UMBRELLA OCT 96
ARTIST BOOK REVIEWS Most of the books in this section are available from Printed Matter,
77 Wooster St., New York, NY 10012 unless otherwise indicated.
REFERENCE
My Book_The Book by Anton Würth (Tubingen, Galerie Druck & Buch, 1996,
Carnet 4) is a bilingual text concerning thoughts about the artist's
own book and about books in general, conceptualizing the artist's own
work and understanding of The Book.
Galantai - Lifeworks is a bilingual journey through the art/life of
Gyorgy Galantai, co-founder of Artpool in Budapest, and a major figure
of the Hungarian art scene of the last quarter century. Designed by
the artist who is also one of the editors, the book--an extraordinary
amalgam of 432 black and white and 75 color illustrations and excerpts
from the artist's notebooks--gives an overview of GalÊntai's artistic
activity from the 1960s to 1993. An introductory chapter by Geza
Perneczky and an "interactive" biography rounds out this volume.
This is the documentation of a Renaissance man--an artist who
breathes art--from rubberstamps to sculpture, from painting to
computer graphics, there is no stone unturned. His energy is
abundant--his drive immense--despite all the problems the Hungarian
government gave him during the Communist regime, Galantai seems to
have survived and well, thanks to his own courage and the great
support of his wife Julia. This volume with essays by Geza Perneczky,
Peter Esterhazy and Gergely Molnar includes Galantai's diary, his
biography and a bibliography. To get a copy, order from Enciklopdia
Kiado, H-1113 Budapest, Bocskai ut 31. Or fax: (36-1)166-3496. Make
checks payable to Encikopedia Kiado, or transfer money to E.K.,
Budapest, Kereskedelmi & Hitel Bank, account #
10404072-40752811-00008888. For collector copies or to discuss
exchange offers, contact Galantai, Artpool: H-1277 Budapest 23, Pf.
52, Hungary. email: artpool@artpool.hu
http://222.artpool.hu/
The World Outside by Mehrdad Haighi and John Zissovici is a limited
edition, handmade book representing a multimedia intervention into
existing structures, including images, sounds and words as well as
construction. The concept was the problem of representation in/of
architecture by introducing into the unproductive space of a conveyor
belt in an abandoned cement silo the reproductive/representational
space of video. Using overlays, cuts,
mapping, gels, and text including The World Outside, the Words inside
(You send us words (from outside) and we send you picture (from
inside). Instead of reading words, this is about reading spaces. An
fascinating documentation and original format in spiral-bound handsome
printed quality. Exclusive distribution from Printed Matter. $40.00,
edition of 200
Pointy Ears & Pointy Teeth by James Engelbart (Philadelphia, Borowsky
Center for Publications Art, Univ. of the Arts, Philadelphia, 1995) is
a signed, numbered (300) edition created from hand-separated
monoprints in full-color using paintings of mask-like imagery with
black and white drawings of animals countered by full-color masks and
instructions at times to tear, rip and cut. The endapers are drawings
of scissors. The pointed ears and teeth get to you. $13.95
An Archive for the Lost Ones is the documentation of an installation
of an Archive (two oak boxes holding 72 glass plates) in the
Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Joey Morgan, the
author, has been making books and films for several years. Morgan
describes the installation of the Archive--with audio, lightbox,
projections The artist also intersperses many texts--one of the texts
in the margins is the audio in the installation. From the
description, the installations seems seductive and internalizing,
while at other times it deals with strategies of citation and
displacement, an intellectual exercise. And in the center of the
book--after the marvelous essay by Barbara Buckhardt--there is reality
and illusion, deliberately in and out of legibility--to simulate the
waves of sound and light over the viewer/reader in the installation.
The double gate-fold resents us with the environment and the material.
A remarkable gift to all of us, for this exception book only costs
$15.00. Buy it, indulge yourselves! This book is an experience.
Machete Chemistry & Panades Physics, assembled writings by Joel Lipman
& Yasser Musa (Benque Viejo del Carmen, Belize, Cubola New Art
Foundation, 1994, $20) is the result of poet Joel Lipman journeying to
Belize to teach English at the University College of Belize and those
writings became Machete Chemistry. Panades Physics is a Yasser Musa
concept that found expression when he journeyed to Baton Rouge,
Louisiana to learn about art. From haiku to concrete poetry, this book
is a journey of words and ideas, of rhythms and intuitions.
This is not a movie. It's was published on the occasion of the
exhibition of Despina Meimaroglou: March 8 - April 7, 1996 at the
Mylos Art Gallery, Thessaloniki, Greece. This catalog is an artist
book designed by the artist in an edition of 1000 to simulate an
American news magazine--whether Time or Newsweek does not matter. The
artist's works are mixed media imagery from news media, but always
with text and image. She processes the imagery on her computer, and
finally intervenes over these computer images with painting
techniques. Her political conscience as a woman in modern society
permeates every work. She depicts aggression, but the violence is a
recollection of a memory of the experience through exorcism. She takes
a stand on the Gulf War, on violence against women, always using
photography or film stills. The artist not only reveals violence as a
reality, but never transforms it into poetry. For her, it is
information. A bilingual catalog in English and Greek. "There are no
words to justify violence against women. Only sentences." $25
The Book of Jabbo: Revelations in 6 Languages by Mondo Jud Hart (Part
1: Origins of Wisdom & Ignorance, Part 2: The Perfect Turd, published
by Azul Editions, $19.95 paper, is a book that seems so tied to
music, to perhaps jazz and its improvisations, or even hip hop that
the rhythms of its one pronounced language, photomontage, is in the
tradition of Max Ernst. Yet Hart has a lot on his mind at the end of
the millennium, and the social implications are mixed with the skill
he has in fusing design and content inventively. He raps in black and
in white, yet always in the tradition of Dada. It is in his art of
juxtaposition that this shamanic artist interprets the world in which
he and you live.
Something tells me that if the U.S. government were in the hands
of the artist Mondo Jud Hart, racism would never rear its ugly head
again in America. The prognosis, however, is not positive. Even the
artist herein confesses the frustration, but his visual-verbal attacks
on the problem give the reader-viewer courage and fortitude and
ammunition to fight the good fight. This complex bookwork allows for
endless possibilities, rather than limited solutions. Perhaps that is
what the artist's mission is all about. Certainly Mondo Jud Hart lets
us know how to understand the problem and be strengthened by that
knowledge. Order from Azul Editions, 2032 Belmont Rd., NW, Suite 301,
Washington, DC 20009.
The Word Made Flesh by Johanna Drucker (New York, Granary Books, 1996,
$60 + $8 shipping (domestic) calls attention to the visual materiality
of the text, attempting to halt linear reading, trapping the eye in a
field of letters which make a complex object on the page. The writing
refers continually to the visceral character of language, literalizing
metaphors of tongue, breath, and flesh. The work both embodies and
discusses language as a physical form, one whose properties cannot be
ignored by arriving at a disembodied content. The format of this work
invokes a reference to the carmina figurata of the Renaissance--works
in which a sacred image was picked out in red letters against a field
of black type so that a holy figure could be seen and meditated on in
the process of reading. The technique is reversed here, with the red
field of small type serving as a background in which large, black
letters are arranged like figures on the red ground.
There is a robust humor and a powerful presence in the typography,
where there are huge wooden initials balanced with precisely arranged
letters, all showing us how the alphabet can create human
significance. What a wonderful addition to your collection--offset
printing, bound in boards with a letterpress dust jacket printed by
the artist. 12Ç" wide x 10Ç" high. A gem which you can order from
Granary Books, 568 Broadway, #403, New York, NY 10012.. (212)226-5462,
fax: (212)226-6143.
Guilt & Salvation by David Hornor (Brooklyn, 1996, $10.00) is a
personal exploration of guilt salvation. Seemingly independent of the
author, the book took its own path and led to an examination of guilt.
Not Salvation in the Christian sense but a more psychoanalytic sense,
it becomes an absence of guilt. Included are dreams, thoughts,
daymares, a fusion of words and images providing the reader/viewer a
theater of conflicts and complexities. If you're human, this is the
book for you!
Erotic Fallacies by Joanna Frueh (Berkeley, Univ. of California Press,
1996, $19.95 paper, $55. 00 cloth) is a new kind of criticism
combining the erotic and the intellectual--the talisman of an art
historian and performance artist renowned for her exploration of
subjects such as aging, beauty, love, sex, pleasure, contemporary art,
and the body as a site and vehicle of knowledge.
Frueh, a professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, is always
explicit, graphic and fragmented in her language, assuming multiple
voices of lover, art critic, activist, prophet, daughter, mythmaker,
and bleeding heart. Using personal reflection, parody, autobiography,
and poetry, Frueh shows us what it means to perform criticism, to
personalize critical thinking. There is romanticism and the
sentimental, which breaks the mold of academic and feminist
conventions. What a wild ride this book is--and so much to learn
along the way. Three cheers to the Univ. of California Press for
allowing this book to be published and well distributed.
Pictographs by Bill Keith (Barrytown, NY, Left Hand Books, 1996,
$9.00) is a volume of visual poetry created by a photographer, poet,
painter and collagist, Bill Keith. He mixes different types of
picture-writing with fragments of prose writings in a kind of
arrangement reflecting West African visual traditions. There is a
rhythm almost like a drum-beating movement in these pages which seem
to be suspended between painting and music. As indicated in his
fragments, he wanted to be an artist to be free, and now he is a slave
to his art. It is elegant servitude!
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