The Last Chapter

 

 

The Last Chapter is a bookstore/gallery in Sheffield, UK which is featuring four artists books from the collection at Bank Street Arts in their shop window this autumn in conjunction with The Sheffield International Artists Book Prize.  The 2013 Artists Book Prize will feature over 450 artists books from all over the world. As well as this exhibition, Bank Street Arts are showcasing artists books in a number of public spaces like libraries and hotel foyers to expose artists books to a wider community.

 

I entered Lost in a Million Dead End Streets in the 2nd Sheffield Artists Book Prize in 2009.  It was not compulsory, but Bank Street Arts ask artists if they would be prepared to donate their book to build the collection.  I did so and now my book has been chosen to be the first one displayed at The Last Chapter.  One of the nice things about having books in collections is that other people start exhibiting your books for you and they reach a much wider audience.

 

I have entered one of my Book Art Object books called Unchartered Democracy

 

 

into the 2013 Sheffield Artists Book Prize which will be on display at Bank Street Arts in Sheffield from the 5th October to 30th November.

 



A new home

 

The Libris Awards at Artspace Mackay have recently finished and I was delighted to learn that the Mackay Regional Council had decided to acquire my entry, The River City: Eyewitness Document for the collection at Artspace Mackay. 

 

I love it when my books don't return because they have found a new home!

Al-Mutanabbi Street in New York

 

Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here is an exhibition of artists' reponses to the car bombing on 5 March 2007 of Al-Mutanabbi Street, the cultural and intellectual centre of Baghdad. Approximately 260 artists have contributed artists books to this project, and this major travelling exhibition will be on display in many countries and venues over the next few years.  The Center for Book Arts in New York have organised an exhibition of all the books to be held simultaneously over five venues for the next few months.

 

Centre for Book Arts, New York

Columbia University Libraries

Alwan for the Arts

International Print Centre New York

Poet's House

 

My book for this project Absence is included (although I do not know at which particular venue it is on display) along with the books of a number of other Australian artists - Janis Nedela, Peter Lyssiotis, Monica Oppen, Tim Mosely, Penny Peckham, Sara Bowen, Deanna Hitti, Heather Matthew, Amanda Williams, Peter Annand, Marie-Therese Wisniowski, JP Willis, and Antonietta Covino-Beehre.

 

You can browse the galleries of artists books in this exhibition here.

 

PS Thanks to Anna Mavromatis for letting me know that her book, Sara Bowen's and mine are all on exhibition at the Center for Book Arts.

  

 

'The Collections on View' online

An installation view and an image of The Ten Books on Architecture are featured in an online guide to The Collections on View exhibition at the Pratt Institute in New York here.

I enjoyed seeing some of the diverse range of pieces in the exhibition, which included a concertina book, a silhouette pop-up book and a couple of zines as well as 2D prints.

Coincidentally, I've been very quiet as I'm working on the third and final version of this piece at the moment. 

Catching up with some news

Vitruvius pictured above is one of the Ten Books on Architecture currently on display in the exhibition The Collections on View at the Pratt Institute Library, Brooklyn Campus, New York during May to August. 

 

 

I am very pleased that a copy of The River City: Eyewitness Document, about the 2011 flood in  Brisbane and currently on display at the Libris Awards, has been purchased by the State Library of Queensland for their collection. 

 

 

One of my Book Art Object books That Unbearable Lightness has been selected for the Artists Book Award, Books...Beyond Words - Revolution to be held at the East Gippsland Art Gallery, Bairnsdale, Victoria from 10th August to 4th September.

 

 

Impressions seven

 

Impress Printmakers will be holding their annual member's exhibition Impressions seven at the Metcalfe Gallery, Brisbane Institute of Art, 41 Grafton Street, Windsor, in Brisbane from the 31 May to 12 June.

 

The exhibition will include fine art prints, drawings and artists books.  I am a member of Impress and have used their studio facilities on the odd occasion, but haven't participated in their exhibitions before, as I don't usually make fine art prints.  However Glenda Orr rang me and invited me to submit some of my artists books this year. It is nice to be exhibiting something in Brisbane, as my work seems to travel all over the world more often.  

 

The three small Book Art Object books that I made last year will be on display with my book Time Travel.  A photographer from the local newspaper arrived yesterday to photograph them and I believe they will be publishing an article about the exhibition next week.

 

I'm actually very fond of  prints and will be on the lookout for something wonderful that I just can't bear to live without.



2013 Libris Awards

 

The River City, Eyewitness Document has been selected for the Libris Awards at Artspace Mackay which will be opened on Saturday 11 May and continues until 30 June.

 

This book documents the 2011 flood in Brisbane.  I digitally manipulated photographs I had taken in the Yeronga/Fairfield area showing the river inundating houses and parkland, the thick residual mud, and the mud covered debris piled up on footpaths. The book is an overall expression of these heartbreaking images and of the horror experienced by the flood-affected residents.  

 

The long brown expanding structure of multiple concertinas sewn together, suggests the river itself and photographs of the mud and debris are contained within the structure, just as the real objects were submerged within the expanding river.  I am hoping that the book will be exhibited as I intended, as this sculptural display is part of the concept.