Rapport nr. 3+4 2010-straight.indd - Norske Grafikere

Representing Artists´ Books
by Kasia Wlaszyk
Looking at the form of the book as an art asserting its own ground in the gallery space, this article
examines the foundations of KALEID editions, London’s only gallery dedicated to artists’ books and its future
development of site specific projects.
Platonic, Louise Bristow
art. Being fully aware of this condition,
the project space engaged visitors with
artists’ books by removing any presence
of vitrines or shelves and allowed people
to handle display pieces, inviting an
interactive experience with contemporary
art.
The practice of artists’ books is one of
prolific output that has rarely attracted
the equivalent representation. We know
of artists (such as Ed Ruscha) who
have made artists’ books, yet galleries
and their extended forms of discourse
seldom support this practice as an
autonomous art form. It is hard to think
of artists’ books without thinking of
books about artists, and it is this lack
of self-definition that inspired the artist
Victoria Browne to develop a project
space to focus on representation, and
introduce a new audience to ‘artists who
do books’.
Browne studied her MA at the University
of the West of England’s Centre for
Print and Artists’ Books Research, part
of which was completed in Marseille,
enabling her to visit Atelier Vis-à-Vis,
to work with Kilometer Zero, and travel
to Florence Loewy in Paris. Browne
returned to London in 2005 to work for
Bookartbookshop before running East
London Printmakers in London Fields,
Hackney. In 2009 she curated Kaleid a
group exhibition of fellow Middlesex
University artists in residence at Martin
Sexton’s Art Wars project space on
Redchurch Street, London.
Shoreditch as a East End Mecca for
contemporary art galleries, media arts and
fashion, proved an eclectic environment
and the perfect background for Browne’s
continued foray into artists’ books. In
August 2009 KALEID editions was
founded adjacent to Art Wars. And with
a month to renovate and install, opened
with Our Worlds Collided an exhibition
by emerging artist and home-grown Eastender
Leigh Clarke. A graduate from the
Royal College of Art, Clarke’s large scale
paintings and video shown alongside his
artist’s book was a brash oeuvre and a well
received show to the development of the
project’s context.
Realising the challenge of sustaining a
gallery space with consecutive artists,
a rolling programme of solo, dual and
group shows quickly emerged, reflecting
the potential diversity in the practice.
KALEID also sourced small publishers,
and by visiting an art distributor in
person, Browne was able to choose books
that related to the space and its thematic;
including Anthony D’Offay publications
of Joseph Beuys, Kiki Smith and Francesco
Clemente and Hanover Gallery’s Eduardo
Paolozzi. The carefully compiled archive
extended KALEID into both a space for
exhibiting the artistic practice as well as
a space for representing contemporary
artists’ books in a theoretical and therefore
academic discourse.
In October 2010, Alex Hamilton exhibited
large scale pen and graphite works on
paper. His ice-trumpet performance
Arches and Seizures, projected onto the
ceiling, was the inspiration for his artist’s
book of the same name, a fascimile posterbook
on archival paper. The permission to
show an artist already represented by the
London gallery Patrick Heide reaffirmed
Browne’s conviction of artists’ books as
an under-represented genre and one that
could be autonomous as a catalyst without
being limited to the artist’s own practice.
Exhibiting artists included Peter Rapp
and Nick Morley, a dual show of etchings,
screenprints, linocuts and drawings was
followed by a group show Grand Plasto-
Baader-Books, a dizzying arrangement of
unique pieces, highlighting the possibility
of artists’ books not only an editioned
practice but also one of a singular narrative.
Owen Bullett and Louise Bristow’s
maquettes, sculptures and paintings,
preceded Jonathan Ward’s solo show (the
only book-artist invited to the space) and
a season of performance art by Sheila
Ghelani, Helen Shoene, Francis Elliott
and Jordan McKenzie. Annette Habel’s
pinhole portrait photographs and Fraser
Muggeridge Studio’s designed books
meticulously deconstructed by Samantha
Huang. Browne’s nocturnal exterior wall
projection complemented Katherine’s
Jones interior mobile installation, followed
by the second group show White Heat and
an archive collection of artists’ books from
the Frans Masereel Centre in Belgium
featuring Colin Waeghe’s paintings, and
finally a group show of MA Book Arts
graduates from Camberwell College of
Arts, the University of the Arts London.
In the Post-Modern perception, the
physicality of a gallery space is inherently
scarred with connotations. It is unable
to rid itself of subjectivity and achieve a
utopian and objective representation of
KALEID adopted a sympathetic design
to the space; objects which in themselves
could be considered as pieces of art.
Swedish designer Lars Frideen’s bespoke
modular display unit could
accommodate the small press
publications. Lighting the work, a major
factor of any gallery, was constructed
from copper piping by Lee Holden, a
video and sculpture artist. Finally, in the
centre of the gallery, an original roulette
table on loan from Vivienne Westwood’s
interior designer was reupholstered in
rubber used on a catwalk in the Louvre.
This functioned as a surface to exhibit
sculptural books and quickly became the
main identity of the project. The unique
gallery hosted a multi-chromatic range
of exhibitions, simultaneously upholding
the clean aesthetics though without
transforming it into another white space.
Constantly engaging an audience at a
permanent location, KALEID editions
developed a multiplicity of artist led
activities, participatory events, book
launches, FLASH reviews and publications.
This established a heterogeneous and
Galling Moments ,Jonathan Ward
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