Bookmarking Book Art – “Bookmorphs from Greece and the UK” at The Hellenic Centre

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Bookmorph n. (bōk+μoρφ): a portmanteau word referring to casebound books which have been modified; an emergent branch of sculpture in which textual content is often downgraded; treatments include chewing, cutting, drilling, entombing, pulping, ripping, shooting (with a firearm), siliconising, etc; any codex fundamentally altered or warped by an artist; a site of entropic processes designed to return pages to cellulose fibre, and/or the creation of a fungal landscape; a bibliographic montrosity. Michael Hampton, arts writer, May 2025

The curators’ choice of title and epigram for this exhibition is somewhat daring. Although they have included plenty of bibliographical montrosities that fit Hampton’s definition, there are plenty of bibliographical beauties, too — even among the “monstrosities”. A strong attraction of this exhibition is that it presents so many recent works from Greek book artists. Even more attractive is its hands-on display of most of the works.

Anneta Spanoudaki’s Natura Morta (2025) is a striking case in point:

Natura Morta (2025) Anneta Spanoudaki
Paper cut on different types of paper and photography. 480 × 220 mm. Photos: Books On Books.

Another case in point is Dimitris Skourogiannis’ 100% An Artist’s Bible (2025). To be turned, its large “leaves” require metal rings on the fore-edge.

100% An Artist’s Bible (2025) Dimitris Skourogiannis
Japanese paper, cardboard, wood, fragments of porcelain objects, print, metal rings, acrylic pains, fabris, tulle, and metallic threads. 500 x 350 x 140 mm.
Photos: Books On Books.

Thick leaves seemed to be the order of the day. On heavy black card, Thodoros Brouskomatis’ 10 Artificial Prayers (2025) presents surreal collages challenging the theme of “Madonna and Child” and couplets from Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “supplica a mia madre”.

10 Artificial Prayers (2025) Thodoros Brouskomatis
Printed digital artworks on photographic paper, cardboard, and leather. 300 x 250 mm.
Photos: Books On Books.

On slightly thinner card, Aris Stoidis’ To the other side and back (2025) carries a sculptural image on every page. The work straddles the borders of sculpture, photobook, and artist’s book. Stoidis writes, “Ever since my first pieces, I have been “receiving” images that I’ve materialized without really comprehending them myself. They simply exerted an inexplicable power on me.” The book comes in a plexiglas box with a papercut sculpture (not pictured here).

To the other side and back (2025) Aris Stoidis
Photographic prints on card. 270 x 270 x 20 mm.
Photos: Books On Books.

On still thinner leaves, Ismini Bonatsou’s Little Red Riding Hood (2025) nevertheless projects striking depth with its montage of papercut pages, acrylics, and pencil. Just as striking is the contemporary reversioning of the fairy tale.

Little Red Riding Hood (2025) Ismini Bonatsou
Acrylics, pencil, and papercuts. 450 x 300 mm.
Photos: Books On Books.

Given that the portmanteau term “bookmorph” comes from Michael Hampton, it seems appropriate that he has two works on display. Although one of them is under glass, 12 Chairs (bookmorph) (2012), the other is not. RAGE PEN by Hampton and David Blackmore is the UK contingent’s only work produced in 2025. Others from the UK contingent include Sarah Bodman, BOOKEND, Jonathan Callan, Joe Devlin, Stephen Emmerson, SJ Fowler, Rowena Hughes, and the Inscription Journal editors (Gill Partington, Simon Morris, Adam Smyth). RAGE PEN is also particularly appropriate because it requires a ruler to separate its perforated fore-edges. The exhibition provides one along with multiple pairs of white gloves. Really hands-on.

The participating Greek artists also include Eleni Angelou, Nikos Arvanitis, Rania Bellou, Maria Bourbou, Natassa Chelioti-Naga, Ioanna Delfino, Anna Dimitriou, Antonia Iroidou, Eleni Kastrinogianni, Peggy Kliafa, Alexia Kokkinou, Georgia Kotretsos, Nikos Kryonidis, Vasiliki Lefkaditi, Eleni Maragaki, Kyriaki Mavrogeorgi, Despina Meimaroglou, Christina Mitrentse, Fiona Mouzakitis, Kiki Perivolari, Stamatis Schizakis, Ifigeneia Sdoukou, Christina Sgouromiti, Danai Simou, Nectarios Stamatopoulos, Despina Stavrou, Evangelos Tasios, Yannis Tzortzis, and Leonie Yagdjoglou.

Congratulations and thanks to the curators — Christina Mitrentse, Fiona Mouzakitis, and Despina Stavrou — for bringing together this selection of outstanding works.

The Hellenic Centre opens at 11:00 and closes at 17:00, Tueday through Friday, so the chances to visit by the 28th of November are limited. The brief catalogue that documents the exhibition and these few photos cannot substitute for tactile engagement with the works on display. An hour and a half passed in a flicker.

Books On Books Collection – Hilke Kurzke

2025/10/102025/12/24Books On Books3 Comments

Knot theory seems to be having a moment this year. In February 2025, there was the First International On-line Knot Theory Congress. Not to forget the regularly recurring Swiss Knots Conference (held in Geneva in June) and the 11th Sino-Russian Conference on Knot Theory (held in Suzhou, China in June-July). Or the “Danceability of Twisted Virtual Knots” produced by Nancy Scherich and danced by Sol Addison and Lila Snodgrass at the Math-Arts Conference in Eindhoven in July. And then in September the Scientific American and online media picked up two discoveries in knot theory — one by Mark Brittenham and Susan Hermiller and another by Dror Bar-Natan and Roland van der Veen.

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Books On Books Collection – Marlene MacCallum and The Shadow Quartet*

2025/08/302025/12/24Books On BooksLeave a comment

Two artist's books titled 'Shadow Canto One: Still Life' and 'Still Life', featuring unique textured covers with a blend of greens and a window-like design.

Marlene MacCallum achieves distinctive results by painting with photography and sculpting with book structure in her artist’s books. Her painting with photography has involved not only collage work but pinhole cameras, digital cameras, digital layering and masking as well as a variety of transfer processes — digital and analogue photogravure, lithography, digital pigment printing, and digital inkjet printing. Sculpting with book structure mainly includes varying the binding as in the accordion with fold-out of Obvert (1997), the tunnel book structure of Do Not Enter (1998), the gatefold of Domestic Arcana (1999), the tile format fold-outs of pink story (2004-05), the accordion of Quadrifid (2009), the dos-à-dos of Glaze: Reveal and Veiled (2013), and the Miura fold of Rise (2020). It also includes altering books as in Withdrawn (2010) and varying the substrate as in the lace paper, Moriki, double matte Mylar, Lanaquarelle, and embossed leather of Townsite House (2006) and the etched copperplate and Tyvek of Trompe l’Oreille (2011).

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Books On Books Collection – Zhang Xiaodong*

2025/08/072025/11/17Books On Books1 Comment

Diamond Sutra in 32 zhuan (seal) fonts (2017)
Zhang Xiaodong
Scroll in dragon scale binding. 152 x 382 x 160 mm. Edition of 300, of which this #197. Acquired from Sin Sin Fine Arts (Hong Kong), 31 October 2019. Photos: Books On Books Collection.

In 1900, in China’s Dunhuang province, the Diamond Sutra (868 CE), the world’s earliest complete and dated printed book, was discovered in a cave along with 40,000 scrolls. One of those other scrolls — Or.8210/S.6349 — was possibly just as important for the book arts as the Diamond Sutra was for the history of printing. Like the Diamond Sutra, Or.8210/S.6349 resides in the British Library and is “the only known example of whirlwind binding in the Stein collection of the British Library” (Chinnery). The structure is also known as dragon scale binding, although distinctions between the two have been debated (Song). It came into use in the late Tang dynasty (618-907 CE) then fell away in the face of the easier to handle butterfly and wrapped-back bindings. Besides Or.8210/S.6349, there are few surviving examples of original whirlwind or dragon scale bindings.

Chinnery, 2007.

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Books On Books Collection – Julien Nédélec

2025/06/192025/12/24Books On BooksLeave a comment

Because he works with so many different materials, it is hard to classify Julien Nédélec as an artist: A polyfabricant? With language play being a more or less constant theme: A polywright? His website labels him a plasticien, the perfect French word that captures more of the media in which he works than its usual translation “visual artist” does. In Zéro2, Antoine Marchand writes:

Everything, with him, is subject to manipulation, appropriation, and diversion, at times in the most trivial and basic way imaginable. His work is based on permanent mischief, a desire to destabilize the viewer, and be forever creating a slight discrepancy, which barely ruffles the reading of the work—well removed from the showiness of many present-day productions. He bypasses the daily round and takes us towards somewhere else that is not that far away, but all the more joyful. … What should incidentally be underscored in this young artist’s praxis is his ability to move from one medium to another, without the slightest bother or apprehension. It is impossible to pigeonhole Julien Nédélec’s praxis in any one particular medium.

Several of his works have been hosted on the Greek island of Anafi by the Association Phenomenon and the Collection Kerenidis Pepe, whose website also notes that his

practice can take many forms, from sculpture to drawing, through books and photography, with a predilection for the paper, that he uses not only as a support, but also as a material that he bends, cuts, colors, stacks or crumples. His works are the result of linguistic and formal games that reveal the artist’s fascination with the potentialities of language, with a malice that places him as an heir apparent of the Oulipo, while his taste for geometric and serial shapes brings him closer to the tradition of minimalism.

With paper as a favorite medium, there are a handful of artist’s book among the many other forms. Taken together, his artist’s books almost make up an anthology of homage to book artists from the 1960s to the present. He also belongs to the school of appropriators embracing forerunners like Bruce Nauman, Richard Prince, and Richard Pettibone and contemporaries like Michalis Pichler, Antoine Lefebvre, and Jérémie Bennequin, all of whom have embraced the self-reflexive artist’s book as an appropriate medium for appropriation. No wonder Galaad Prigent’s Zédélé Éditions, the French publisher that hosts Anne Moeglin-Delcroix and Clive Phillpot’s Reprint Series of artists’ books, is so fond of his bookworks.

TER (2021)

TER (2021)
Julien Nédélec
Softcover, saddle stitch with staples. H240 W165 mm. [36] pages. Acquired from Zédélé Éditions, 21 September 2024.
Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with the artist’s permission.

“Tout”

The sentences to be deciphered from these full-page-bleed letters are Tout a été redit. Tout a été refait, which, in English, would be “Everything has been said. Everything has been done.” But it also has the echoes of a French children’s song, “Tout ce que je fais“:

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Books On Books Collection – Peter & Donna Thomas (II)

2025/06/122025/10/10Books On BooksLeave a comment

Goodbye Bonita Lagoon (2023)

Goodbye Bonita Lagoon: A Papermaker’s Elegy (2023)
Peter and Donna Thomas and Guy Van Cleave.
Tri-fold binding with 2 leather spines and sewn accordion binding structure, cloth over boards, light green linen cloth letterpress printed with three color linocut print on front cover, and title blind stamped on spine in brown foil. H300 x W225 mm. 80 pages. Edition of 30, of which this is #27. Acquired from the artists, 5 February 2024.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

To read Goodbye Bonita Lagoon properly, you must read its text, its images, and its handmade papers as a whole. To do that, you need to let the binding structure guide you. The Thomases call the structure an accordion pleat spine stab-sewn book and have described and illustrated it in More Making Books by Hand (2004). Although the basics are the same –stab-sewing two single sheets of handmade paper and a single plant-paper folio to the recto or ascent side of each mountain fold in the accordion pleat spine — Goodbye Bonita Lagoon extends like a flag book, and as each gathering is turned to the left, the accordion pulls the left hand side of the book toward the right, tucking itself atop the previously turned sheets and folios. Below are the fully extended book, the extended book with the first five gatherings turned to the left, and the extended book with all the gatherings except the last turned. As the book progresses, the width of the extension narrows.

The photos below show the accordion pleat spine’s functioning end on.

Turning the next to last gathering (blackberry paper folio and single sheets) to show the spine’s function end on. Note how the right-hand edge of the light green accordion pleat is fixed to the inside back cover. As the gatherings turn to the left, the accumulated accordion has to move rightwards.

Like the extended width’s narrowing as the book comes to its close, Bonita Lagoon, too, has been collapsing. Elegiacally, each of the plant-paper folios is made from a plant gathered from the lagoon in the past. Inside each of the plant-paper folios, a single sheet insert carries a linocut of the plant and its name printed with wood type. On the back of each plant-paper folio, a single sheet insert bears text about Bonita Lagoon.

That descriptive text begins at the end of the book’s preliminary gathering, which opens with the book’s only multicolored text, a sort of epigraph from Guy Van Cleave (Professor of Biology, Glendale Community College), extolling the attractions of lagoons. Displayed on the book’s only foldout, the text continues on the reverse with more of Van Cleave’s observations but also a preview paragraph from Peter Thomas. The preview describes the sourcing and processing of the plant-paper folios and the circumstances in which the book was written. When you turn the foldout to read the text on its reverse side, the accordion spine also pulls into view this gathering’s final sheet presenting the book’s formal opening text.

Here’s the opening sequence without extending the book:

Left: The text on the reverse side of the extended foldout. Right: The preliminary gathering’s final sheet with the book’s formal opening text.

It feels a bit awkward to have the final bit of the prelim text hanging out as the book begins, so there’s the urge to tuck it away and take in the expanse of the plant-paper folios, while still carrying in the back of the mind a curiosity about the prediction that the prelim text teases.

Donna Thomas’s linocuts printed over the names of the plants in wood type vary in orientation. Impressed on cotton rag paper handmade by Peter, they memorialize the plants harvested long ago and emphasize by contrast the texture of the plant-paper folios embracing them.

Folio of Pampas Grass paper with single sheet linocut by Donna Thomas over wood type.

Extended book open to folio of Kahili Ginger paper; single sheet linocut turned 90º.

Folio of New Zealand flax.

Folio of Wild Radish.

Folio of Century Plant.

Folio of Bird of Paradise.

Folio of Tule.

Folio of Blackberry.

The book’s formal elegy concludes on the Tule gathering’s end sheet. Here we find the prediction teased in the prelims. Due to construction along the coast, the lagoon has become a marsh and tiny pool that dries out in the summer. Without restoration, Bonita Lagoon is on its way to becoming Bonita Beach.

The prediction on the Tule gathering’s end sheet.

All along, the text set in Neuland has appeared over the print of a map. Not until after the prediction above and the turning of the Blackberry gathering is it revealed in the colophon that the map is from the 1853 coastal survey mentioned at the beginning. With a sort of unwritten coda, the book ends with a single sheet made from clippings from the Thomases’ otherwise unmanicured lawn next to Bonita Lagoon.

Colophon.

1,000 Artists’ Books (2012)

1,000 Artists’ Books: Exploring the Book as Art (2012)
Sandra Salamony and Peter & Donna Thomas
Softcover, casebound in illustrated paper over flexible card, patterned doublures, headbands. H235 x W235 mm. 320 pages. Acquired from Brendan McSherry, 20 October 2023.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Besides their prolific artistic output, much of which (up to 2005) can be viewed in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries Special Collections, the Thomases have also published several instructional and reference works on papermaking and the book as an art form. This one with Sandra Salomony covers various aspects of hand-crafted books: covers, bindings, scrolls, folded and origami structures, books made from found objects, altered books, and book installations, as well as books created from a variety of printing processes. Its taxonomy is useful when exploring new works and examining collections.

Books On Books Collection – Cathryn Miller (II)

2025/05/012025/10/14Books On Books2 Comments

recomp (2013-23)

recomp (2013-23)
Cathryn Miller
Hinged and clasped diptych, housing an altered book, explanatory booklet, and loose colophon. Unique. Acquired from Vamp & Tramp Booksellers, 2025.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Recomp (2013-2023) is a collaboration with a colony of bald-faced hornets. Having reviewed Stephen Collis and Jordan Scott’s decomp (2013), their artists’ book devised by exposing several copies of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species to the elements, Cathryn Miller followed suit and hung her reviewer’s copy of decomp in a tree. Over time, the wind, rain, and snow sent the book to the forest floor where it fell apart. Hornets had done their part in its decomposition, nibbling away at its edges and weakening the structure. Their conversion of the book into cellulose for their nest was also the start of their artistic partnership with Miller. Eventually the nest, too, became prey to the elements or marauders and fell and broke apart on the ground. Miller and photographer husband David recorded all this and gathered up the book fragments and broken nest.

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Books On Books Collection – Sarah Matthews

2025/02/152025/04/13Books On BooksLeave a comment

The Negro Is Still Not Free (2022)

The Negro Is Still Not Free (2022)
Elaina Brown-Spence, Meera Mittari, Erica Honson, Jingnan Cheng, Xue’er Goo, Bryn Ziegler, Grace Johnson, Amanda D’Amico, and Sarah Matthews
Double-sided single-page book in a pants fold. 152 x 152 mm. Acquired from Sarah Mathews, 6 August 2024. Photos: Books On Books Collection

The Negro is Still Not Free was created by Elaina Brown-Spence, Meera Mittari, Erica Honson, Jingnan Cheng, Xue’er Goo, Bryn Ziegler, Grace Johnson, Amanda D’Amico, and Sarah Matthews at the Borowsky Center for Publication Arts at the University of Arts in Philadelphia, PA during the month of February 2022. In its color and style, it reflects the influence of Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. Its double-sided single-sheet pants-fold book structure, cleverly fuses the traditions of poster and book (or zine).

Inspired by the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s celebrated “I Have A Dream” speech from August 28, 1963, the work was created to support the Youth Art & Self Empowerment Project in Philadelphia, PA. Their mission is to “provide space for incarcerated young people to express themselves creatively and to develop as leaders both within and beyond prison walls.”

SPACE: Known/Unknown (2022)

SPACE: Known / Unknown
Lauren Emeritz & Sarah Matthews
Box with pastedown title enclosing softcover book. Box: 237 x W157 x D50 mm. Book: H230 x W150 x D25 mm. 48 pages and loose 4-page colophon in envelope attached to inside back cover. Edition of 15, of which this is #5. Acquired from Sarah Mathews, 6 August 2024.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

A collaborative project between Lauren Emeritz & Sarah Matthews, SPACE: Known/Unknown features three telling quotations:

“Open a book, open the universe”– Unknown
“We are made whole by books, as by great space and the stars” — Mary Carolyn Davies
“The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you” — Neil deGrasse Tyson

The universe of this artist’s book is that of letterpress, handcarved letters, wood and metal type, embossed printer labels, multiple inks and foil stamping, die cuts, paper engineering, and multiple binding structures. This and its crazy quilt imposition make it a lively universe to explore, and it certainly lives up to deGrasse Tyson’s quip.

Does this book subscribe to the “argument by design” made by Socrates and St. Thomas Aquinas?

A universe in which page layout turns one way and then another is under no obligation to make sense.

A Turkish fold of constellations.

The artists must have traveled back in time to include one of these embossed sticky labels.

The universe and title page can appear in multiple places — even in the middle.

A sunburst — and then star label in case we missed it?

A multi-color galaxy of ink leads to die-cut black stars (or holes?).

Not exactly a dwarf red star, but it’s the artists’ universe, they get to decide.

The colophon at the end of the universe.

For additional pop-up extravaganzas, see also David A. Carter’s Le sculture da viaggio di Munari (2019), Kevin M. Steele’s The Movable Book of Letterforms (2009) and “Movables Now and Then” in Bookmarking Book Art (31 August 2024).

Books On Books Collection – David A. Carter

2024/12/092025/02/16Books On BooksLeave a comment

B is for Box (2014)

B is for Box (2014)
David A. Carter
Pop-up book, printed paper over boards. H187 x W184 x D28 mm. [14] pages. Acquired from Type Punch Matrix, 17 September 2024.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

“The Happy Little Yellow Box” was first introduced in a pop-up book of opposites by that name in 2012. For the Books On Books Collection, the box’s return in this pop-up alphabet makes it the one to add to all the other abecedaries here. The box is also a happy reminder of the items under Further Reading (below).

Le sculture da viaggio di Munari (2019)

Carter’s Le sculture da viaggio di Munari brings the spirit of Munari’s “travel sculptures” into the collection. His homage carries the blessing of Corraini Edizioni, further justifying its inclusion.

Le sculture da viaggio di Munari (2019)
David A. Carter
Pop-up book. H210 x W210, 10 constructions over 5 spreads, 2 with fold-out leaves. Acquired from Corraini, 4 August 2020.
Photos of the work: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with permission of Corraini Edizioni. © Bruno Munari. All rights reserved to Maurizio Corraini s.r.l.

Travel sculptures started off as small sculptures (some even pocket-sized) to carry with you, so you could take part of your own culture to an anonymous hotel room. Later they were turned into ‘travel sculptures’, five or six metres tall and made of steel. One of these was seen for a few months in Cesenatico, another one in Naples. Others are sleeping among huge trees in the Alto Adige region.’ This is how Italian designer Bruno Munari (1907-1998) described his ‘travel sculptures’, which in turn inspired American illustrator and designer David A. Carter for this pop-up book. –Corraini Edizioni website. Accessed 3 August 2021.

Munari’s travel sculptures also recall works in the collection like Cumer’s scultura da viaggio dipinta n.2 (2017), Komagata’s「Ichigu」(2015) and, albeit less portable, Ioana Stoian’s Nous Sommes (2015).

Bookmarking Book Art – Movables Now and Then

2024/08/312025/11/05Books On Books1 Comment

In July this year, a video was posted as if in response to the conclusion of Kyle Olmon’s “Movable Book Artists” in Parenthesis 31 (2020):

There is little in the way of scholarship and criticism in regard to pop-up and movable books. Part of this is the stigma of being represented as a commercial novelty product or kiddie book by twentieth-century publishers. The explosion of artists’ books in the 1970’s gave rise to a subset of book artists that moved beyond the standard textblock to explore the book form in ways that surpassed commercial novelty publishing efforts. To date there is no consensus within the community on the classification of the types of book formats or even the terminology used when describing pop-up and movable elements in a work. Hopefully this will change when articles about pop-up artists’ books appear with more frequency and more scholarship is undertaken.

The Newberry Library’s Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts Suzanne Karr Schmidt gave the Book Club of Washington a reprise of her 2023 exhibition “Pop-Up Books through the Ages”:

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Books On Books

Curated by Robert Bolick

Paper engineering

Bookmarking Book Art – “Bookmorphs from Greece and the UK” at The Hellenic Centre

Books On Books Collection – Hilke Kurzke

Books On Books Collection – Marlene MacCallum and The Shadow Quartet*

Books On Books Collection – Zhang Xiaodong*

Books On Books Collection – Julien Nédélec

TER (2021)

Books On Books Collection – Peter & Donna Thomas (II)

Goodbye Bonita Lagoon (2023)

1,000 Artists’ Books (2012)

Further Reading

Books On Books Collection – Cathryn Miller (II)

recomp (2013-23)

Books On Books Collection – Sarah Matthews

The Negro Is Still Not Free (2022)

SPACE: Known/Unknown (2022)

Further Reading

Books On Books Collection – David A. Carter

B is for Box (2014)

Le sculture da viaggio di Munari (2019)

Further Reading

Bookmarking Book Art – Movables Now and Then