Stefano Faravelli, Jenne, Confluencias Torino/Almeria, 2004

A pocket-sized carnet de voyage (travel notebook) by this well known artist that is devoted to this Malian city that is a world heritage site located in the Niger River Valley. The texts accompanying Faravelli's drawings are translated into four languages in the introduction section to the book. This book is one in a series that the artist has completed, including the following: Tokyo, Istanbul, Delhi, Cairo, Rome, Jerusalem, Pekin, Toledo and Kashgar. 

32 pages single-sided, individual pages 5.5" (h) x 3.5" (w), when open 9ft 4". 

Tyler Starr, AutoRecord, Wobble Press, North Carolina, 2013

I'm going to let the following article from the Davidson College (North Carolina) journal serve as the introduction to this really smart politically oriented accordion. 

FACULTY ARTIST CREATES TAKE-HOME PIECE THAT HIGHLIGHTS GREENSBORO TRAGEDY
Davidson Journal, October 28, 2013
 

Starr put together “Auto Record” as a response to a 1979 tragedy in Greensboro that remains controversial even today.

Assistant Professor of Art Tyler Starr will exhibit work in the Greensboro, N.C., edition of "Art in Odd Places" November 1 and 2. Initiated nine years ago in New York City as a public art and performance event, this will be the first year for the event in Greensboro.

Visitors strolling the city's main thoroughfare, Elm Street, will encounter 36 works that relate to the exhibition theme, "Number." Projects include music, sound, and dance performances, site-specific installations, video projections, painting, sculpture, and cross-disciplinary work. The exhibit is co-curated by Xandra Eden, Weatherspoon Art Museum's curator of exhibitions. It includes works that invite viewers to dance in four-four time or play hop-scotch, explore strange obsessions with particular numbers, and experience a symphony of sound produced by cellphones.

Starr's work will be the only one that asks them to further consider a Greensboro tragedy that continues to polarize the city more than 30 years after it occurred. He is printing about 650 booklets titled Auto Record that will be free for the taking in ordinary outdoor newspaper racks located beside a tavern and the International Civil Rights Museum. The 50-inch by 8-1/2 inch broadsheet is folded into 10 panels and monochromatically printed on both sides with images of cars involved in The Greensboro Massacre of November 3, 1979

On that Saturday morning, a confrontation erupted between a caravan of Ku Klux Klan members and Communist Workers Party members gathering for an Anti-Klan parade through the city streets. At one point all the cars stopped and a brawl ensued as people spilled out of their cars. It quickly escalated to use of firearms. Five CWP members were mortally wounded by gunfire. The melee was captured on film by journalists and detectives who were following the caravans. The FBI conducted a thorough investigation, and in 2005 a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established to study it. But no one involved was ever convicted of a crime, and the incident has remained controversial ever since.

Starr has based his pamphlet on FBI archives that have been unclassified and are now available online. He explained, "Auto Record is my attempt to contribute to the conversation by presenting facts about cars involved. I've tried to digest thousands of pages of FBI documents, which include facts relating to weapons used, the vehicles that carried the weaponry, bullet holes in the cars, and biographies of the five individuals killed."

He continued, "My presentation is as neutral as reportage can be. It's a dead-pan interpretation that doesn't take sides or assign guilt. I think I'm sensitively acknowledging the loss of life on that day, and offering a useful, condensed visualization of the incident."

Using a combination of collage, stencils and drawing, Starr presents on each panel a side view of one of the cars. Since they were models from the late 1970s, he scoured used car sale magazines to find the images he needed. Various panels are also printed with text from the FBI reports, images of the guns involved, and bullet holes in the cars. No human figures are depicted.

Starr was raised in the Northeast and had little knowledge of Greensboro until he read the exhibition's call for entries. In researching the city, he found out about the confrontation, and recognized the extensive use of numbers by groups that investigated it. He said, "Numbers kept popping up - 88.3 seconds for five people to die, 33 shots, six of which resulted in death or injury, 11:21 a.m. in morning, the serial numbers and calibers of the guns."

He continued, "My work in general is inspired by conundrums. When you look at messy issues like the Greensboro Massacre, you find that the solution is rarely 100 percent satisfactory. I take them on in a spirit of humility, because my artistic attempts to grasp some understanding of these convoluted issues also inevitably fall short."

The Art in Odd Places exhibit is occurring concurrently with the Southeastern College Art Conference at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, where Starr will sit on a panel and discuss his creation of contemporary landscapes.

He is in his second year of teaching printmaking and drawing at Davidson. He earned his MFA in 2002 at the University of Minnesota, then spent seven years in Japan studying contemporary approaches to traditional Japanese woodblock printing. He received a Ph.D. in studio arts in 2011 from the Tokyo University of the Arts.

His work has been featured in solo exhibits and juried shows at venues such as Yale University's Haas Arts Library, the International Biennial of Contemporary Prints-Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Liège, Belgium, the second Bangkok Triennial International Print and Drawing Exhibition, and the Wonderwall at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo.

10 pages, 8.5" (h) x 5" (w), double-sided, and open 4ft 2".                             

 

Front

Back

Back detail

Back detail

FOLD: artists' accordion books (exhibition catalogue), Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum, Milwaukee, March 1 - June 3, 2018 [for photo-documentation of the show scroll down]

PETRA: Cannabis Infused Mints, 2018

I was just in San Francisco for a brief visit and checked out the local pot shop on Mission street and found a number of interesting publications promoting a huge assortment of cannabis merchandise. As an observer of how the accordion has been utilized within the commercial environment, I was naturally interested in how it is being used within this new legalized environment. Here's Petra's info about their cannabis infused mints, just one item in their Kiva connections collection. Here's hoping that one day in Madison, Wisconsin I will be able to legally purchase these products!

4 pages, 6" (h) x 2" (w) and overall length 8.5"

Pinterest accordion book site

Here's an interesting Pinterest site devoted to accordion books:

https://www.pinterest.com/buchkunstlerin/

book-art-concertina-accordion/?lp=true

FOLD: Artists' Accordion Books, Villa Terrace Museum, Milwaukee, WI. March 1 - June 3, 2018.

MUSEUM CALENDAR

Villa Terrace Museum, Milwaukee

March 1, 2018, Runs through June 3, 2018

FOLD: Artists' Accordion Books

Opens March 1, 2018, Runs through June 3, 2018

FOLD highlights a selection of accordion-fold books from the extensive collection of artists’ publications owned by Stephen Perkins (Madison, WI). The exhibition features renowned artists such as Jennifer Bartlett, Ginger Burrell, Christo, Robert Indiana, Niki de Saint Phalle, Kiki Smith, Buzz Spector, and Dennis Oppenheim, and explores the art of accordion books, also known as concertina, screenfold, leporello, oriental-fold, and zig-zag fold, as panoramic spaces for images and text as well as three-dimensional sculptural objects. Encompassing the 1970s up to the present moment, FOLD offers a survey of accordion books that explore the creative possibilities offered by this unique publishing medium. Curated by Annemarie Sawkins, PhD (Milwaukee, WI).

Exhibition Walk-Throughs:

Join one of our drop-in tours to learn more about FOLD. Free with general admission. Led by one of our Curatorial staff members.

Wednesday, March 7, 2018 | 1:00 PM

Thursday, March 22, 2018 | 6:00 PM

Wednesday, April 4, 2018 | 1:00 PM

Thursday, April 19, 2018 | 6:00 PM

Wednesday, May 9, 2018 | 1:00 PM

Exhibition Programming:

Talk/Walk: Expression Through Accordion Books with Max Yela

March 22nd, 2018 | 7:00 PM

UWM Special Collections librarian Max Yela will offer a presentation on the expressive qualities of the accordion-fold book through a hands-on demonstration of artists books from UWM's renowned book-arts collections, followed by a walk-though of selected works in the exhibition FOLD: Artists' Accordion Books.

Max Yela has been Head of the Special Collections Department at the UWM Libraries since 1994. Prior to this, he was the public services librarian for Special Collections at the University of Delaware, 1985-1994. He has also taught book arts concepts and practice, and the history of books and printing at UWM for the past fifteen years. Max's primary research uses media theory to investigate how artists use books as art media. In 2017 Max was honored for his many contributions to Wisconsin's visual arts community with a Wisconsin Visual Arts Achievement Award.

Thursday, March 22, 7:00pm at Villa Terrace. Free with museum admission.

Accordion Book Workshop with Karen Hanmer

April 7th, 2018 | 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM

Join experienced bookmaker Karen Hanmer for a hands-on bookmaking workshop at Villa Terrace in conjunction with our exhibition FOLD. Hanmer will teach several book forms including: accordion with wrapped covers, accordion with simple pop-ups, and accordion with pamphlets sewn in. 

Hanmer’s studio practice ranges from small editions of artists’ books to bookbinding instructional materials and one-of-a-kind design bindings. Her work is included in collections such as The Getty Museum, The Library of Congress, Yale University, and Graceland. She is winner of the Jury Prize for Binding in the 2009 Helen Warren DeGolyer American Bookbinding Competition and is one of only ten graduates of the American Academy of Bookbinding’s Fine Binding program. Hanmer is a leader in the book arts community, having served on the editorial board of The Bonefolder, as Exhibitions Chair for the Guild of Book Workers, and as frequent exhibition curator and juror. 

The workshop will be held on Saturday, April 7, 1:00-4:00pm at Villa Terrace. Please sign up here to reserve your spot! Fees are $45 general/$25 students and include basic materials. Students should bring along scissors, a pencil, and an eraser.

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Lillian Sizemore, Vegetative Parts and Living Creatures, Japanese accordion albums, pen, watercolor & black walnut ink, 2017

A beautiful handmade gift from the artist, who just happens to be my amore. Working with these blank Japanese accordions Lillian has created two quite distinctive hand drawn & painted works that come nestled inside "The Scorpion's" box.

"Vegetative Parts," 6 pages, Japanese accordion album, 1.25" (h) x 1.25" (w), extended 9.5" [Above] 

"Living Creatures," 6 pages, Japanese accordion album, 1.25" (h) x 1.25" (w), extended 9.5" [Below]