What is an Art Book? Volume 2
“What is an Art Book?�
2000 A4 sheets of paper 36 art practitioners 10 pens 1 day 1 night 1 desk 1 chair 1 typewriter 1 gallery still No heating 3
Contents
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Contents Preface/Foreword Introduction Alex Lawler Beth Fox Bruno Borges Bureau Carlos Correia Carmen Billows Catt Bagg Cedar Lewisohn Charlotte Norwood Chooc Ly Tan Christina Mitrentse Copy David Rickard Erica Scourti Francisca Ferreria Larsson Frenchmottershead Giorgia Sadotti Gordon Shrigley Grayson Perry Studio Jesse Darling Joey Holder Karl England Leslie Deere Linda Stupart Maite Zabala Marita Fraser Mike Miles Paul Knight Richard Ducker Rebecca Meanley Rosalind Davis Rui Gonรงalves Cepeda Ruth Proctor Simona Brinkmann Steven Morgana Welmoet Wartena
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Preface/Foreword
Hash tag catagories developed through conversations with Carlos Noronha Feio & Mikael Larsson of The Mews Project and Keh Ng and Matthew Stock of The Modern Language Experiment. Carlos Noronha Feio #drawing #one-off #print-on-demand #poster #text #political #satirical #propaganda #indoctrination #waste-of-time #post-something #find-me-at-this-bookstore-………. #photo-book #edition #expensive #cheap #on-sale #sales #www.-----#Mine-is-better-than-yours #waste-of-paper-could-be-done-online #proposals #research #language #publicity #self-agradising #this-one-shouldmn’t-be-here-but-the-editors-felt-cheeky #obsession #collection #documentation Mikael Larsson #mews #blockade #bound #cage #circle #circumscribe #confine #cover #encase #encircle #encompass #project #activity #business #deal
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#enterprise #plan #program #proposal #scheme #strategy #task #venture #modern #contemporary #current #modernised #present-day #state-of-the-art #stylish #avant-garde #concomitant #latest #novel #language #accent #dialect #expression #jargon #prose #sound, #speech #style #terminology #vocabulary #experiment #analysis #attempt #enterprise #examination #exercise #experimentation #measure #observation #operation #practice Keh Ng #time #psychological #untitled #hypothesis #travel #formality #penis #craft 7
#drawing #mimicry #reproduction #animation #sculptural #photographic #magazine #literature #mapping #index #cataloguing #performance #painting #historical #snapshot #analysis #socio-political #solo #group #collaborative #technology #music #text #reference #self #other #poetic #aesthetes #political #statement #observation #social media #comment #web art #formal #conceptual #chapter #process #food #legs #nudity #art market #moustache #sexuality #race #banana #bread #curator #showing off #landscape #portrait 8
#understated #drunk #media #graphic #logo Matthew Stock #verbatum #early internet mail art #modes of production #nodes of alternatives #radical alternatives to post-art production #distopian #turps banana #formalism #intimacy #identity #notes on identity #off-grid #flagellation #choice #language #perry #purposeful deconstruction #what ever replaces Facebook #collection #hypothesis #copy #theory #decouple #exposure #beauty #drawing #collaboration #fun #obsession
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Introduction
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“What is an Art book?” is a question that is defined by the density and the variety of the responses it evokes. This is a complex question with many possible responses, which will become evident as you travel through the content produced by the 36 contributors. In these 314 pages you will find work by artists, writers gallery directors, magazine publishers, curators and scriptwriters.
Their individual languages collide bringing written language,
drawing, video, performance, graphic design, painting, sculpture, photography, found material as well as hybrids of all of the above. This book was made as the Modern Language Experiment’s response to the Whitechapel Art gallery’s Art Book Fair, at The Mews Project Space over the course of a weekend. Much of the content was produced on site in the project space surrounded by a constant stream of other contributors and audience members; but many more were made in isolation within the artists own studio and brought to the gallery. Through exposure, collaboration, isolation and constraints we hope that we can create an alternative model for art book production and in doing so question the books role and impact on today’s society. With this book we have instigated a conversation that we will continue to develop, a question whcih will be asked again and again for it is a good question. As the masochists in us all yearn for the definitive in what cannot be cornered. Long live the Art book. Matthew & Keh 12 October 2012 & 2013 London
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Alex Lawler
In regards to the issue of time in art… (featuring a conversation with Johann Arens).
I wanted to ask Johann about what time meant to him as an artist. I think what I really wanted to find out was how long an idea lasted. I don’t necessarily mean how long does it make sense to pursue one thing in making art (although this is also worth discussing) but rather what it means to live through the moment of realising that you are ready to make something. Or change something already made. The defining quality of this moment is that it must overshadow the experience of the time that directly precedes it and radically change the perception of the time that comes just after it. I was curious to hear if that really did happen with people – if an idea is really experienced as a swell that builds suddenly through the continual flow of time to a specific instant which transforms the notion of time from an inarticulate plane of being, to a sharp point from which other things are later measured. So I asked Johan what time meant to him and if there were any psychological devises he might use in his practice to deal with difficulties of time in art. We talked about an artist’s gesture to demonstrate the passage of time through an individual artwork to negate the work’s drive toward monumentality. A devise to suggest the incompleteness of any artwork in relation to artworks not yet made. Johan also told me about footage he took of a black car turning left. This initially innocuous piece of footage was taken during the process of gathering material for a work that became Untitled 2010. In the installation that came out of this process, this moment of a car turning left serves as a counterpoint to scenes featuring various objects filmed within quasi-domestic interiors, as well as static shots of urban environments.
Johann Arens ‘untitled’, 2010 2 channel video, projection / monitor, 2010, HDvideo, 7’40 min loop
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The experience he described to me of the process that came directly after discovering that this piece of footage was actually highly functional within the artwork fitted somewhat to the image I had in my mind of what an art idea ought to look like. The footage, which had gone unnoticed for months, became significant. He described the passage of time from the moment of finding the footage of the car turning left toward the point of finishing the artwork as having passed noticeably quicker than the speed at which one normally experiences time. Only I felt slightly disconcerted at the idea of time slipping away from what I was seeking to extract - individual moments of clarity within a continual fields of timelessness. I asked if it was necessary to try to prevent specific ideas from entering into the process of making art, but apparently that wasn’t an issue. I asked if any other conflicting ideas might have arisen that might have confused the singularity of vision that came from finding the car turning left. He couldn’t find any. An idea in art seemed not to be as long as I had hoped. Rather it seemed to push time away from itself – pushing the artist toward a point of relative inactivity – to the point of finishing an artwork. Perhaps what is better is for me is to draw out the moment of the idea. To extend its being by refusing to engage with the exponential quickening of time that comes from pursuing an idea from conception to completion. To this end I would propose a hypothetical artwork…. The work would be a spatial installation based on the 47° right hand turn from ‘Checkerboard Hill’ toward runway 13 of Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport. This important right hand turn was used by pilots between the 1970’ to 90’s flying into Kai Tak after flying straight toward the side of a mountain only to turn sharply at the moment when a purpose-built checkerboard became visible. These mountains to the North of the runway made a direct approach to runway 13 impossible. When executed correctly, this ‘Checkerboard turn’ would align the aircraft perfectly with the runway.
A Korean Air B747 turning right toward the southeast.
The view facing the runway directly after the turn.
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‘Checkerboard Hill’ visible from the window of a Cathay Pacific B744.
The point of making an artwork based on the ‘Checkerboard turn’ would be to intervene in spatial orientation of people as they pass through public space. Therefore the ‘correct’ or more important experience of the work is a moving viewer against a static art object. Ideally the artwork would be built well over head-height, in a public space where the checkerboard component is visible (at a receding angle, as per ‘Checkerboard Hill’) from people descending from above. People from below (on the Ground Floor) would see the area beneath the checkerboard component as well as its base, but not the checkerboard face. So the situation of an escalator bringing people down from a 1st or 2nd storey would be ideal. Also, its positioning within such an environment would be predicated on the need for more people to turn right rather than left having descended the escalator – i.e. toward an exit, bus or train terminal. The building itself must have an open-plan atrium type environment whereby different levels are visible from below and beneath (as is often found in large hotels, offices and shopping malls). I could imagine such a work to be functioning well with a base constructed out of black powder-coated steel with stainless steel panels arranged to form a grid visible from above. The base could consist of beams of 90° as well as 45° angles within a kind towering trestle like structure. The panels of the grid should be painted in a semi transparent / iridescent white or pinkish red depending on its panel. This artwork is as yet untitled. -Alex Lawler, London, 2012.
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Beth Fox
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Bruno Borges
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Bureau
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ART BOOK LEXICON ALPHABETICAL ARRANGEMENT ARTIST COMMUNICATION CONTAINER CONTINUOUS CURRENCY DIMENSION EDIT EXHIBITION EXPRESSION FORM FORMAT FUNCTION LANGUAGE LETTER(S) LINGUISTIC MATERIAL MEDIUM MESSAGE MOVEMENT OBJECT PAGE
(Author / Editor)
(Variable)
(Abstract / Linear)
(Layout / Margin) (Spatial / Within Structure) (Of / Intent / Rhetoric) (Semiotic / Sign / System)
(Active / Static)
(Blank (Canvas) / Dimension / Number(ing) / Sequence of Spaces)
READ READING (Interpretation / Variable) RHYTHM (Pace) SERIAL (Continuous / Series / Spatial) SEQUENTIAL (Space / Moment) SPACE (Space-‐Time Sequence) SPATIAL (Possibilities) SPEECH (Act) STRUCTURE (Element / Function) SYSTEM (Sign) TEXTURE TYPE (Font / Punctuation (CAPITALS) / Version) TEMPORAL VOLUME (Object / Density) VOLUME (Sequence / Series) Notes: Book as autonomous form. Book as exhibition (format). Predecessor. Book as: catalogue; documentation; monograph; text; text and illustration (reproduction); tribute. A space for (the distribution and exhibition of): ART, IDEA, IMAGE, TEXT. A sequence of spaces and moments. For temporal encounters.
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Artwork (exhibition / in sequential order): 5 O’ Clock (Ident), photograph of cast concrete Daniel Fogarty, 2012 Ed Ruscha, (From: Ferus / A History of Exhibitions and Spaces series), pencil on paper Sophia Crilly, 2012 Untitled, photograph of cast concrete Daniel Fogarty, 2012 Untitled; Untitled; From: Visual Similarity series; and Untitled, photographs Mark Kennard, 2012 Chapter devised by Sophia Crilly Text © Sophia Crilly. Images © the artists. www.bureaugallery.com
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Carlos Correia
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Carmen Billows
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A quick thought on ‘What is an Art Book?’ An art book is an artist’s publication, an exhibition catalogue or an artist’s monograph. It usually addresses an art expert or specialised audience. There are however art books that please a broader public and go hand in hand with a person’s taste and life-style. An artist’s publication, as you are confronted with right now, serves an artist in the first place as an alternative and independent creative outlet and as one outcome within his or her artistic practice. Often self-organised and self-published, these publications go beyond mere documentation of an artist’s practice but represent a work of art in their own right. They allow for a different perspective on an artist’s work and have almost filmic qualities in their concise thematic framework and the distinct selection and successive arrangement of images and texts. A publication has become a very popular tool of artistic articulation since the 1960s as it qualifies to be more accessible and widely distributable and therefore said to be more democratic than other works of art such as a sculpture or painting. Within a book an artist’s voice can reach out to a wider audience rather than within a gallery presentation, which is bound to and almost trapped within time, space, and socio-political context. In this regard a publication offers artists a realm of expression and reflexion as well as a testing field for different angles of perception and arrangement of ideas outside the gallery confines and constraints. At the same time a publication is similar to a solo or group exhibition in its quality to present a certain selection as well as a theoretical framework for thought. It helps trigger ideas that emerge from within this frame as well as new connections and connotations being attempted for the first time. Contrary, however, to the temporal, ephemeral and often insufficiently documented framework ‘exhibition’ - and a history of exhibitions’ still needs to be written - books are canonised and archived in libraries for posterity. So while an exhibition very often lacks the realm of aftermath a publication offers a tangible and long-lasting tool upon which we can draw back and expand. Especially in recent times amidst the abundance of e-books a printed art publication seems to respond to a feeling of nostalgia for the hand-made and object-based means of distribution. (In a yearning back to 20th century media, some artists go as far as using old-style typewriters for written works.) In the constant evolution of technology we seem reluctant to compromise on our senses of touch and smell next to the overemphasised visual sense.
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Cat Bagg
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Cedar Lewisohn
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Charlotte Norwood
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L o W l f a b a t u c t
T f
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Lateral adhesion is the adhesion associated with sliding one object on a substrate such as sliding a drop on a surface. When the two objects are solids, either with or without a liquid between them, the lateral adhesion is described as friction. However, the behaviour of lateral adhesion between a drop and a surface is tribologically different from friction between solids, and the naturally adhesive contact between a flat surface and a liquid drop makes the lateral adhesion in this case, an individual field. Lateral adhesion can be measured using the Centrifugal Adhesion Balance (CAB), which uses a combination of centrifugal and gravitational forces to decouple the normal and lateral forces in the problem. The global adhesive and sealant conference takes place every four years alternating between Europe, USA and Asia.
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Chooc Ly Tan
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OUBLIISM The signatories of Oubliism have, under the glare of a nuclear starburst Committed to Shed tears OUBLII! Our tidal encounters conceive new physical realities from which we will harvest fresh perspective. OUBLIISM symbolises the most fundamental relationship with the surrounding reality; with Oubliism new worlds and systems are perpetually borne from the ashes of a withering civilisation. we disown this life With its simultaneous confusion Of Chaos noise disorder Of light separated in a rainbow We are gathered here to proclaim the birth of an Oubliist physical reality where extragalactic rhythms are captured At a star formation rate by the sensational shouts and fever of its temerarious continuum psyche and in ALL its destructive interference within reality. Here lies is the cross faded apogalactic line between Oubliism and all other physical realistic trends. To herald the genesis of cosmic time, Oubliism refuses the atomist attitude towards existence. It tears to fractions all those grand words like ethics, culture, humanism, good, evil, beginning, end, which are only covers for All-too-rational people those who drown in matter-of-fact swamps
THE IQM 08279+5455 METHOD turns words into spirited forces. The letters of the word "planet" smashed and reshaped into globular clusters. Oubliist inverts current norms Invents fragile forms Aligning itself not to the symmetry of reason but to
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POSSIBILITIES that forms of expression live in all physical realities. Modernist architecture reconfigured into dance on stage, Botany explored for its sonic possibilities it spreads cacophony, dissonance, atonality and indeterminacy over all the continents The word Oublii shows the intergalactic nature of a movement which is bound by no golden ratio, or physical laws. Oublii is the inconceivably vast expression of our cosmic time, the great rebellion of revolutionary movements, the physical realistic reflexion of all those many frictions, human struggles and clashes that surround us. Oublii demands the use of NEW MATERIALS IN THE READING OF THE WORLD OUblii is an organisation which has been founded in London which you can join without turbulence. Oublii is not some pretext to bolster up the pride of a few neo thinkers (as our enemies would have the world believe). Oublii is a state, you are an oubliist or your aren't. Out of Uncertainties. To be an Oubliist means being thrown with angular momentum by events, being against matter that settles to the bottom of the abyss; but it also means putting your life in a vacuum... One says yes to an existence that seeks to grow by negation. Down with atomist-aesthetic-ethical tendencies! Down with failed innovations! Down with the literary hollow-heads and their theories for improving the material universe!
by Chooc Ly Tan Contributed to the text: Shabaka Hutchings, Peter Lewis, Dada and recent Astrophysics
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Christine Mitrentse
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Copy A space for recording, thinking through, drafting, Presentation, Often treat with reverence if it is crafted, A social space, Somewhere between production A repetition, disseminated widely, encountered individually, A work of art Folded, pasted, passed around, thrown away, Open A thread binding artist, author, idea A space in which things are shifted around
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documenting, archiving, presenting, exhibiting not re-presentation or of great value an event not an object and display located in multiple places simultaneously yet mobile, placeless made with/for/as the book stuffed under a table leg, re-read /closed and reader and climbed or reclined on for a while
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David Rickard
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Erica Scourti
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TEN BOOKS I STILL HAVEN’T READ
SUMMARISED INTO ONE SENTENCE
ERICA SCOURTI 2012
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OF GOD: THAT HE EXISTS
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ONLY CONCEPTS CAN FULFILL WHAT THE CONCEPT HINDERS.
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WHAT
AN
EXTRAORDINARY MAN!
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IN
WHAT
STRANGE SIMPLIFICATION AND FALSIFICATION MAN
LIVES!
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THE JUDGEMENT OF TASTE IS AESTHETIC.
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LINE OF CHANCE, LINE OF HIPS, LINE OF FLIGHT.
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CREATION OF VALUE IS TRANSFORMATION OF LABOUR-POWER INTO LABOUR.
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FURTHER, HOW
WILL
PERISHABLE THINGS IF
EXIST,
THEIR
PRINCIPLES TO
BE
ARE
ANNULLED?
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IT
IS
THUS A DREAM OF CONVENIENCE.
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EGO IS INFINITE SELF−RELATION OF MIND, BUT AS SUBJECTIVE OR AS SELF−CERTAINTY.
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Francisca Ferreria Larsson
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Frenchmottershead
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Use this art book for
dipping yourself not much a doorstop inspiration breeding dust future reference completing the set impressing your guests hand-crafting a lampshade an Amazon resale investment showing support to a contributor a ‘heat-sink’ for your external hard drives information about artists you’ve never heard of sculpting a terrain model of your chosen landscape as part of a bequest to art students in the city of New York a symbol of your individuality and belief in personal freedom
Developed from responses to a facebook post: thanks to all contributors
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Giorgia Sardotti
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Wha is not a Art Bok?
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Gordon Shrigley
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Grayson Perry Studio
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From: Subject: Date: To:
Grayson Perry <grayson_perry@hotmail.com> Vacation reply 11 September 2012 22:32:49 GMT+01:00 keh.ng@modernlanguageexperiment.org
Hello, Thank you for your email. I am currently away and will deal with your query on the 12 September. Grayson will be checking this email intermittently. Charlotte Grayson Perryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s assistant Please note that I work with Grayson on Thursdays, so any requests should be dealt by within a week from receipt. If the matter is super urgent you can try me on: 07966 351 260 Thank You! http://alanmeasles.posterous.com
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Jesse Darling
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Joey Holder
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Karl England
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Leslie Deere
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Linda Stupart
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Maite Zabala
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Marita Fraser
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Mike Miles
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Paul Knight
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Richard Ducker
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Rebecca Meanley
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Rosalind Davis
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Rui Gonรงalves Cepeda
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Simona Brinkmann
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Steven Morgana
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Welmoet Mortena
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This book was produced as part of collaboration between The Modern Language Experiment & The Mews Project for The Artists Book Weekend 15th September 2013
Editors Keh Ng & Matthew Stock Copy Editor The Modern Language Experiment Design The Modern Language Experiment Published The Modern Language Experiment First published 2013 contact@modernlanguageexperiment.org Issue #2 Available to buy at www.modernlangaugeexperiment.org
Š the modern language experiment 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any mechanical, electronic or other means known with out the permission in writing from the publishers. 333
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With Contributions by
Alex Lawler Beth Fox Bruno Borges Bureau Carlos Correia Carmen Billows Catt Bagg Cedar Lewisohn Charlotte Norwood Chooc Ly Tan Christina Mitrentse Copy David Rickard Erica Scourti Francisca Ferreria Larsson Frenchmottershead Giorgia Sadotti Gordon Shrigley Grayson Perry Studio Jesse Darling Joey Holder Karl England Leslie Deere Linda Stupart Maite Zabala Marita Fraser Mike Miles Paul Knight Richard Ducker Rebecca Meanley Rosalind Davis Rui Gonรงalves Cepeda Ruth Proctor Simona Brinkmann Steven Morgana Welmoet Wartena