is 3ft 8 inches.

For further information about Carole King and her activities visit: 

http://www.nantdesigns.co.uk/index.html

Back

Pete Spence, Some Artefacts, Timglaset Editions, Sweden, 2016/17

Front

Back

A double-sided strip of 15 aphorisms from this down-under word rabble-rouser and published by Timglaset, a bilingual (Swedish/English) fanzine and publisher of handmade books of art and writing. I'll let their online blurb speak for this publication:

"If art and poetry is about making us see objects and concepts in a new light, then pete spence surely is a masterful poet. And a humorous one at that.

pete spence was born in Australia in 1946. He is a visual poet and writer. He has published numerous volumes of poetry, edited many magazines, curated exhibitions of visual poetry and participated in the mail art network for many years.

His latest collection of poetry is Red Duck (Accent Editions, 2016) and anyone who has received one of his colourful collage postcards should consider themselves blessed."

One of my favorites in this book is: 

Conceptual

you don't say


Measurements: 2.75" (h) x 2" (w) and extended 16.5". For info: timglaset.fanzine@mail.com or www. gimglaset.com

'Deirdre Kelly, 'A Walk Past Standing Stones' (after Richard Long), designed by Christopher Taylor, published by Wild Pansy Press, 2016 [ed. 200]

A funky little accordion that is an homage to Richard Long's 1980 accordion of the same name in which his subject matter was a series of photographs of standing stones that he had encountered during a day's walk in Cornwall, England in 1978. Kelly, who presently lives in Venice, Italy, pays homage by switching Long's stones with the weathered heads on the ballustrade of Venice's, Palazzo Soranzo Van Axel. Kelly writes that "these sculpted heads form part of the handrail or 'corrimano' which translates as 'running hand' of which this artists' book represents up and down."

My only slight quibble with this book is a formal and aesthetic one — the accordion strip is not flush with the cover at the bottom so that when the book is placed in the upright position it does not sit flat for the first couple of pages.

Individual pages 3.5" x 2 2/8" overall length 2 ft 2". Long's book is also featured elsewhere in this blog. For further information about Kelly's publications contact: www.wildpansypress.com or www.deirdrekelly.net.

Nancy Chalker-Tennant, Secret Wing, Rochester: Visual Studies Workshop, 1991.

The folder for the accordion

The folder and the accordion

A curious melange of marks and images create a slightly frenetic feel to this double-sided accordion by Chalker-Tennant.

6 pages at 12"(h) x 5.5"(w). When opened up 2' 9".