I was excited to receive a copy of this new sculptural book from Ed Hutchins recently, a new release in 2021 from Editions, his small press which publishes his artists book multiples.
Cacophony is a first edition of 200 copies. It is quite large, about the size of an A4 page.
It went on an unusual journey from New York via Tokyo on it's way to Australia. Due to the pandemic there are not so many flights in and out of Australia but I guess there were lots of planes flying in and out of Tokyo during the Olympic Games! It went off the tracking radar but fortunately it did arrive at my home eventually in perfect condition.
Creating sculptural books whose structure and form relate to the theme or content of the book is a characteristic of Ed Hutchins' work and something I've always been interested in. Ed's work definitely influenced me to consider structure as an essential element I could use to visually complement the content and create added meaning in artists books.
Cacophony has a complicated structure made up of two intersecting concertinas that fold down flat. The concertinas have cut-outs and irregular cut edges, with words seemingly popping up at you from every direction.
The book is laser printed from Ed's artwork and as the different panels intersect with each other, it must have been a very exacting procedure to have part of the artwork at the intersection on one panel and the matching part on another panel. Absolute precision would have been required.
The T D and P seen below are examples of letters printed on two separate sheets of card and meeting precisely.
The concertinas contain 127 words that express sounds and exclamations. Their intersecting nature allows all the words to mix and mingle inside and out and some of them pop up or out at you visually creating the idea of a cacophony.
A card accompanying the book contains a list of the words included as the text.
WOW was my first impression and a cut-out freestanding Wow has been inserted into slots in one of the cut-out circular areas on the front side of the book and takes the word count to 128!
Ed has created a colourful, joyful masterwork that makes you smile.
A video posted by Ed Hutchins on You tube displays the book moving in the round here.
You can also find a number of other teaching videos on You tube where Ed demonstrates how he worked on different aspects of this masterpiece of construction.
