accordion publications

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Judex, Untitled, Le Dernier Cri: Marseille, France, 2007-08

A fantastic artists' book that combines three accordions with intersecting narratives (+ CD). Another great product from the Le Dernier Cri crew. Here's a link to the artists' web site: www.leoquievreux.net and Le Dernier Cri: Dernier Cri

Leif Goldberg, two postcard accordions, silkscreen prints, 2007-2008

National Waste Postal Cards, 2007. Two sets of perforated silkscreened postcards by this cool and quirky artist from Rhode Island. Watch out for his yearly calendars as well! 5.5" (h) x 28" (l)

Tramp & Stamp, 2008. 5.5" (h) x 28" (l)

Private Stash: A Pin-Up Girl Portfolio by 20 Cartoonists, Buenaventura Press: Oakland, 2006.

Book with slipcase and cover

The cover art for this book is by Rick Altergott and it includes portraits of all the 20 artists in this wonderfully politically incorrect accordion gallery of girly images. The artists are: Rick Altergott, Peter Bagge, Jonathan Brunetti, Ivan Brunetti, Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes, R. Crumb, Kim Deitch, Sammy Harkham, Tim Hensley, Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, Tony Millionaire, Mitch O'Connell, Gary Panter, Archer Prewith, Ron Rege, Jr., Richard Sala, Adrian Tamine and Dan Zttwoch.

Individual pages 7" x 7", fully extended 11' 8."

Codex Espangliensis: From Columbus to Border Patrol, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Enrique Chagoya & Felicia Rice, San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2002

A wonderfully powerful publication that self-consciously embraces the format, and visual style of the pre-Hispanic codices, Codex Espangliensis: From Columbus to the Border Patrol (2002), is a collaboration between Guillermo Gómez-Peña (performance artist), Enrique Chagoya (artist), and Felicia Rice (typographer/printer).

This accordion is a riotous mixture of texts collaged together with imagery from pre-Hispanic, colonial and contemporary comic book sources that playfully subvert the traditional historical narratives of the relationship between the USA and Mexico. This "post-Columbian codex" adopts the traditional format of being read from the back to the front, while the individual two-page spreads read from left to right. Originally published in 1998 in an edition of 50 by Rice's press, Moving Parts Press, and then published in trade edition in 2000 and this version reprinted in 2002. Incredibly this fantastic publication is still available for about $15!

30 individual one-sided pages at 7" (h) x 9" (w), and when fully opening its 22ft 6inches long.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Bob & Roberta Smith, We Spy USA, Purgatory Pie Press: New York, 1998, ed. 100

Bob & Roberta Smith is an energetic Brit word artist and this is a hilarious accordion in which the shape of each US state is printed per page and underneath is printed its 'mis-identification' by people in London, UK. Printed in an edition of 100 and still available for $50 from Purgatory Pie Press-PPP Size: 2" (h) x 12' (l)

Ian Hamilton Finlay, Evolution, Wild Hawthorn Press: Little Sparta, Scotland, 1994

At 2" wide and 12" tall this tiny accordion packs a big punch and reflects Finlay's interest in the Revolutionary period in France. This feisty and incorrigible concrete poet and Scotsman died in 2006 leaving behind one of the most unique gardens on that sceptered isle, Little Sparta. Little Sparta Trust website

Finlay's works are still available at very reasonable prices (Evolution is £5/$8) at: Wild Hawthorn Press - Cards Index

Olaf Nicolai, Landschaft: Ansichten nach der Natur, Leipzig, Germany: Jenoptik AG and Edition 931, 1996

Documentation of Nicolai's exhibition "Landschaft/Interieur," at the Galeri Jenotik,

Berlin. June/July, 1996. This perforated strip of color photograhs document the

plants and rocks that were featured in this exhibition. 3" (h) x 45" (l)

Erica Van Horn & Simon Cutts, Short-Cuts, Coracle, Tipperary, Ireland, 2008

Smart visual & concrete letterpress word play by these prolific publishing veterans using different regional words to describe the "...narrow passageways between buildings, the short-cuts between houses in a row." [From introduction] 6" (h) x 28" (l).

Peter Pommerer, Gleichversetzt, Stuttgart, Germany: Revolver, 1999.

Two very different sides to this cool accordion, Gleichverstz by Peter Pommerer.
8" (h) x 5' (l)

Tube Maps, London Underground, 2009-2010, UK

Brit 'walk' artist Robert Long's front cover, 2009.

Very smart detournment of underground station names by Barbara Kruger, 2010.

Joydeb and Moyna Chitrakar, Tsunami, Tara Books, India, 2009

A Patua scroll created by the West Bengalese artists, Moyna & Joydeb Chitrakar, about the effects of the 2004 tsunami. This is supposedly the first time one of these indigenous narrative graphic panels has been printed in the form of a book. Traditionally it would be a series of panels stitched together, from which the author/performer shared the pictures and traditional stories, as well as contemporary events. At 5'9" long and 14.5" wide this original accordion silkscreen print is a wonderful object, and a moving response to this horrific event.

This link shows the artists and investigates the tradition that these singing scrolls are a part of: Tsunami (a book by Tara Books) Copies of this book available on the internet for the astonishingly low price of $20.

Benoit Jacques, Seeds of Images/Graines & Images, France, 1992

I really know very little about this artist but this delicate accordion/map is a treat. The text in French and English says, "In the garden where I work, we cultivate images. Sometimes, weather permitting, after a shower of China ink or a storm of colours, drawings and paintings grow." 26" (h) x 19 1/2" (w)