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| Another cool accordion from Nobrow press' concertina/accordion series. With its wraparound cover and potted history, this two-sided panorama is a skillfully illustrated and lively history of aviation. 10 pages at 9.25" x 5.5," and total width when open 4' 7." |
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This substantial book comes in its own box and is a facsimile of a book Carson created after the death of her older brother in Cophehagen in 2000. Estranged from the family and having had minimal contact with Carson over the years the publication functions as both an elegy and memorial for her sibling. In its bulk and weight this book might also serve as a kind of headstone to the mystery of a brother she never really knew.
A classics professor by profession Carson uses the left hand pages to list the dictionary definition of each word of Catullus' poem No. 101, which itself is an elegy he delivered for his own brother who died overseas. On the pages on the right side Carson has assembled her own notes, poems, essays, postcards & drawings coupled with photographs and scraps of letters from her brother. The title 'nox' is Latin for night and this book is definitely a search for some light into the life of her brother, and it would appear that through the act of bringing together all these pieces she had hoped that it would magically illuminate something about her brother's life, and perhaps also something of his own search for mearning in the meandering path that was his life. This book is also about the nature of grief and grieving, and how each of us comes to terms with the fact that someone is no longer with us.
It's also curious that Carlson chose the accordion format for this book, since the pages are essentially couplets that are most immediately in dialogue with each other, and no use is made of the extended format that is so intrinsic to the accordion format.
Individual pages 8.25" x 5.25" and fully extended the 193 pages must give it the distinction of being one of the longest accordions on record at 84' 5.25." Here's a link to a particularly interesting examination of the book by Meghan O'Rouke in the New Yorker, July 12, 2010: The poet Anne Carson’s “Nox,” review : The New Yorker |
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Book with slip cover and Avedon self-portrait (1980)
A wonderful catalogue for a show of Avedon's work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York from September 26, 2002 to January 5, 2003. One side includes a long essay by Maria Morris Hambourg (curator of the Met's Department of Photographs) and Mia Fineman. Also included is an insightful essay by Avedon himself. The other side of the accordion is taken up with 30 of the portraits that were in the show. This publication really utilizes the panoramic qualities inherent in the accordion format to create an expansive mini-exhibition of Avedon's powerful and always slightly disturbing portraits.
32 individual pages 10.5" x 8.5," and fully extended 24' 1" |
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| This vibrant series of 17 postcards is the first totally non-representational accordion I've come across. Smallhorn works in a variety of media and she states that "her work explores the relationships between colour, volume and proportion." Single card 6" x 4," fully extended 5' 6." To see how this accordion fits into her larger larger artistic practice check out her website: Sophie Smallhorn - Selected Works |
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| Front with cover |
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| Front with colophon information |
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| This is a really smart publication that consists of photographic documentation of seven blank billboards that line the road from Athens International airport to downtown Athens. The blank billboards serve as succinct metaphors for the shattered Greek economy and resonate at all sorts of levels with the more general crisis in Greek culture. The brochure accompanying this publication includes two essays by John Ledger and Billy Kontoulis that tease out different perspectives on these blank advertising spaces. The publication gets its ironic title from the curious text atop the first billboard. Individual pages 8" x 5" and extended 35". For information about works and other projects by Victoria Lucas see: Victoria Lucas |
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Front cover of this fascinating publication that combines durational performance in both its creation and in Couch's subsequent public readings of this 9 metres accordion. |
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Photo: Emmaunuelle Waeckerle
Amanda Couch doing a public reading of her book at the Small Publishers Fair on November 17th, 2012 in London. The manuscript was created earlier in the year during "Book Live," an international symposium at London's South Bank University. The book came into being as a durational performance during which Couch created the manuscript. Below are some of her texts explaining how the book came about and the issues & processes involved in creating it and performing it:
"...this manuscript [originated] through the performative act of copying and re-writing of texts made on a
Post-Graduate Certificate in Teaching, reflections on research as practice, and
personal and phenomenological narrative.
Reading, in medieval times,
argued by [Mary] Carruthers in "The Book and the Body," was ‘a bodily
performance’, rather than simply the decoding of words on a page. Similarly,
Reflection in Digestion reconnects the body (of both writer and viewer) with
writing through the action of the scribe, reading, consideration, translation,
and the act of copying reconstituting a relationship arguably severed by the
invention of the printing press."
In Couch's press release for the Reflection on Digestion performance reading (see above image) she further expands on the themes that are woven into the piece and its performance:
"Reflection on Digestion is an epic work. As book, it is nine metres, folded back and forth into an eighteen-page concertina form. Its covers are of undyed calfskin, and its eighteen pages are made of 410 gsm white somerset satin paper relief printed from photo polymer plates.
It is book but it is also
performance: 37 hours of performance. The bodily act of the scribe originated
the manuscript, which was then transferred and translated through digital and
mechanical technologies at UCA Farnham, and the hand-made, to produce an
edition of three book works.
The scribed text stems from
a body of knowledge encountered whilst on a post-graduate course in education. Writing,
knowledge and the body are explored, and the metaphors of reflection and
digestion consider process, processing, and ways of knowing and becoming.
‘Digestion’ stems from the word ‘digest’, which can both refer to an
arrangement of written work; and to the processing or making sense of knowledge
and experience, as well as to break down and absorb food.
Reflection on Digestion’s
concertina configuration makes reference to the image of the digestive system
and connotes the meaning of the words ‘reflection’ and ‘reflexive’ coming from
the sense of a physical and metaphorical bending or turning back paralleling
the visual image of the gastrointestinal tract with its nine metres of twists
and turns crammed into the body’s cavity.
Alimentary undulations are
further mirrored in the loops and garlands of the handwriting itself which is a
joined up text, each word tied to the previous, the next, and to the subsequent
line, so that it is a kind of Boustrophedon, a continuous line running from
left to right and right to left from the beginning of the book to the end. This
continuous script refers to Latin texts from the early Christian era, when
there were no spaces between words in a manuscript. In my scripto continua, the
language is not easily legible enabling the lettering to hover between word and
image, content and form.
The performative aspect of
Reflection in Digestion is also embedded in the experience of the audience. It
reconnects the reader to a corporeal relationship with the book and reading, in
that they are required to negotiate the monumental, physical nine-metre form of
the book, as well as the awkward image-text within, reconstituting a
relationship arguably severed by the invention of the printing press. "
For further information about this work and Couch's other projects see her website at: Amanda Couch |
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| Photo: Helena G. Anderson |
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| Photo: Helena G. Anderson |
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| Photo: Helena G. Anderson |
