Artist's Book Yearbook 2003-2005 - Book Arts - University of the ...

But in the context of the book, what had been
in the gallery a vertical pairing is now
transformed by its book arts context into the
different dynamic exposed by a series of double
page-spreads, with additional texts in Latin.
The photographs and texts are not illustrations
of, they are the work. And the essays on either
side of the images? Each was commissioned by
the artist, who also selected the editor, and
designed the whole project, including of course
the cover. The book was also self-published.
And, over many ‘lunch’ times, it could be
added, packaged and self-distributed. What
could be more of an artist’s book? While
looking so properly like…an art history book?
A book published in March 2003 brings my
essay to a close. Power, by Patrick Reynolds
wholly confounds those early agendas of the
artist’s book movement. Knowingly.
Power Patrick Reynolds, Waikato Museum, Hamilton, 2003
Power is very big, its cover seriously black.
It appeared in a prestigious gallery, and was
funded by a major energy company: Mighty
River Power. Its dramatic black and white
photographs (some 500mm x 500mm) show
parts of the power station constructions, their
poles, turbine halls and pipelines, within
regional, largely primaeval, landscapes. Quite
appropriate for the board of directors. And
yet… it is an artist’s book, in its concept and
layout. Accompanied by critical essays and
poets’ writings, both offshore (Eliot) and local
(Leigh Davis), with its first nation’s landscapes
and its first world industry, the project inhabits,
in a sense, a world of global regionalism.
On the double-page spread illustrated you can
see the watchful presence of a Maori ancestor
carving staring across the gutter of the book at
the Mokai pipelines. The image serves as an
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effective reminder of this land’s intertwined,
but also different and often conflicting
histories. If Aotearoa (New Zealand) is a book,
it is still formatted in terms of unequal power
sharing, as is proclaimed in the different scales
used and the resulting dynamic tellingly
constructed in this double-page spread.
and
And? And artists’ pages. Not artists’ books.
Although pages are their bottom line, they
power them. As with book-related installations,
there are simply too many artists’ pages to
include in this brief essay. They flourished
particularly in a cluster of ‘little’ magazines
(not all little) in the ’80s and ’90s: Monica,
Midwest, Splash, ANTIC, AND…and they
continue to settle into, and unsettle, and sprawl
through, various contexts. Page power.
Just a second for one, ‘though: a blank page,
paginated only, in AND, among ninety-three
densely packed pages of poetry and criticism. 20
All black and white. That is except for pp. 47-8.
It is pink. The table of contents lists it as Gift. A
breathing-space. A pause. A moment in time.
Elizabeth Eastmond lectures in Art History at the
the University of Auckland, New Zealand,
teaching papers on women artists, the book
arts, and self-portraiture and identity
construction in New Zealand art. She has
published on Frances Hodgkins, New Zealand
women artists, and on medieval illuminated
books in New Zealand collections.
Exhibition curation includes:
Alexis Hunter: Fears / Dreams / Desires, and
Landscape / Painting, Landscape / Writing: Frances
Hodgkins's Late Landscapes.
She was co-editor of the journal ANTIC.