Books On Books Collection – Anushka Ravishankar & Christiane Pieper

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Alphabets are Amazing Animals (2003)

Alphabets are Amazing Animals (2003)
Anushka Ravishankar (text) & Christiane Pieper (illustrations)
Casebound, paper on board. 220 x 220 mm. 56 pages unnumbered. Acquired from Sauliusst, 9 July 2021.
Photos: Books On Books Collection. With permission of the publisher: Photographs of the book titled Alphabets Are Amazing Animals by Anushka Ravishankar and Christiane Pieper. Copyright © Tara Books Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India. tarabooks.com

Alliterative alphabet books and animal alphabet books both have long and geographically wide traditions. In 1820, the London publisher J. Harris and Son at the corner of St. Paul’s Church-Yard published Peter Piper’s practical principles of plain and perfect pronunciation : to which is added, a collection of moral and entertaining conundrums. In 1840, the Turin publisher Alessandro Fontana published Piccolo alfabeto di storia naturale pei fanciulli.

And likewise — together — alliterative animal alphabet books (and even a few alliterative animal artists’ books) crowd the field, for example, Graeme Base’s Animalia (1986), Kay Vincent’s Animal Alphabet (2015) and Michael Kuch’s An Alliterative Abecedarium of Anthropomorphic Animals (2011).

Making a lasting contribution to those traditions must be as difficult for children’s book artists and authors as blowing big blue bubbles is for baby buffaloes.

Books On Books Collection – Lyn Davies

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A is for Ox (2006)

A is for Ox: A Short History of the Alphabet (2006)
Lyn Davies
Casebound, doublures matching slipcase. Slipcase: H205 x W133 mm. Book: H197 x W128 mm. 128 pages. Acquired from The Old Bakehouse, 13 July 2021.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

There are numerous histories of the alphabet. Some are even titled the same as Lyn Davies’ A is for Ox. Several books take the letter-by-letter approach that Davies does in the second half of his book. Only one of them falls in the category of fine press book or artist’s book, and that is Richard J. Hoffman’s miniature production of the bookseller Otto Ege’s text. Benefitting from the advice of Stephen Fischer and the infrastructure of The Folio Society, Davies has secured more of a place for A is for Ox than that distinction.

One distinction is the handling of two colors across the design of the book. Davies knows book design. The burnt umber or terra cotta color is used to great effect. Chapter subtitles, section heads and running heads stand out but do not overbear. In the second half of the book, the color turns each letter of the alphabet in its section into a subdued illuminated letter. Another distinction follows on from this: the handling of images in the first half of the book. By printing in black and white the full inscriptions on stone, clay and pottery depicted in photographs, Davies enhances the experience of those images, and somehow the tinting of the images makes it easier to match the markings with the print.

Despite its brevity, A is for Ox conveys just as much as many lengthier works. Somehow with Davies in ten pages it is easier to “peg” waw as the antecedent sound for the letters F, U, V, W and Y than it is in the lengthier works. In its “A is for …” organization of its second half, the book injects some lightness without descending into silliness, leaving the latter to the children’s books and some of the comedy-prone trade books.

The Ottakar’s 2004 and Folio Society 2006 editions are out of print, which is a shame for ordering in bulk for short courses on the history of the alphabet and writing. Fortunately both are available at more-than-reasonable prices on the used book market.

A Visit from St. Alphabet (2005)

A Visit from St. Alphabet (2005)
Dave Morice
Casebound, H130 x 170 mm. 24 pages unnumbered. Acquired from The Book Depository, 27 August 2021.
Photos of the work: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with permission of the publisher Coffee House Press.

In the Books On Books Collection, Dave Morice’s spoof of Clement Moore’s 1822 A Visit from St Nicholas (better known as ‘Twas the night before Christmas) serves several purposes.

First of all, in a collection that has alphabet books and alphabet-related artists’ books as one of its focal points, work by the artist also known as Dr. Alphabet must be included.

Second, Morice is like the definition of book art: he shifts about. He has been the perpetrator of the Joyce Holland literary hoax. Minimalist poet and performance artist Joyce Holland became the publisher of the Matchbook series — one-word poems on one-inch squares of paper bound in matchbook covers — and became famous enough to appear on the Tom Snyder Tomorrow show (Morice and his girlfriend P.J Casteel stood in). With his poetry performance pieces written on scrolls that were stretched the length of a football field and created during half-time, he rivaled Christo and Jean Claude. As publisher of 17 issues of Poetry Comics, he could be said to be the inventor of the comic artist’s book.

Third, Morice’s alphabet book (artist’s book?) demonstrates by letter, wordplay, narrative and image the nature of the alphabet and its elemental inspiration for artists of the book.

Fourth, Morice’s book first appeared in 1980 as a limited letterpress sewn pamphlet published by Allan and Cinda Kornblum’s Toothpaste Press. In the late 1960s, they had studied typography and printing under Harry Duncan at the University of Iowa, then set up their publishing house in 1970. Poetry dominated the list, with output from Robert Bly, Robert Creeley, Anselm Hollo, Antonio Machado (translated by Bly), Alice Notley, Carl Rakowski and Anne Waldman. This edition comes from Coffee House Press, founded in 1984 as the nonprofit successor to Toothpaste Press. Although no longer a product of letterpress printing but in a nod toward its predecessor, the book boasts case binding with red cloth over board and dark green textured pastedowns and endleaves (doublures). And this at a time when the doom of the printed book was being regularly forecast. This hints, at least, at the proposition celebrated by the collection that book art forecasts the history of the book.

Fifth and finally, as of publication of this entry, there are only 140 shopping days for book art until Christmas.

Matchbook Poems (2020)

An anthology published by Richard Kostelanetz’s Archae Editions, Matchbook Poems may have become a rare book due to a contretemps with Amazon. So the corporate on-demand publishing machine undermines an effort to celebrate one of many quirky non-traditionalist efforts of mail art and book art? On demand but rare. It is an irony at which the comic mind of Dr. Alphabet is more likely bemused than outraged.

A set of the original issues of the one-word poetry magazine reside in the University of Iowa’s special collections, and individual copies are held at Harvard and Yale. Single issues become available from time to time. It’s archaelogically satisfying to think those originals and this copy of Matchbook Poems will outlast Amazon.

Images from Between the Covers and Artists’ Books and Multiples

Books On Books Collection – Enid Marx

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Marco’s Animal Alphabet (2000)

Marco’s Animal Alphabet (2000)
Enid Marx
Color scheme and pochoir by Peter Allen (École de l’Image, Epinal)
Case bound, leather spine and patterned papers on board, Fabriano doublures, 64 pages. Portfolio edition of 15, of which this is #2. Acquired from Forum Auctions, 16 December 2021.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Marco’s running verse is set in 24pt Scotch types, roman and italic. The rest of the book uses Bodoni, including the variations on the title page. The paper is 200 gsm Fabriano Artistico, 100% cotton fibres and acid-free. The patterned paper of the binding has been reconstructed for this book from a small sample. Enid Marx designed the original, and it was sold through The Little Gallery in London during the 1930s. Enid Marx was keen to have this book published for her great great nieces and nephews. A further 160 copies have been made for sale. Fifteen of these have an additional portfolio of black prints and were bound by Stephen Conway. Printing was completed in September 2000. This is copy number 2. –Colophon.

For the reader not in the know, the introduction by Graham Moss (Incline Press) explains that “Marco” was the nickname assigned to Enid Marx during her studies at the Royal College of Art, but more than that, Moss provides a warm sense of collaborating with Enid Marx (for example, A Bonnet Full of Nursery Rhymes) in life. Although this is a posthumous edition of this alphabet, Moss had the advantage of an earlier false start on it with Marx and of her insights on the idea of applying pochoir to this first formal edition (ultimately provided by Peter Allen).

It is a toss-up for which is the greater pleasure: the lines and shapes in Marco’s linocuts or the design and production by Graham Moss. Which confirms his conclusion that the posthumous collaboration is “a happy and successful one”.

Books On Books Collection – Patrice Miller

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The Eclectic Abecedarium by Edward Gorey (2022)

The Eclectic Abecedarium by Edward Gorey (2022)
Patrice Miller
Flagbook. Closed: H305 x W107 mm. Open: W495 mm. Edition of 5, of which this is #1. Acquired from Aredian Press, 17 July 2022.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Patrice Miller’s flag book uses the text and color illustrations cut from The Edward Gorey House’s poster version of Gorey’s first alphabet book, The Eclectic Abecedarium (1983). Miller has mounted the text to red, blue, or green textured cardstock, which, in turn, is affixed to a red lotka-backed accordion. Black background yuzen paper with dots of bright blue, red, and green cover the boards.

Figbash Acrobate by Edward Gorey (2023)

Figbash Acrobate by Edward Gorey (2023)
Patrice Miller
Jacob’s ladder. Box: H98 x W141 x D106. Ladder closed: H65 x W55 mm. Ladder: open H1025 mm. Acquired from Patrice Miller, 5 April 2023.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Gorey’s Figbash Acrobate in Jacob’s Ladder format. Video courtesy of Patrice Miller.

Although commissioned, the flag book and Jacob’s ladder make up part of a larger undertaking by Miller: “The Edward Gorey Binding Project”. Miller writes:

Fascinated with the works of Edward Gorey since high school, my binding efforts led me to embark on the challenge of rebinding (or binding) all 100+ titles authored by him, with the occasional distraction of books featuring his illustrations only. … A selection of the books have been displayed at the Edward Gorey House, Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts.

So far the project has yielded fan, star, accordion/stub, tufted red cotton velvet with covered buttons, flat-back, ribbon band, Green Thai alligator-pattern textured paper and goat skin, black lokta overlaid with ogura lace paper, calfskin and blue and green feathers from the binder’s parrot Django, silk-screened Indian cotton rag paper, sheer paper imbedded with irregular black yarn circles overlays, and vintage gold brocade bookcloth bindings. Another four to five years should see the job done!

Aredian Press works have received Distinguished Book Awards from the Miniature Book Society.

Books On Books Collection – Edward Gorey

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Thoughtful Alphabets (2012)

Thoughtful Alphabets: The Just Dessert / the Deadly Blotter (2012)
Edward Gorey
H136 x W136 mm, 118 pages. Acquired from Revaluation Books, 1 August 2021.
Photos of the work: Books On Books Collection.

No serious collection of alphabet books or alphabet-related artists’ books can be complete without some representative of Edward Gorey’s work. This volume brings together Thoughtful Alphabets XI and XVII, two detective stories in which the plots must be deduced from pithy alphabetized directions or alphabetized descriptions underlying static black-and-white cartoon tableaus.

Figbash Acrobate (1994)
Ædwyrd Goré (Edward Gorey)
Softcover. H113 x W75 mm. 40 folios. First edition, 500 numbered copies, of which this is #11. Acquired on eBay, 20 August 2022.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Just two representatives — even if one of them is two for one — seems hardly adequate though for a serious collection. Surely another is needed to qualify. Or perhaps some variants in homage? To judge for yourself, click

Books On Books Collection – Harriet Bart

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Dialogue: Alchemy of the Word (1993)

Dialogue: Alchemy of the Word (1993)
Harriet Bart and Helmut Löhr
French-fold card-covered, gatefold book: H260 x W243 mm, 56 pages. Includes altered book and collage print. Edition of 30, of which this is #12. Acquired from Harriet Bart, 3 June 2022.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

From the Foreword:

Art is a universal language – drawing together people of all regions, races, ages, and socioeconomic levels. Dolly Fiterman Fine Arts is pleased to premier the work of Harriet Bart and Helmut Lohr. Harriet Bart lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Helmut Lohr is based in Dusseldorf, Germany but lives for several months of the year in the United States… The French poet Stephane Mallarmé said that everything was made to end up in a book. Sculpture, collage, and photography by artists Harriet Bart and Helmut Lohr explore the alchemy of the word, the iconography of the text, the labyrinth of the book, the book as poetic object. Bart and Lohr met in New York in 1990 when they were presenting their work at the same exhibition. Drawn to each other’s work they began a dialogue about their concepts and philosophies of art and life. The conversations continued as they exchanged visits and ideas in Minneapolis, New York, and Dusseldorf. Dialogue: Alchemy of the Word is a visual presentation of their dialogue.

Befitting this book’s title, the binding is not dos-à-dos but rather vis-à-vis or face to face. When the French fold cover parts left and right, the black binding tape on the left and white on the right appear with the photo of the two artists in discussion over coffee and pastry. The interleaving gatefold design enacts a dialogue of pictured artworks and, in doing so, becomes a work of book art itself. How appropriate for Harriet Bart and the late Helmut Löhr, both of whom count artists’ books among their multimedia output.

After the foreword, Harriet Bart has the opening gambit on the verso in white type on a black background. That column in the foreground of Fading Memories/Timeless Truths (1990) almost suggests a chess move …

to which Löhr responds with his Visual Text (1989), black on white. The back and forth continues

An altered-book sculpture from Bart and one of Löhr’s collage prints accompany the deluxe edition.

The sculpture echoes Bart’s Bound History (1992), whose photo appears in the dialogue and is answered by the photo of Löhr’s Book Object (1981).

Detail views of the altered book.

Artifact (2022)

Artifact (2022)
Harriet Bart
Matchbox enclosing black-capped bottle of fragments of gold leaf, paper disks hole-punched from a reference work, resting on shreds from a dictionary and black tissue paper. Box: H40 x W63 x D24 mm. Bottle: H35 x D9 mm. Acquired from the artist, 12 April 2022.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Architext (1990)

Architext (1990)
Harriet Bart
Booklet, saddle stitch, single-staple, corrugated cardboard with title pastedown. H112 x W72 mm. [8] pages. Photocopy of larger charcoal drawings. Acquired from the artist, 3 June 2022.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

The Architext‘s content makes its title and the work an oxymoron. As a wordless narrative, it has no text, and the “text” as book shifts between presenting as architectural features (capstone, stairs, etc.) and requiring architectural features to be presented. Artifact and Architext can both be found in the following booklet published for an exhibition at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, 15 December 2010 – 15 February 2011.

Winter Projects (2010)

Winter Projects: 1990 object poems 2010 (2010)
Harriet Bart
Open spine glue binding. H178 x W128, 36 pages. Published by the Walker Art Center Library, Minneapolis, MN. Acquired from the artist, 3 June 2022.
Photos of the work: Books On Books Collection.

From the Foreword:

Every December for the past twenty years, the artist Harriet Bart, creator of the winter projects, has been making and sending multiples. These multiples echo her larger unfinished works. There are similarities, particularly in her use of repurposed materials, felt, shells, gold leaf, texts on paper, cords, and small boxes. These multiples serve as a holiday greeting for sixty or more friends and colleagues … The artist calls these multiples Visual Objects/Poems.

Harriet Bart (2003)

Harriet Bart (n.d.)
Harriet Bart
Rik Sferra, photos
Trifold, spiral bound. H152 x W162 mm, 54 pages. Acquired from the artist, 3 June 2022.
Photos of the work: Books On Books Collection.

Published in conjunction with Bart’s book exhibition at the Driscoll Babcock Gallery in New York, this booklet, printed full color on high gloss paper, divides into three parts: commissions, installations and objects/books. It presents detailed views and spreads of each, but as they are not captioned or dated, this is more a photobook than catalogue. It demonstrates the artist’s breadth from the large-scale to the delicate from Double Ode (1995), a work commissioned by Doubleday Book & Music Clubs, Inc., to Tear Vials (2012), which look like containers for the tears of Elizabeth Bishop’s “Man-Moth“, who, if carefully watched, will hand over his only possession, a tear “cool as from underground springs and pure enough to drink”.

Double Ode (1995) and Tear Vials (2012?).

The Yellow Wall Paper (2018)

The Yellow Wallpaper captures two other aspects of Bart’s work. The title refers to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s canonic short-story/novella. Like many artists of the book, Bart often springboards from a literary figure’s work. Here, it is an excerpt from Gilman’s story printed on translucent paper and wax-stamped to one side of a page taken from Charlotte Abrahams’ Wallpaper: A Collection of Modern Prints. The reverse side of the print is painted in cadmium yellow. At the exhibition where the work was displayed, Bart gave it away.

Which brings us to the second aspect of Bart’s work: her curatorial, collaborative activity. With Jon Neuse, she organized the exhibition, entitled “Wallpaper: an altered book experiment” at the Traffic Zone Center for Visual Art Mission, 50 Third Avenue North, Minneapolis, 2 July through 10 August 2018. Each artist exhibiting had been given a copy of Abrahams’ compendium and challenged to generate a work of art. Included were Scott Helmes, Vesna Kittelson, Joyce Lyon, Chip Schilling, Jody Williams, Karen Wirth, Sarita Zaleha and, last and out of alphabetical order but not least, Doug Beube, who also photographed Bart’s Double Ode installation in 1995.

Books On Books Collection – Alastair Noble

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In Memoriam+ (2021)

In Memoriam+ (2021)
Alastair Noble
Booklet thread-bound to HMP boards, cover with cutout. H210 x W205 mm, 12 pages. Edition of 22, of which this is #4. Acquired from the artist, 25 April 2021.
Photos of the work: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with permission of the artist.

This work pays tribute to Ian Hamilton Finlay, whose Little Sparta, a garden across seven acres in Scotland, that expresses an artistic vision through typography, sculpture, installations and nature. Noble writes about the origins of his tribute:

I first visited Little Sparta twenty years ago and then again last year in July out of lockdown. Thereafter, coincidentally I found a brick buried in my garden with the work “Temple” embossed on it. Consequently this became the catalyst for a little homage in form of small installation in my garden that used the brick as a foundation to an arch made from white marble fragments that suggests the Portara for Apollo’s
Temple Naxos. This installation became the stimulus for this small artist’s book completed during lockdown in my studio in Liverpool, UK. — Entry in Book Arts Newsletter, No. 138 March – mid-April 2021, p. 43.

Noble has expanded and intensified his small garden homage into a slender and rich work of book art. The sculpted structure of it — how the cover, pages, images and text work with each other — rhymes with Finlay’s art, Greek mythology and Nature. Noble’s choice of the portal to Apollo’s Temple to link the found brick and arch of marble fragments to Little Sparta and Finlay’s art finds one of its echoes in the cover’s cutout and the marble-white textured board behind it. Another echo lies in the words “metamorphosis” and “metaphoric” laid out to form an arch on the page below. And just as sonic echoes overlap one another, the words and image themselves echo across the double-page spread with the laurel leaf emblem of Daphne’s transformation to escape the pursuit of the lyre-bearing sun god and mythic patron of poets laureate.

Other overlapping echoes arise from the Greek and English word pairs on the double-page spread below. The presence of the Greek words obviously chime with Apollo’s Temple, but the presence of the English chimes more deeply with the word “metamorphic”. What is a translation if not a metamorphosis? And the rhyming of “lyre” and “liar” chimes even more deeply with “metaphoric”. What is a metaphor if not like a lyre and liar at the same time that tells us Daphne’s death is her translation into life as a tree?

Noble’s use of “meta” for his arch’s lintel also echoes Finlay’s aphoristic concrete poetry, a good example of which is The Errata of Ovid.

The Errata of Ovid (1983/4)
Ian Hamilton Finlay, Gary Hincks
Miniature portfolio. H76 x W80 mm.
Offset printed in red and black, eight loose cards enclosed in a flap folder. Typeset in Bruce Old Style(?); illustrations by Gary Hincks; card stock unknown.
Acquired from Woburn Books, 31 October 2019.
Photos: Books On Books Collection

Beyond the tribute of image/word-play, Noble’s artist’s book strikes a performative echo with the history of Finlay and Hincks’ artists’ book. A few years after the publication of The Errata of Ovid, Finlay drew up ”Six Proposals for the Improvement of Stockwood Park Nurseries in the Borough of Luton”, which included a caprice with a wall and plaques. The wall in Stockwood Park stands today, presenting the text of The Errata of Ovid engraved in eight stone plaques (minus the colophon but with the addition of “For ‘Adonis’ read ’Anemone’”). So Noble’s artist’s book followed his garden installation whereas Finlay’s garden installation followed his artist’s book. If only for perfection of that echo, one might wish Finlay’s installation be transported to Little Sparta and let Luton be satisfied with its airport!

Thresholds (2020)

Thresholds: Doors, Gates & Barriers Puno Peru (2020)
Alastair Noble
Perfect bound paperback. H215 x 140 mm, 48 pages. Acquired from the artist, 11 May 2021.
Photos of the work: Books On Books Collection.

Like In Memoriam+, this work has its roots in location and a portal metaphor. While also employing juxtaposition of text and images as a structural device, it relies on images of a category of sought readymades (doors, gates and barriers) rather than a found object (like the garden brick on which the artist builds his arch) for a structuring device that is simultaneously material and metaphor.

The way Noble uses his sources of text (Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space, Martin Heidegger’s “Building Dwelling Thinking” and Georg Simmel’s Bridge and Door) causes the reader/viewer to contribute to structure and metaphor. The first sentence of Bachelard’s excerpt begins “How many daydreams” and starts at the top of page 2; Heidegger’s beginning “The threshold” starts in the middle of page 26; and Simmel’s beginning “The human being” starts at the bottom of the page 2. Bachelard’s first sentence ends on page 8, Heidegger’s on page 28, and Simmel’s on page 12. Unless one has the mind of a symphonic composer or connoisseur, it is impossible to attend to all three excerpts simultaneously and turn the pages in one sequence. Instead, it is necessary to turn the pages back and forth along three tracks to absorb the excerpts, and the metaphoric effect is to open and close those doors, gates and barriers repeatedly, which is …

… what Noble’s very last page implies.

But finally, over the course of multiple readings/viewings, the linear photographic sequence on the recto pages seems to shift. Each image takes on a different aspect depending on the excerpt being followed. Combined with the back and forth page-turning, this shifting and break in the linear photographic sequence leaves the reader/viewer with the simulation of walking around, up and down and through Puno and its doors, gates and barriers.

Southern X 2006 : Open City, Ritoque Chile (2006)

Southern X 2006 : Open City, Ritoque Chile (2006)
Alastair Noble
Perfect bound paperback, spine taped. H215 x W218 mm, 32 pages. Acquired from Specific Object, 2 May 2021.
Photos of the work: Books On Books Collection.

Like Thresholds, this work, too, has its roots in location, but more akin to In Memoriam+, it draws on poetry, installation and performance. Open City is a utopian site affiliated with the School of Architecture of the Catholic University of Valparaíso. Accommodations and buildings have arisen by collective collaboration. There is no plan. One of the traditions associated with construction on the site is the reading of excerpts from the book Amereida (1967), a collective epic poem, which the school describes as “a poetic vision of the American continent”.

Reading the text takes us into the permanent question about being American from the recognition of the appearance of America seen as a discovery or gift. From the first page of the poem, the encounter with the unknown opens the possibility to begin to think of the new world as a gift, a gift. Its main sign: the Southern Cross, the light that goes up the horizon and guides in the north. — “Amereida“

Inspired by the Amereida during a sabbatical visit to the school and Open City, Noble proposed an installation: Southern X 2006. Given that the Amereida takes the Southern Cross for its main sign and that this sign appears across the night sky in the shape of a kite, Noble’s direction for his installation sculpture was set before he began.

The actual sculpture is but a piece of a larger collective artwork consisting of Manuel F. Sanfuentes Vio’s reading from the Amereida, the students’ procession in the shape of the Southern Cross to the site selected by Noble, the collective construction of the kite, the planting of poles and the placement of the kite on them — and of course this book that photographically documents the performance of the installation and textually presents the read passages of the Amereida.

Foldings (1998)

Ephemera for Foldings (1998) Kathy Bruce and Alastair Noble. Poster and staging sketches.
Photo: Books On Books Collection.

With Foldings, Noble joined forces with Kathy Bruce, his wife. Six masked dancers wear costumes that are in effect human-size folios across which the pages of Un Coup de Dés have been printed front and back in French. As a prerecorded English translation is read by numerous voices corresponding to the changing fonts, the dancers rotate and display the lines being read. A performance was given as part of the exhibition A Painter’s Poet, held at the Leubsborf Art Gallery (Hunter College). This fell under the aegis of the Millennium Mallarmé celebrations in New York, the poster for which can be seen above overlaying the staging sketches for the performance. Later, as part of an installation under the title Navigating the Abyss (Brookdale Community College, Lincroft, New Jersey), the costumes were suspended from the ceiling along with a framed screen mesh reminiscent of Noble’s As if / As If (see above).

Postcard from the performance (1998). Images from the installation Navigating the Abyss © Kathy Bruce and Alastair Noble. Permission to display from the artists.
Photo of staging sketches and poster: Books On Books Collection.

Books On Books Collection – Ben Shahn

2022/07/202023/03/17Books On BooksLeave a comment

The Alphabet of Creation (1954)

The Alphabet of Creation: An ancient legend from the Zohar (1954)
Ben Shahn
Hardcover, tan linen boards with red and gold decorations on cover and spine labels. H275 x 170 mm, 48 pages. Edition of 550, of which this is #497. Acquired from Midway Used and Rare Books, 7 August 2021.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Why does the alphabet begin with the letter A? There is the theory that alef‘s association in the Phoenician alphabet with the ox suggests a “needs-based” reason: food first, then shelter (B being beth meaning house). The rationale from the Zohar, however, is more entertaining and suited to the artistry of Ben Shahn.

After all of the other letters have had their say and presented their arguments, the letter A, aleph, remains:

Shahn’s artist’s book provides an example of the affinity of book art with the alphabet. The list of artists’ books and abecedaries under Further Reading offers a variety of other examples, but the reasons for that affinity may be just as mystical or speculative as the answer to the question: Why should the alphabet start with the letter A? Or, for that matter, end with the letter Z?

Books On Books Collection – Xiao Long Hua

2022/07/182022/11/06Books On BooksLeave a comment

The Blind Men and the Elephant (2019)

The Blind Men and the Elephant (2019)
Xiao Long Hua
Sleeved paperback, exposed sewn spine. Sleeve: 305 x 305 mm. Book: H303 x W305 mm. 52 pages. Edition of 500, of which this is #178. Acquired from Northing, 18 May 2022.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Working with binding designer Zhong Yu and tbook designer Lu Min of the “One and One Half Atelier”, Shanghai-based Xiao Long Hua has found a sympathetic outlet and form for his creative vision. His first work with them is The Blind Men and the Elephant, a variation on the parable in the Buddhist sutra Tittha Sutta. It takes place in the kingdom “Mirari”, ruled by King Mirror.

Selection from One and One Half Atelier. Photos: Books On Books Collection.

As in the more traditional version, the blind men report the elephant to be of different shapes, but in this version, those shapes reflect those of the blind men themselves. Throughout the book, a blueprint grid in the background of the dark blue and light gray page serves to emphasize the geometric shapes of the characters and images and to reflect, with its reductiveness, each blind man’s rigid view of the elephant’s nature. And up to this point of the blind men’s report, the grid has been bounded intermittently by coordinate markers, some numerical, some in letters and some in Chinese characters.

Xiao Long Hua places the different shapes the blind men perceive into the mind of the king, where they become a butterfly and then transform endlessly and kaleidoscopically into other figures represented across a series of pages printed dark blue. This variation on the theme comes from the Miao (Hmong) creation song Butterfly Mother or Mother Butterfly.

The final colorless two pages consist of cut-outs inviting the readers’ hands to create more strange figures along with the king’s mind. This element of touch recurs on the cover, which on closing the reader will find is covered in fingerprints. The cover’s ink is thermochromatic, fading away under the warmth of touch, returning as it cools and waiting for our next blind touch.

Selection from One and One Half Atelier edition. Photos: Books On Books Collection.

The publishing house Qianxun Neverend has issued a shorter trade edition of The Blind Men and the Elephant. Although a thermochromatic cover proved to be too expensive, an equally interesting design feature animates the cover’s image of the butterfly transforming into the multiple figures in the king’s mind.

Prior to The Blind Men and the Elephant, Xiao Long Hua engaged primarily in illustrations, scroll painting, installation works and sculpture, some of which can be seen on his Tumblr blog. For his latest work with the One and One Half Atelier, The Great Migration, the Atelier’s site announced a multimedia installation. A comment about this work sheds light on The Blind Men and the Elephant as well; he writes, “…I want to paint a magnificent picture of the Great Migration to express those spaces and memories that are fading away, I try to blur the forms between people, animals and objects. “

Other works in the Books On Books Collection to compare with The Blind Men and the Elephant include

The Black Book of Colors (2008) Menena Cottin

Like a Pearl in My Hand (2016) Carina Hesper

Vladimir Nabokov: AlphaBet in Color (2005) Jean Holabird

Blindness (2020) Masoumeh Mohtadi

Voyelles (2012) Arthur Rimbaud/Le Cadratin

Reading Closed Books (2019) Sam Winston