Maria White

Bookmarking Book Art – AMBruno “Finale”

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A promotional booklet cover featuring the text 'AMBruno 2025 FINALE' and an abstract image of draped fabric with a geometric shape, along with the phrase 'The proposals:'.

AMBruno’s last project Finale proved to be a fertile prompt for 19 artists and their 18 works. I thank Sophie Loss and John MacDowall for the fun and honor of reviewing the entries.

When I consider an artist’s book for acquisition or inclusion in an exhibit, I want it to make me read with my eyes, hands, and mind. Following the text is not enough. It should demand that I see the shapes of letters, words, images, pages, and the entire work itself. Turning a page is not enough. It should demand that I handle, unfold, rotate, manipulate – feel it. Mentally deciphering the work’s signs is not enough. I want it to make me think – about how the shape, material, and making work together – about how artists’ books before this one may be present – about how other literary, visual, sculptural, architectural, performative, or even digital art may be present.

So, you can appreciate what a challenge it was to select works on the basis of a few sentences or paragraphs describing what the artists planned to submit.

Now add that the proposals’ ranged from simple pamphlet fold to intricate concertina pop-up and to piano-hinged sculpture, from relief prints to photographic prints, from a Renaissance nude to a carnivalesque Full Monte, from entirely text to entirely blank, and from celebration to lamentation and back.

A close-up of an open book with artistic covers, featuring a painting of a chubby child holding an owl. The background includes another book with a different artwork.
A man dressed as a king wearing a golden crown, a red cape, and a gold skirt, posing in front of a sign that reads 'Sun God' and 'Philip Lee'.

Now add their settings from fireworks displays, theatrical productions, the Book of Common Prayer’s Order for the Burial of the Dead, book burnings, a mythic road trip, and a televised lunar crash.

And then add the range of literary and other media influences – from the Greek myths, Bronzino, John Donne, James Joyce, Heinrich Heine, Georges Perec, J.B. Priestley, to the evening television news.

As I mentioned, it was an honor to be tortured with the challenge of imagining what the artists intended. On seeing the final results with Sophie and John via Zoom, my imagination was much relieved and delighted.

As I watched the artists present their works and the audience inspect the Finale selections, look hard and long, touch them, and think slowly, I was convinced of their delight as well.

As a group, the entries represented almost every variety of artist’s book I have encountered. One form missing though was the un-openable book. I feared that someone might propose a tombstone carved in the shape of a book which would weigh like a lump on the proceedings. There was, however, a book that took on the shape of a tombstone but seemed to take flight when opened. And although among the entries there were mourners for the final AMBruno project, there were celebratory memorializers as well. In fact, as Sophie and John reviewed the arrivals alphabetically for me by Zoom, I laughed that chance ended our session with Roy Willingham’s Touch Paper, a wonderfully structured diamond-shaped concertina whose folios each burst open to name a traditional English firework and combine to make a larger diamond.

An artistic sculpture of a book titled '...And yet' by Karen Blake, featuring a textured spine and layered pages, placed on a dark, textured base.
Colorful pop-up book page featuring geometric designs, with text labels 'GLITTER BOMB' and 'MINE OF FIERY SERPENTS'.

How fitting that the finale of AMBruno’s Finale turns out to be a firework display that should prompt not only oohs and aahs but also a round of applause for Sophie Loss and friends for the 16 AMBruno projects over the past 14 years.

A group of people applauding in a library setting, with several tables displaying books and materials. The audience shows diverse reactions, and a few individuals are standing while others are seated.

The nineteen Finale artists were: Karen Blake, Laure Catugier, Claudia de la Torre, Judy Goldhill, Susan Johanknecht & Katharine Meynell, Rafael Klein, Pauline Lamont-Fisher, Philip Lee, Sophie Loss, John McDowall, Alastair Noble, Linda Parr, Ximena Pérez Grobet, Peter Rapp, Mireille Ribière, Cally Trench, Maria White, and Roy Willingham. Visit the AMBruno site and shop for additional views of the works.

Photography: Books On Books Collection, Sophie Loss, Judy Goldhill, Philip Lee, DDK, Julie Jones, Julia Davy-Brown, and Steve Davy-Brown.

Bookmarking Book Art – The British Library’s “Artists’ Books Now” series

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Recent exhibition of art from Oliver Jeffers’ and Sam Winston’s A Child of Books. The British Library.

Richard Price and his team at The British Library just concluded their fifth event in this series of “show and tell” talks by book artists. Most of the events have staked a claim to some relationship with a British Library event or exhibition current at the time — World Book Night, Writing: Making your Mark, and Buddhism — but the title of this fifth event punningly encapsulates the real point of the entire series: “Contemplating: Artist’s Books Now”.

When picturing an artist’s book what do you imagine?  Intricate design, ornate bindings, blank space, fold outs and pop-up rinsed through with vibrancy of text and colour. Is it something more unearthly and harder to describe? An air of peace in the topsy-turvy hullabaloo of our modern world.  A pause of contemplation as a work speaks to you? Or, on the contrary, is it a space of immense energy, of ‘thought-provocation’, where contemplation is something you feel compelled to do to make sense of the sensations and ideas the book stimulates? “Contemplating: Artists’ Books Now”

Whether the organizing theme has been “here and now” “place”, “Latin America“, “writing” or “contemplation”, the evening inevitably turns to reflecting on the nature of book art, bookworks, the artist’s book, the book arts, bookness and even art itself. Even with 50-60 in the audience and four to six presentations, Price and team have arranged the agenda to allow for hands-on “viewing” of the works, conversations with the artists and question time that evolves into a room-wide conversation, not just Q&A.

So far, the team — consisting of book artists and researchers Egidija Čiricaitė and Sophie Loss and the librarians Jeremy Jenkins and Richard Price — has attracted a consistently eclectic, talented and insightful set of artists, collectors, curators, librarians, academics and moderators for each event. To name but a few: Danny Aldred, Lucy Bell, Tracey Bush, Nancy Campbell, Maria Fusco, John McDowall, Gill Partington, Caroline Penn, Clive Phillpot, Francisca Prieto, Chris Taylor, Michael Wellen, Maria White and Sam Winston.

One wishes for Artists’ Books Now once a month! Not to detract from the efforts and energy of the team, but how hard and wonderful would it be to coordinate a future series of Artists’ Books Now to coincide the weeks before or after Bristol’s Book Artists Event, Edinburgh’s Artists’ BookMarket, Liverpool’s Artists’ Book Fair, Leeds‘ International Contemporary Artists’ Book Fair, Norwich’s Turn the Page and Sheffield’s revived Artists’ Book Fair?