Den DuVall, CONTENTS: drawings 2018-2023 of newspapers, bulletins, & pamphlets 1963-1990, Shandaken Projects, Catskill, 2024, ed. 50

front cover

 

      wraparound cover

Created and published during a residency at Shandaken Projects in Catskill, New York, CONTENTS "...is a collection of details from recent graphite and colored pencil drawings by Ben DuVall. The drawings are the result of an ongoing research project into the graphic vocabulary of 20th century protest and mutual aid movements, with a specific focus on print ephemera, publications, and journalistic accounts. This 15-foot-long, accordion fold artists' book is the first to collect and reproduce these drawings at full scale, mainly highlighting material from the UK and North America from the 1960s through the 1990s". [publisher's note]

Comprised of fourteen double-page spreads that give you just enough information to begin making sense of the spreads, but not enough to get a full understanding of what's going on. The dot matrix print effect to the drawing style also lent for me a sentimental air to these pages as I noticed an undercurrent of political images & reporting from British print sources with one reference to the early anti-nuclear demonstrations at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in the UK.

This artists' book represents a smart repositioning of drawings generated from one genre of printed matter and then folded back into another printed matter context that foregrounds both the original context as well as the new and expanded printed matter accordion site.

30 pages, individual 9.5" x 6" and when unfolded 15 feet.

back cover

Sarah Matthews, The Negro Is Still Not Free, letterpress, 2022

front cover

Sarah Matthews writes that this accordion was "... inspired by the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr:'s celebrated I Have a Dream speech from August 28, 1963, this work was created to support the Youth Art & Self Empowerment Project in Philadelphia, PA. Their mission is to, 'provide space for incarcerated young people to express themselves creatively and to develop as leaders both within and beyond the prison walls'".

This 'snake book' (with one hidden fold section) is a powerful statement by this young African-American artist that highlights the continued discrimination faced by black and brown communities in the USA. Additionally, I can't help but see the influence of another black letterpress artist, Amos Kennedy Jr., in Matthews work, and like him her work has a social and political edge that seeks to engage and activate the viewer to go out and act!

For more info about Sarah Matthews see: I AM Sarah Matthews. Artist.

12 pages, individual pages 6" x 6", and when extended 2ft. 

back cover

Martin Lopez Lam, Ensalada Mixta, silkscreen, Le Dernier Cri, Marseille, 2017, ed. 2000

front cover

Another in a long line of extraordinary silkscreened graphzines from the French publishing house, Le Dernier Cri. While this publication does not meet the technical definition of an accordion, it's 8 fold-out pages illustrates to me the power and beauty in the simple act of making a fold - something so central to accordion publications. And aside from that, this publication contains a wonderful mash-up of different types and flavors of imagery. 

Martin López Lam (Lima 1981) Peruvian graphic artist based in Valencia (Spain), working to on different projects focus in independent publishing, comic, silkscreen and illustration. He has collaborated with magazines like ARGH(Spain), Que Suerte! (Spain), Carboncito (Peru), El Buen Salvaje (Peru), Kuti (Finland), Puck (Italy) or KomfortMag (Czech Rep.), and publishers like Fulgencio Pimentel (Spain), Media Vaca (Spain), Ultrarradio (Spain), Aristas Martinez (Spain), Edicions De Ponent (Spain) and Chili Com Carne (Portugal). Since 2010 he directing the graphic label Ediciones Valientes where published comic and graphic anthologies.

Copies still available from Le Dernier Cri for 45 Euro.

martin lopez - illustrator, art director, front-end / layout designer in Valencia, Spain :: Behance

32 pages, individually 12" x 8".

front and back cover

Stephen Perkins, Five Leporellos for the Peoples of Gaza and Palestine (#118-122), 2024, series of 5

 

#118, 2024
#119, 2024

#120, 2024

#121, 2024 [private collection]

#122, 2024

            individual works 8" (h) x 7' 6" (w)

Etel Adnan, Untitled, Art in Focus, Tate [video]

This seven minute video looks at one of Adnan's accordions, with the presenter leading us through the different elements that combine to create this rich tapestry of word, image and drawing: 

Art in Focus | Untitled by Etel Adnan | Tate - YouTube

For further information about Etel Adnan (1925-2021) see link below on this blog:

accordion publications: Etel Adnan, Leporellos, Galerie Lelong & Co., January 23 - March 7, 2020, Paris.

Yita, The Street of Plain Happyness, China, 2023

front cover

I'm going to let the artist explain what's happening here:

"For me, the Street of Plain Happiness is the traditional morning market in Northeast China.

When I was a child, I felt like I could find everything here - lots of delicious

food and lots of joy. The people running street vendors are resilient and

interesting. In the winter, with temperatures dropping to minus twenty or

thirty degrees Celsius, the morning market has hardly ever stopped for

decades.

I used an Olympus-PenF half-frame film camera to take these photos in

September 2019. In three years that followed, after many closures and

lockdowns because of COVID-19, the warmth and vibrancy faded away.

The 'street' came back after the pandemic. After surviving, I hope that

people can live peacefully in an unknown place.

The backside of the book is adorned with traditional "spring couplets'

written in calligraphy on a red background, depicting the most

representative street scene of the morning market and reflecting the

essence of urban culture. Unfolding the book on the table, the three-

dimensional street model can be formed by standing the folded paper on

both sides, presenting another perspective to tell the story of the morning

market. Folding and unfolding it, you can feel the atmosphere of the Street

of Plain Happiness, as if strolling through it."

Yita's use of this particular type of folded map has an interesting history within artists' books. This technique of depicting a street and its businesses was used most notably by Ed Ruscha in his artists' book Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966), but there was one predecessor in a publication titled Ginza Haccho (1954) by the Japanese writer and artist Shohachi Kimura with photographs by Yoshikazu Suzuki. Its interesting to me that Yita does not address this history.

30 double-sided pages, individually 4.75" x 3.25" and when unfolded 8' 1.5"

reverse side

back cover

 

Karen M. Wirth, Cocoon, 2023

front cover

A really interesting accordion that presents a series of photographs of rocks cocooned in a glacier in the northernmost part of Norway. Accompanying the images of rocks are a series of texts with definitions of 'cocoon.' About this piece the artists states in an endnote:

"The cocooned rocks were photographed on Spitsbergen, the largest island in the archipelago of Svalbard, Norway, between 76º46'21.13"N and 79º19'30.56"N latitudes, between June 10 and June 21, 2023. The last image is in the area of the Mayersbreen glacier."

For more about Wirth's works see: Karen M. Wirth

14 double-sided pages, individually 2.75" x 4" and when unfolded 4' 8".

reverse side with snow landscape

Erin K. Schmidt, Rust Belt, 2023, ed. 20

front cover with clasp

A small accordion that uses the 2-sided folded features of the leporello to deliver an environmental message. Below is a statement by the Schmidt about this publication:

"The Rust Belt, formerly called Steel Belt, is a region of the Northeast and Midwest United States in which the local economies specialized in large scale manufacturing of heavy industrial and consumer products. At one time considered America’s heartland, the Rust Belt began to experience industrial decline in the 1950’s and has continued to since. The elimination and outsourcing of jobs led to economic distress resulting in population decline as workers began to look elsewhere for good paying jobs.

The photos used on the front of the accordion structure as well as the cover were taken south of Detroit, Michigan along highway I-75. They are some of the remains of an era of manufacturing prosperity. The backside of the accordion structure features a photograph of the new Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio, which continues to thrive today.

Pressed tin ornamentation became a popular and affordable element of American architecture from the 1880s to 1930s during the height of the Steel Belt manufacturing boom, and was commonly used on ceilings. The decorative book closure is reminiscent of the those pressed tin ceiling tiles commonly found in the homes of American workers who could once earn a substantial wage - enough to comfortably raise a family on a single income - at one of the many industrial plants or factories. The book closure is representative of a bygone era."

For more info about Schmidt's bookworks see: Erin K. Schmidt

13 double-sided pages, individually 4.5" x 1", and when unfolded 17"( including covers).

front

back

the two sideways views

back cover

Laura Rowley, Gig Life: Issue 1: History, Illuminated Press, Trumanburg, New York, 2021, ed. 100

front cover

A smart and timely zine that showcases a timeline of the gig economy and all the ramification that this exploitive system has for the workers toiling within it. Here's what Printed Matter (NY) says about this accordion: 

"Gig Life is a serial zine which investigates the Gig Economy: the shift to hiring of temporary workers, often part-time and lacking the benefits of a traditional salaried job.

How did the Gig Economy start and how does it affect workers? This zine series aims to answer these questions and others. We start here, in this first issue, with a timeline history of Gig Work, to visualize the events leading us to our present state."

17 single-sided pages, individually 4" x 2.5", when unfolded 3' 8.25"

back cover