Square Photographs of White Circle Paintings (2022)

Square Photographs of White Circle Paintings (2022)
Guy Bigland
Saddle stitched soft cover. H150 x W220 mm. [40] pages. Edition of 100. Acquired from the artist, 12 October 2023.
Photos of the work: Books On Books Collection.

The cover and title of this artist’s book create an odd road sign to appreciating the work. White on heavy black stock (320 gsm), only the second half of the title appears on the front cover. Opening the book to its bright white sturdy 148 gsm interior, we find photographs of the promised “white circle paintings” framed in dark gray to black squares. So far, so expected. But on closer inspection, the dark squares emerge as road surface. At the end of the book, almost all is revealed by a short text on the rules and history of the mini-roundabout.

Roundabouts as paintings? If we happen to turn the book over and spreadeagle its back cover, the full title appears, confirming that direction of travel. It suggests Sol Lewitt’s geometric territory. The typeface and bad photography suggests Ed Ruscha’s deadpan artist’s books recording storefronts, swimming pools and gasoline stations.

The photos, however, are far more blurry than Ruscha’s, and those circles are hardly the precise renditions that Lewitt offers.

The first double-page spread of “white circle paintings”

The center double-page spread of “white circle paintings”

The finale double-page spread of “white circle paintings”

It would be difficult and risky to take photos of roundabouts from directly overhead, and in a photograph from the roadside, the roundabouts would appear elliptical, and the tarmac frame would look like a rhomboid. If a bit of renaming can make that transformation, why not a bit of manipulation of the axis to yield “square” photographs and circularized ellipses? In doing just that and framing the results within and around the covers, Bigland delivers a variation on several themes in book art. Interrogating the form of the book. Setting a creative tension between words and image. Conflating techniques (photography, painting and book design). Echoing, modulating and transforming the traditions of book art.

Various Versions (2015)

Various Versions (2015)
Guy Bigland
Perfect Bound soft cover. H190 x W190 mm. [158] pages. Open edition. Acquired from the artist, 12 October 2023.
Photos of the work: Books On Books Collection.

In its titling, Various Versions signals Ed Ruscha’s Various Small Fires and Milk (1970) but strongly deviates from it by using nothing but text. Given that its text is an extended deconstruction of Ephesians 4:14 from the New Testament, it is a strong move from an icon of the “pictorial turn”. Art built purely on complete text — not just the introduction of letters or words à la Picasso nor concrete poetry à la Gomringer — has plenty of practitioners. Think of Jenny Holzer, Christopher Wool, Ian Hamilton Finlay and many others. When it comes to book artists who use a complete text as Bigland has, the list shortens. Think of Christian Bök, Elisabeth Tonnard, but who else? Chapbooks and the like would likely sidetrack the search. So, too, would those artists books that erase, patch over or re-order a complete text à la Jérémie Bennequin, Jonathan Safran Foer or Mikko Kuorinki.

Various Versions enacts the deconstruction of a complete scriptural passage by dividing it into 5 numbered sections listed at the beginning of the book. Then, within each section, it juggles 24 different renderings of the scripture.

Like those excavating bookworks, Various Versions imposes a “slow read”, but its deconstructive manner of doing so is far different and draws direct attention to the source material. Per his artist’s statement about Various Versions, Bigland writes, “The ‘original’ language is powerfully descriptive, poetic and evocative. Under this deconstruction these qualities are both tested (along with the patience of the reader) and reinforced by repetition and rearrangement.”

AAA to ZZZ (2018)

AAA to ZZZ (2018)
Guy Bigland
Perfect-bound paperback. H220 x W225 mm. 56 pages. Acquired from the artist, 6 July 2023.
Photos: Books In Books Collection.

Arranging all possible 3-character combinations of the letters of the alphabet in alphabetical order results in a mesmerizing display. Prolonged staring will lead the eye beyond the vertical and horizontal alphabetic patterns to catch diagonal ones, converging ones and gutter-crossing ones from a variety of starting points. It’s like following the colors and threads in a muted herringbone weave.

Bigland’s book recalls the conceptual art of Stanley Brouwn, Hanne Darboven, Peter Roehr and Emmett Williams among others (see the annotated webliography of Germano Celant’s Book as Artwork 1962/1970), and it bridges to the later work of Francesca Capone in her Weaving Language trilogy and, of course, to the many celebrants of the alphabet (see the online exhibition Alphabets Alive!)

Further Reading

“Jérémie Bennequin“. 15 December 2020. Books On Books Collection.

“Jonathan Safran Foer“. 8 November 2024. Books On Books Collection.

“Mikko Kuorinki“. 21 October 2022. Books On Books Collection.

“Ed Ruscha“. 30 September 2018. Books On Books Collection.

“Elisabeth Tonnard“. 8 June 2020. Books On Books Collection.

“Guide to Text-Based Art, Part I“. 18 July 2024. MakerSpace.

“Guide to Text-Based Art, Part II (Digital Works)“. 23 July 2024. MakerSpace.

Hunt, John Dixon, David Lomas, and Michael Corris. 2010. Art, Word and Image : Two Thousand Years of Visual/Textual Interaction. London: Reaktion.