Talk in Groningen
On May 12th I’ll give a presentation about my work at GRID Museum for Design in Groningen. It is the third in a series of presentations on artists’ books.
Reservations can be made through Vrijdag.
The talk is from 20.00 to 21.30.
Location:
GRID
Sint Jansstraat 2
9712 JN Groningen
Entree is €7,50 or €5 for students and members of Vrijdag.
Talk in Bremen
On May 4th I’ll give a presentation of my work at the symposium ‘Artists as Independent Publishers’ at the Weserburg museum in Bremen. The symposium is free to attend.
Artists as Independent Publishers is a teaching project, an international cooperation, an exhibition cycle and a symposium aiming to explore tendencies and opportunities in present-day art as well as help actively shape them.
The project was initiated by Katrin von Maltzahn and Anna Lena von Helldorff from the University of the Arts in Bremen and takes place from early 2015 to the end of 2016 in cooperation with four other European art universities – the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Royal College of Art, London, Bergen Academy of Art and Design and the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm. In this context, all of the partner universities have worked individually on the topics of artists’ books and “publishing as artistic practice”.
As of May 2016 the project will lead to joint exhibitions in Bremen, Bergen, Vienna, Stockholm and London, kicked off by a symposium as well as an exhibition in collaboration with the Centre for Artists’ Publications in the Museum Weserburg in Bremen.
The exhibition will be opened on 3 May, at 7 pm, showing the works and projects of the participating countries. Simultaneously, various guests will discuss the subject of publishing from a contemporary perspective during a public symposium.
Symposium:
Thuesday May 3rd 2016, 13:30 – 18:00
Wednesday May 4th 2016 , 10:00 – 13:00
Contributions by:
Vanessa Adler, Berlin (publisher / argobooks Berlin)
Burkhard Beschow / Anne Fellner / Julian Irlinger, Berlin + Frankfurt a. M (artists)
Bernhard Cella, Wien (artist, curator)
Dominique Hurth, Berlin (artist)
Christoph Ruckhäberle, Leipzig (artist, publisher / Lubok Leipzig)
Elisabeth Tonnard, Leerdam/NL (artist, poet)
Exhibition at the Koninklijke Bibliotheek
The Invisible Book is currently on view in the exhibition ‘Topstukken’ at the National Library of The Netherlands in The Hague. Read curator Paul van Capelleveen’s blog post about the book here (in Dutch).
Workshop in Ravenna
Registration is now open for the workshop ‘From printed material to artists’ book’ that Joachim Schmid and I will teach at Osservatorio Fotografico in Ravenna. The workshop takes place on April 8 & 9, during the book festival Fahrenheit 39. Find the details below. You can register until March 6.
The workshop starts with a discussion of various strategies of using found texts and images, particularly from existing printed matter such as ads, newspapers, magazines, books, postcards etcetera. Based on this, participants are invited to mine the space of the city for printed matter that they would like to explore. The workshop focuses on experimenting with methods of using the materials that are found and seeing how they could be used to create one’s own work. Rather than aiming at creating a completed project the two days will aim at triggering new ideas. Participants will come up with a draft or proposal for a short bookwork.
April 8/9 2016, 11.00 – 18.00
Maximum of 15 participants
In English (participants should have a good working knowledge of the language)
Workshop fees: 250 €
Applications must be sent to: info@osservatoriofotografico.it
Documentation of exhibition ‘The Library’
Below is some documentation of my exhibition ‘The Library’ at Galerie Block C, a wonderful art space run by Marinus Augustijn and Agnes Scholte in Groningen. The exhibition will be up until February 27. Click on any image to enlarge.
Exhibition in Bologna
Two of my works will be on view in the exhibition Il Libro d’Artista Come Mappa, curated by Jan van der Donk at Spazio Labo in Bologna.
The exhibition draws attention to the way artists use and challenge photography as a medium, with a focus on how ‘the grid’ was used as a favorite form of representation to create ‘inventories’, ‘collections’, ‘albums’, and ‘atlases’. Artists include John Baldessari, Bernhard and Hilla Becher, Christian Boltanski, Marcel Broodthaers, Jan Dibbets, Sol LeWitt, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Michael Snow, Larry Sultan + Mike Mandel, and Franco Vaccari. My works Interior Monologue and The Kingdom will be on view.
The show runs from January 23 to February 5. For more information click here.
Exhibition at the Nederlands Fotomuseum
Two of my works will be on view at the Nederlands Fotomuseum in the exhibition Quickscan NL #2 which traces recent developments in Dutch photography.
The Library consists of a series of eight pigment ink prints that zoom in on books in reproductions of paintings that were dramatically lost in the final days of WW2. Song of Myself is a series of 56 prints anachronistically showing Facebook updates by poets from the American Renaissance.
The exhibition is curated by Frits Gierstberg and showcases works by Laurence Aëgerter, Gwenneth Boelens, Jan Dirk van der Burg, Anne Geene, Jan Hoek, Stephan Keppel, Kasia Klimpel, Sjoerd Knibbeler, Ola Lanko, Willem Popelier, Jannemarein Renout, Jan Rosseel, Collectief Salvo, Marleen Sleeuwits, Batia Suter, Elisabeth Tonnard and Mariken Wessels.
Quickscan NL #2 runs from January 24 to May 8. The opening is on January 23, from 5-7 PM.
Nederlands Fotomuseum
Wilhelminakade 332
3072 AR Rotterdam
Books noted by Sarah Bodman
Sarah Bodman of the Centre for Fine Print Research at UWE Bristol looks at my two latest publications: The Library and Song of Myself for her monthly series on artists’ books at a-n News. You can read the post here.
Exhibition ‘The Library’ in Groningen
On January 16 my exhibition ‘The Library’ opens at Galerie Block C in Groningen. The opening is at 4 PM and the show will run until February 27.
The Library consists of a series of eight archival pigment ink prints and a small bookwork in an edition of 150 copies.
The images in it are tiny selections from pictures in a catalogue documenting the losses of the Gemäldegalerie at the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, the present-day Bode Museum, in Berlin during and after World War II. The Gemäldegalerie lost over four hundred paintings, the sculpture collection at the museum lost about a third of its holdings. Photographic documentation and plaster casts remain as ghostly echoes of what was once there. The majority of losses occurred in the days just before and after the end of the war in May 1945 when two devastating fires in the Friedrichshain flak tower destroyed most of the major works of art that had been stored there for safekeeping. The cause of the fires was never explained and has become the subject of legend. Trapped in there were the paintings these images refer to. Out of the smoke we think up this library of unknown books.
In the exhibition at Galerie Block C there will also be a selection of my artist’s books that appropriate literary works on view, as well as the first trials of a new project titled The Death of the Poet.
Song of Myself
I celebrate myself, and sing myself
My book Song of Myself: American Renaissance launches on December 11. The book consists of texts collected from the Facebook pages of Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman.
It is available as a small pocket book priced at €15,- and as a special edition that can also be used for exhibition. The image above is taken of an installation of the latter at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin where the book will launch at Friends with Books.
The special edition consists of 58 inkjet printed sheets at A3 size in an archival folder. There are seven copies plus one artist proof. In the colophon each of the seven copies is associated with one of the poets that appear in the project, i.e. there is Edgar Allan Poe’s copy, Emily Dickinson’s, Henry David Thoreau’s, Herman Melville’s, etcetera. If you are ordering the edition you can choose which copy you’d like (check if it’s still available). The edition is priced at €745,-
More images and information can be found here.
Order the book through my webshop or by email.
Order the special edition through my webshop or by email.
The project will be exhibited at the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam from January 24 – May 8 in the exhibition Quickscan.
Elisabeth Tonnard 