Peagreen, Ice Crystals, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2015

A very smart Christmas card from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, designed by this design studio based in Winchester, England. Many thanks Davy and Toni Damkoehler for sending this cool card to me!

5 pages, variable sizes, 7"(h), when opened 16.5". 

The Mystery Calculator, China, nd

The instructions that accompany this 'mystery calculator' are:

The complete set consists of 6 cards, printed with a series of numbers. Show all the cards to a friend and ask him or her to select one number from any one card. Show the other five cards to your friend asking him or her to say whether the number appears on these cards. Take all the cards on which your friend says the number appears, add together the top left hand corner number of, each card and the total is the number your friend selected.

6 pages, 1.25"(h) by 2"(w) when opened height is 9.75".

Matthew Monahan, Five Years Ten Years Maybe Never, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Los Angeles, 2007

A rather curious exhibition catalogue which consists of 3 booklets joined together in an accordion format. Since I've never seen anything like this before I thought it was worthy of inclusion here. In the last section are 3 accordion fold-outs of the artists' works. I had never heard of this LA-based artist, but this was a substantial one-person exhibition. Following is a text describing the publication from the Moca website: 

"Matthew Monahan (b. 1972, Eureka, CA) creates striking sculptures that are built from drawings, as well as fragments of smaller artworks made with disparate materials, including floral foam, beeswax, glitter, pins, Styrofoam, glass, and drywall. From these unlikely media, he builds freestanding, assemblaged sculptures within which hand-crafted characters—warriors, saints, slain heroes, and demons—seem to express heroic emotions ranging from jubilation to anguish. These figures serve as both icons and iconoclasts in a purposefully allusive narrative from a mysterious unidentified past epoch. Working simultaneously as both chronicle and summation of the artist’s creative processes, Monahan’s sculptures confront the formal issues inherent in figurative drawing and sculpture while addressing his artistic, personal, and political concerns. This MOCA Focus exhibition—Monahan’s debut solo museum presentation—brings together a decade of work never before exhibited in Los Angeles."

Booklet sizes 9"(h) and 6.25"(w), when opened 3ft 2".

back of the catalogue

Valerie Linder, Abecedaire de voyage (an alphabet book of a journey), Esperluete editions: Belgium, 2011

A fascinating 'alphabet' book that is made up of images of 27 different objects from which Linder has made graphite rubbings, and on the opposite side of the page is a small list of words that have been crossed, arriving at the bottom to one printed in red. These words have tentative, yet teasing connections to the objects depicted. The larger 'text' of the book is about journeys. The publishers in their description of this book include a quote by Linder about the book stating:

 "Selected words in the dictionary, objects selected: Propose only words related to the journey, to different degrees. Shift the relationship between the chosen word and the object - to weave links, to be amazed, to be a little disturbed, disappointed, astonished ... that's the purpose of the trip."

Alphabet books have a long history as children's books that featured letters of the alphabet alongside words or images that corresponded to each letter, and thus served an educational function. However, Linder's book does not reveal such neat correspondences and she sets up a field of much more discursive interpretations for the reader to meander through. Truly a book that entails a journey through letter, word and image!

One-sided, 53 pages, individual page 6.5"(h) by 4.5"(w), and when open 19ft 7.5".

On the back of the book is the following quote from the artist:
 "Gleaned objects rubbed and words chosen from the dictionary."

Carol Emmons, retrospectacle, Lawton Gallery, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, 2017

A smart accordion catalogue for an exhibition of works by an old colleague in the Art Department at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay during October-November, 2017. An accomplished visual artist and experienced installation artist, Emmons has been mining a very rich vein for many years now, and her work has been featured in numerous shows around the state and the country.  There's a little nostalgia attached to this work as I served as the curator of art at the Lawton gallery for 15 exciting, and happy years from 2000-2015. 

Catalogue design by the former UW-GB student, Don Krumpos, and catalogue essay by Leslie Walfish. For me this work is a reminder of the simple, but rich format for accordion publications that the humble exhibition catalogue can provide.

10 pages, double-sided, individual pages 7.25"(h) and 6"(w), when opened 2ft 6".

back

Helia Aluai, Oporto, Portugal, 2010

I picked up this small accordion while on a trip to Porto, Portugal. I was seeing similar faces pasted up in the streets all over the city, and this publication features a number of these very distinctive portraits. This slightly melancholy young woman's face seems to be a recurring image and feature in Aluai's art. 

Aluai was born in Cape Verde in 1973, and is currently living and working in Lausanne, Switzerland working in the fields of scenography, design and illustration. For more of her work check out her blog at: http://helialuai.blogspot.com/

6 pages, single-sided, individual pages 8"(h) and 6"(w), when opened 2ft 11.5".

Coracle Press, A Concertina of Concertinas, Tipperary, Ireland, 2019

A wonderful little accordion that displays all the technical skill and craft that I've come to expect from this longest running publisher of artists' books. And of course, the fact that this book is a survey of all the concertinas that the press has published is delightful too. But what is especially humbling and flattering to me are the words at the end of the book's introduction, "Coracle offers this one by way of thanks to the collection of Stephen Perkins and his accordionpublications blogspot."

10 pages, double-sided, each page 5.5"(h) and 3.5"(w), when opened 1ft 6.5".

bac

Clifford Hunt and Stephen Perkins, Untitled (a word), and Untitled (Geralmente, a percebe e), mixed-media collaborations: Half Moon Bay (CA) and Madison (WI), 2019

Untitled (a word), 2019

Clifford and I have recently been collaborating on these small accordion books. I start the ball rolling by creating the foundation images and layout, and then send the book to him, and he goes to work on them, and sends them back to me totally transformed. However, it does seem to me that Clifford is putting in more of the real work here! But, I really enjoy their irregular pages and I'm always surprised at the manner in which Clifford transforms what I send him. For me these funky accordions are filled with a sense of fun and spontaneous image and word play — mediums that we both have been working in for a long time.

9 irregular sized pages, when open 2ft 1".

back

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Untitled (Geralmente, a percebe e), mixed-media collaboration: Half Moon Bay (CA) and Madison (WI), 2019

Untitled (Geralmente, a percebe e), 2019

back

Peter + Maria Hoey, The Loud Atlas, coinop books, 2017, ed. 50

A fun and lively silkscreened book in which the artists have used "...the typographic style of Marinetti and the rhyming cadence of Dr. Seuss, The Loud Atlas takes a surreal and funny look at the noisy world imagined by the Italian Futurists." http://www.coinopbooks.com/product/new-the-loud-atlas/

The Loud Atlas is one in a series of 4 accordion books published by coinop books over years. The others are: "The French Drop," (2015), "Blue Moon Flower Blue," (2016) and "American Noir," (2019). Each book has it's own theme, and all of them illustrate an interesting play with the graphic design and the accordion layout of each issue.

The Loud Atlas pages: height 7.5", and width 5.5", 12 pages, and when opened this accordion is 3ft 8inches long. 

Hartford: Spring Summer Eighteen, 2018, France

"Hartford was launched in Paris in 1979. Mixing vintage European styles with a more relaxed American aesthetic, the label has gained a cult following for its easy-to-wear pieces, which are perfect for dressing down stylishly. Look out for the linen shirts this season." [source: mrporter.com]

14 pages, each 8" (h) x 5.5" (w), and when extended 3ft 2.5 inches. 

David Eichenberger, Eric Knisley, Mark McMurray, Adam Meuse, Marx Myth, Busytown: An Exquisite Corpse, 2018 [1st printing, ed. 80]

Another smart exquisite corpse from the crew down in Raleigh, North Carolina. I have reviewed two of their accordions previously (see 'Factory' & 'Tunnel', 2017) with an accompanying statement about the books, and their working methods by Eric Knisley. The present publication sees a larger group of 5 artists collaborating on this work. The final drawing is impressive with subtle and staggered transitions that really help to create the sense that this is one long continuous work. Bravo guys!

30 pages, 9"(h) x 6"(w), when open 15ft long, 1st printing, ed. 80. You can order the book here:

etsy.com:https://www.etsy.com/listing/637868038/busytown-an-exquisite-corpse?ref=shop_home_active_1

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