Posts Tagged ‘“artist book”’
The Power of the Powerless
Not a book but a gesture.
In my work I have explored white spaces since 2003 as a method to suggest rather than erase. Even if the suggestion was that the omnipresent Plan may be empty.
I have been struck by the recent street protests in China in which blank sheets of paper are used to defy censorship. The sheets serve effortlessly to indicate everything that should be expressed. Something so small, simple, and yet universal.
The title of The Power of the Powerless is a reference to Václav Havel’s essay of that same title. It speaks of the power that those who are not in power have through simply no longer living (as if) in obedience to the system. No longer “doing” the lies. Something relevant not only in totalitarian states but wherever system tries to dominate life and replace actual experience. The blank of this paper can never be totally contained by those who want to control it.
Published in Leerdam, The Netherlands, December 2022.
Free to enjoy as an idea.
For those who find themselves inclined to purchase:
Edition limited to 40 numbered copies.
12 x 19 cm cover, handmade, inkjet printed, with in it a loose blank A4 sheet.
Priced at € 50,- plus shipping. Order through the webshop or by email. Please note orders will be taken in December but shipped out in January. If you need to get it sooner please email me and we can arrange that.
Week of the Artist Book + symposium
From October 13 to 20 the ‘Week of the Artist Book’ will take place in Groningen. It is organized by Stichting ARTisBOOK. During the week 25 galeries, museums, bookshops and cultural institutes will celebrate the artist book and its development from the 1960s to now through exhibitions, workshops, talks, signings etc. More information (in Dutch) about the week is available here.
Exhibition at Noorderlicht
As part of this week my work The Plan will be exhibited at Noorderlicht. Noorderlicht will also show work by Wil van Iersel, Jan van der Til, Anouk Kruithof, Carina Hesper en Jan Dirk van der Burg. This show will continue beyond the week, until November 4.
Location: Noorderlicht – Huis van de Fotografie, Akerkhof 12, Groningen.
Hours: Wednesdays-Sundays from 12.00 to 18.00.
Admission is €4,- (€2,- for students). Note: at the ARTisBOOKshop (see below) you can get free entree tickets.
Symposium
On October 19 I’ll be a speaker at the ARTisBOOK symposium. This will take place at the university library of Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. Detailed information is available in this pdf. The symposium is free to attend. Register here before October 12.
Exhibition at Academie Minerva
At Academie Minerva An Empty Field and Enduring Freedom will be shown in the exhibition ‘Provo! Fluxus! Verzet!’ curated by Barthold Boksem.
Location: Praediniussingel 59, Groningen.
Bookshop
During the week several of my titles will be for sale at the ARTisBOOKshop.
Location: Pelsterstraat 27-29, Groningen.
Hours:
Tuesday-Saturday 10.00–18.00
Sunday and Monday 13.00–18.00
Thursday 10.00-20.00
An Empty Field – a total home run
I got a standing ovation. In fact, they said it was the biggest standing ovation since Peyton Manning had won the Super Bowl and they said it was equal. I got a standing ovation. It lasted for a long period of time. What you do is take — take out your tape — you probably ran it live. I know when I do good speeches. I know when I do bad speeches. That speech was a total home run. They loved it.
Donald Trump referencing his address to the CIA (ABC News, January 25, 2017).
The book has arrived from the printer. For more information, visit this page.
An Empty Field
Some great and very very special words.
This book is my complete transcript of President Trump’s address to employees of the CIA the day after his inauguration. To keep in style, the text is cut into bits of 140 or fewer characters. Until the um amazing printing is done, and it’s going to be really great, you can find a digital version here.
B&w digital printing, paperback, size 12.5 x 19 cm, 96 pages.
Priced at €14, plus shipping. Pre-order now through my webshop or through email.
Published in Leerdam, The Netherlands on January 23, 2017.
The Plan
I’m happy to announce my new book titled The Plan.
My interest in white space in texts and fascination for printed materials and propaganda books from East Germany brought me to discover the Plan. The Plan is the chameleonic directive to every situation of societal life – whether it is playing sports, writing a book, or practicing for war. Always think of the Plan. Better yet: always have it in your hand.
The Plan consists of a book and a folder, together forming one object. The book contains 26 pictures reproduced from miniature books published in the German Democratic Republic during the 1980s. Each book is accompanied by an original, pre-owned GDR folder, each different and individually obtained from households in the former state. The folder comes with a foldout sheet of the Plan.
Edition of 150 copies, numbered.
Digital print, full color paperback, A5 size, 48 pages. Plus original GDR folder, A4 size, with a folded and stamped A2 sheet.
See more images of the book here.
Priced at € 45,- plus shipping. Order through the webshop or by email. The book will also be available at my table at the upcoming NY Art Book Fair.
If you really want to understand what the GDR was about, you need to look at The Plan.
Joachim Schmid
New book: The Death of the Poet
This literary artist book excerpts texts from the biographies of nineteen different poets to fabricate one single, time and space crossing, remarkable story.
B&w digital printing, paperback, size 13 x 19 cm, 48 pages.
Edition of 125 copies, not numbered.
Priced at €24, plus shipping. Available now through my webshop or through email.
See more images on this page.
The book will be launched at Offprint London taking place at Tate Modern from May 20-22. You can find it at the table I am sharing with Joachim Schmid.
New book: Joachim Schmid Works
Thirty-three photographs of Joachim Schmid working on his E-Book.*
Joachim Schmid is well-known for his work with other people’s photographs. It is less known, or even unknown, that he takes the camera to hand himself sometimes. This little book documents just that and thereby provides a so far unseen aspect of Joachim Schmid’s practice. We get a glimpse of the artist’s movements in the age of lcd-screens and in addition to that a portrait of the streets that write to us.
Full color digital printing, sewn paperback, size 10.5 x 15 cm, 44 pages. Edition of 75 copies, not numbered.
Priced at €24, plus shipping. Available now through my webshop or through email.
The book will be launched at Offprint London taking place at Tate Modern from May 20-22. You can find it at the table I am sharing with Joachim.
* E-Book was published in February of 2016 and is based on a letter Joachim wrote to me. The words of this letter remain invisible in his book but every E is included in the form of a photograph. The various E’s, almost 500 of them, were photographed in a number of different cities during 2015. There is no digital version of the book.
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.
Oceanus, new print
I’ve made a new print run of my book Oceanus which had gone out of availability. For this print run a few typographical changes were introduced, plus the cover is now in black and white and no longer laminated. The whole book is now also printed on a 100% recycled paper stock which gives a new expression to the work and moreover qualifies for both the ISO 9706 norm for longevity and the Blue Angel environmental label.
To celebrate, there is a new reduced price, you can purchase the book now at €35,- plus shipping. Note that due to travel orders will be sent out in the beginning of October. I’ll have a few copies of the book available at my table at the New York Art Book Fair next week.
Read more about the book here.
Elisabeth Tonnard 