What is an Art Book? Volume 2

What is an Art Book?
Volume 2

“What is an Art Book?”
2000 A4
sheets of
paper 36 art
practitioners
10 pens 1 day
1 night 1
desk 1 chair
1 typewriter
1 gallery
still No
heating
3

4Contents

4.................................................. Contents
6.................................................. Preface/Foreword
9.................................................. Introduction
16................................................. Alex Lawler
20................................................. Beth Fox
24................................................. Bruno Borges
28................................................. Bureau
40................................................. Carlos Correia
46................................................. Carmen Billows
48................................................. Catt Bagg
54................................................. Cedar Lewisohn
58................................................. Charlotte Norwood
62................................................. Chooc Ly Tan
66................................................. Christina Mitrentse
70................................................. Copy
74................................................. David Rickard
78................................................. Erica Scourti
100................................................ Francisca Ferreria Larsson
104................................................ Frenchmottershead
108................................................ Giorgia Sadotti
110................................................ Gordon Shrigley
118................................................ Grayson Perry Studio
122................................................ Jesse Darling
130................................................ Joey Holder
148................................................ Karl England
160................................................ Leslie Deere
174................................................ Linda Stupart
176................................................ Maite Zabala
184................................................ Marita Fraser
186................................................ Mike Miles
190................................................ Paul Knight
222................................................ Richard Ducker
234................................................ Rebecca Meanley
244................................................ Rosalind Davis
250................................................ Rui Gonçalves Cepeda
256................................................ Ruth Proctor
276................................................ Simona Brinkmann
325................................................ Steven Morgana
328................................................ Welmoet Wartena
5

Hash tag catagories developed through conversations with Carlos Noronha Feio & Mikael
Larsson of The Mews Project and Keh Ng and Matthew Stock of The Modern Language Experiment.
6Preface/Foreword
Carlos Noronha Feio
#drawing
#one-off
#print-on-demand
#poster
#text
#political
#satirical
#propaganda
#indoctrination
#waste-of-time
#post-something
#find-me-at-this-bookstore-……….
#photo-book
#edition
#expensive
#cheap
#on-sale
#sales
#www.------
#Mine-is-better-than-yours
#waste-of-paper-could-be-done-online
#proposals
#research
#language
#publicity
#self-agradising
#this-one-shouldmn’t-be-here-but-the-editors-felt-cheeky
#obsession
#collection
#documentation
Mikael Larsson
#mews
#blockade
#bound
#cage
#circle
#circumscribe
#confine
#cover
#encase
#encircle
#encompass
#project
#activity
#business
#deal

7
#enterprise
#plan
#program
#proposal
#scheme
#strategy
#task
#venture
#modern
#contemporary
#current
#modernised
#present-day
#state-of-the-art
#stylish
#avant-garde
#concomitant
#latest
#novel
#language
#accent
#dialect
#expression
#jargon
#prose
#sound,
#speech
#style
#terminology
#vocabulary
#experiment
#analysis
#attempt
#enterprise
#examination
#exercise
#experimentation
#measure
#observation
#operation
#practice
Keh Ng
#time
#psychological
#untitled
#hypothesis
#travel
#formality
#penis
#craft

8
#drawing
#mimicry
#reproduction
#animation
#sculptural
#photographic
#magazine
#literature
#mapping
#index
#cataloguing
#performance
#painting
#historical
#snapshot
#analysis
#socio-political
#solo
#group
#collaborative
#technology
#music
#text
#reference
#self
#other
#poetic
#aesthetes
#political
#statement
#observation
#social media
#comment
#web art
#formal
#conceptual
#chapter
#process
#food
#legs
#nudity
#art market
#moustache
#sexuality
#race
#banana
#bread
#curator
#showing off
#landscape
#portrait

#understated
#drunk
#media
#graphic
#logo
Matthew Stock
#verbatum
#early internet mail art
#modes of production
#nodes of alternatives
#radical alternatives to post-art production
#distopian
#turps banana
#formalism
#intimacy
#identity
#notes on identity
#off-grid
#flagellation
#choice
#language
#perry
#purposeful deconstruction
#what ever replaces Facebook
#collection
#hypothesis
#copy
#theory
#decouple
#exposure
#beauty
#drawing
#collaboration
#fun
#obsession
9

Introduction
10

“What is an Art book?” is a question that is defined by the density and the
variety of the responses it evokes. This is a complex question with many
possible responses, which will become evident as you travel through the
content produced by the 36 contributors. In these 314 pages you will find
work by artists, writers gallery directors, magazine publishers, curators and
scriptwriters. Their individual languages collide bringing written language,
drawing, video, performance, graphic design, painting, sculpture, photography,
found material as well as hybrids of all of the above.
This book was made as the Modern Language Experiment’s response to the
Whitechapel Art gallery’s Art Book Fair, at The Mews Project Space over the
course of a weekend. Much of the content was produced on site in the project
space surrounded by a constant stream of other contributors and audience
members; but many more were made in isolation within the artists own studio
and brought to the gallery. Through exposure, collaboration, isolation and
constraints we hope that we can create an alternative model for art book
production and in doing so question the books role and impact on today’s
society.
With this book we have instigated a conversation that we will continue to
develop, a question whcih will be asked again and again for it is a good
question. As the masochists in us all yearn for the definitive in what cannot
be cornered.
Long live the Art book.
Matthew & Keh
12 October 2012 & 2013
London
11

12

13

14

15

Alex Lawler
In regards to the issue of time in art… (featuring a conversation with Johann Arens).
I wanted to ask Johann about what time meant to him as an artist. I think what I really
wanted to find out was how long an idea lasted. I don’t necessarily mean how long does it
make sense to pursue one thing in making art (although this is also worth discussing) but
rather what it means to live through the moment of realising that you are ready to make
something. Or change something already made.
The defining quality of this moment is that it must overshadow the experience of the time
that directly precedes it and radically change the perception of the time that comes just
after it. I was curious to hear if that really did happen with people – if an idea is really
experienced as a swell that builds suddenly through the continual flow of time to a
specific instant which transforms the notion of time from an inarticulate plane of being,
to a sharp point from which other things are later measured.
So I asked Johan what time meant to him and if there were any psychological devises he
might use in his practice to deal with difficulties of time in art. We talked about an artist’s
gesture to demonstrate the passage of time through an individual artwork to negate the
work’s drive toward monumentality. A devise to suggest the incompleteness of any
artwork in relation to artworks not yet made. Johan also told me about footage he took of
a black car turning left.
This initially innocuous piece of footage was taken during the process of gathering
material for a work that became Untitled 2010. In the installation that came out of this
process, this moment of a car turning left serves as a counterpoint to scenes featuring
various objects filmed within quasi-domestic interiors, as well as static shots of urban
environments.
Johann Arens ‘untitled’, 2010
2 channel video, projection / monitor, 2010, HDvideo, 7’40 min loop
16

The experience he described to me of the process that came directly after discovering that
this piece of footage was actually highly functional within the artwork fitted somewhat to
the image I had in my mind of what an art idea ought to look like. The footage, which
had gone unnoticed for months, became significant. He described the passage of time
from the moment of finding the footage of the car turning left toward the point of
finishing the artwork as having passed noticeably quicker than the speed at which one
normally experiences time.
Only I felt slightly disconcerted at the idea of time slipping away from what I was
seeking to extract - individual moments of clarity within a continual fields of
timelessness. I asked if it was necessary to try to prevent specific ideas from entering into
the process of making art, but apparently that wasn’t an issue. I asked if any other
conflicting ideas might have arisen that might have confused the singularity of vision that
came from finding the car turning left. He couldn’t find any. An idea in art seemed not to
be as long as I had hoped. Rather it seemed to push time away from itself – pushing the
artist toward a point of relative inactivity – to the point of finishing an artwork.
Perhaps what is better is for me is to draw out the moment of the idea. To extend its being
by refusing to engage with the exponential quickening of time that comes from pursuing
an idea from conception to completion.
To this end I would propose a hypothetical artwork….
The work would be a spatial installation based on the 47° right hand turn from
‘Checkerboard Hill’ toward runway 13 of Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport. This important
right hand turn was used by pilots between the 1970’ to 90’s flying into Kai Tak after
flying straight toward the side of a mountain only to turn sharply at the moment when a
purpose-built checkerboard became visible. These mountains to the North of the runway
made a direct approach to runway 13 impossible. When executed correctly, this
‘Checkerboard turn’ would align the aircraft perfectly with the runway.
A Korean Air B747 turning right
toward the southeast.
The view facing the runway directly
after the turn.
17

‘Checkerboard Hill’ visible from the window of a Cathay Pacific B744.
The point of making an artwork based on the ‘Checkerboard turn’ would be to intervene
in spatial orientation of people as they pass through public space. Therefore the ‘correct’
or more important experience of the work is a moving viewer against a static art object.
Ideally the artwork would be built well over head-height, in a public space where the
checkerboard component is visible (at a receding angle, as per ‘Checkerboard Hill’) from
people descending from above. People from below (on the Ground Floor) would see the
area beneath the checkerboard component as well as its base, but not the checkerboard
face. So the situation of an escalator bringing people down from a 1 st or 2 nd storey would
be ideal.
Also, its positioning within such an environment would be predicated on the need for
more people to turn right rather than left having descended the escalator – i.e. toward an
exit, bus or train terminal. The building itself must have an open-plan atrium type
environment whereby different levels are visible from below and beneath (as is often
found in large hotels, offices and shopping malls).
I could imagine such a work to be functioning well with a base constructed out of black
powder-coated steel with stainless steel panels arranged to form a grid visible from
above. The base could consist of beams of 90° as well as 45° angles within a kind
towering trestle like structure. The panels of the grid should be painted in a semi
transparent / iridescent white or pinkish red depending on its panel. This artwork is as yet
untitled.
-Alex Lawler, London, 2012.
18

19

Beth Fox
20

21

22

23

Bruno Borges
24

25

26

27

Bureau
28

29

30

ART BOOK LEXICON
ALPHABETICAL
ARRANGEMENT
ARTIST
COMMUNICATION
CONTAINER
CONTINUOUS
CURRENCY
DIMENSION
EDIT
EXHIBITION
EXPRESSION
FORM
FORMAT
FUNCTION
LANGUAGE
LETTER(S)
LINGUISTIC
MATERIAL
MEDIUM
MESSAGE
MOVEMENT
OBJECT
PAGE
READ
READING
RHYTHM
SERIAL
SEQUENTIAL
SPACE
SPATIAL
SPEECH
STRUCTURE
SYSTEM
TEXTURE
TYPE
TEMPORAL
VOLUME
VOLUME
(Author / Editor)
(Variable)
(Abstract / Linear)
(Layout / Margin)
(Spatial / Within Structure)
(Of / Intent / Rhetoric)
(Semiotic / Sign / System)
(Active / Static)
(Blank (Canvas) / Dimension / Number(ing) / Sequence of
Spaces)
(Interpretation / Variable)
(Pace)
(Continuous / Series / Spatial)
(Space / Moment)
(Space-­‐Time Sequence)
(Possibilities)
(Act)
(Element / Function)
(Sign)
(Font / Punctuation (CAPITALS) / Version)
(Object / Density)
(Sequence / Series)
Notes:
Book as autonomous form. Book as exhibition (format).
Predecessor. Book as: catalogue; documentation; monograph; text; text and illustration (reproduction); tribute.
A space for (the distribution and exhibition of): ART, IDEA, IMAGE, TEXT.
A sequence of spaces and moments. For temporal encounters.
31

32

33

34

35

36

Artwork (exhibition / in sequential order):
5 O’ Clock (Ident), photograph of cast concrete
Daniel Fogarty, 2012
Ed Ruscha, (From: Ferus / A History of Exhibitions and Spaces series), pencil on paper
Sophia Crilly, 2012
Untitled, photograph of cast concrete
Daniel Fogarty, 2012
Untitled; Untitled; From: Visual Similarity series; and Untitled, photographs
Mark Kennard, 2012
Chapter devised by Sophia Crilly
Text © Sophia Crilly. Images © the artists.
www.bureaugallery.com
37

38

39

Carlos Correia
40

41

42

43

44

45

Carmen Billows
46

A quick thought on ‘What is an Art Book?’
An art book is an artist’s publication, an exhibition catalogue or an artist’s monograph. It usually
addresses an art expert or specialised audience. There are however art books that please a broader
public and go hand in hand with a person’s taste and life-style.
An artist’s publication, as you are confronted with right now, serves an artist in the first place as an
alternative and independent creative outlet and as one outcome within his or her artistic practice.
Often self-organised and self-published, these publications go beyond mere documentation of an
artist’s practice but represent a work of art in their own right. They allow for a different perspective on
an artist’s work and have almost filmic qualities in their concise thematic framework and the distinct
selection and successive arrangement of images and texts.
A publication has become a very popular tool of artistic articulation since the 1960s as it qualifies
to be more accessible and widely distributable and therefore said to be more democratic than other
works of art such as a sculpture or painting. Within a book an artist’s voice can reach out to a wider
audience rather than within a gallery presentation, which is bound to and almost trapped within time,
space, and socio-political context. In this regard a publication offers artists a realm of expression and
reflexion as well as a testing field for different angles of perception and arrangement of ideas outside
the gallery confines and constraints.
At the same time a publication is similar to a solo or group exhibition in its quality to present a
certain selection as well as a theoretical framework for thought. It helps trigger ideas that emerge
from within this frame as well as new connections and connotations being attempted for the first
time. Contrary, however, to the temporal, ephemeral and often insufficiently documented framework
‘exhibition’ - and a history of exhibitions’ still needs to be written - books are canonised and archived
in libraries for posterity. So while an exhibition very often lacks the realm of aftermath a publication
offers a tangible and long-lasting tool upon which we can draw back and expand.
Especially in recent times amidst the abundance of e-books a printed art publication seems to
respond to a feeling of nostalgia for the hand-made and object-based means of distribution. (In a
yearning back to 20 th century media, some artists go as far as using old-style typewriters for written
works.) In the constant evolution of technology we seem reluctant to compromise on our senses of
touch and smell next to the overemphasised visual sense.
47

Cat Bagg
48

49

50

51

52

53

Cedar Lewisohn
54

55

56

57

Charlotte Norwood
58

L
o
W
l
f
a
b
a
t
u
c
t
T
f
59

Lateral adhesion is the adhesion associated with sliding one
object on a substrate such as sliding a drop on a surface.
When the two objects are solids, either with or without a
liquid between them, the lateral adhesion is described as
friction. However, the behaviour of lateral adhesion between
a drop and a surface is tribologically different from friction
between solids, and the naturally adhesive contact between
a flat surface and a liquid drop makes the lateral adhesion in
this case, an individual field. Lateral adhesion can be measured
using the Centrifugal Adhesion Balance (CAB), which uses a
combination of centrifugal and gravitational forces to decouple
the normal and lateral forces in the problem.
The global adhesive and sealant conference takes place every
four years alternating between Europe, USA and Asia.
60

61

Chooc Ly Tan
62

OUBLIISM
The signatories of Oubliism have, under the glare of a nuclear starburst
Committed
to Shed tears
OUBLII!
Our tidal encounters conceive new physical realities from which we will harvest fresh
perspective.
OUBLIISM symbolises the most fundamental relationship with the surrounding reality;
with Oubliism new worlds and systems are perpetually borne from the ashes of a
withering civilisation.
we disown this life
With its simultaneous confusion
Of
Chaos noise disorder
Of
light separated in a rainbow
We are gathered here to proclaim the birth of an Oubliist physical reality where
extragalactic rhythms are captured
At a star formation rate
by the sensational shouts and fever of its temerarious continuum psyche
and in ALL its destructive interference within reality.
Here lies is the cross faded apogalactic line between Oubliism and all other physical
realistic trends.
To herald the genesis of cosmic time, Oubliism refuses the atomist attitude towards
existence. It tears to fractions
all those grand words like ethics, culture, humanism, good, evil, beginning, end,
which are only covers for
All-too-rational people
those who drown in matter-of-fact swamps
THE IQM 08279+5455 METHOD
turns words into spirited forces. The letters of the word "planet" smashed and
reshaped into globular clusters.
Oubliist inverts current norms
Invents fragile forms
Aligning itself not to the symmetry of reason but to
63

POSSIBILITIES that forms of expression live in all physical realities.
Modernist architecture reconfigured into dance on stage,
Botany explored for its sonic possibilities
it spreads cacophony, dissonance, atonality and indeterminacy
over all the continents
The word Oublii shows the intergalactic nature of a movement which is bound by no
golden ratio, or physical laws. Oublii is the inconceivably vast expression of our
cosmic time, the great rebellion of revolutionary movements, the physical realistic
reflexion of all those many frictions, human struggles and clashes that surround us.
Oublii demands the use of
NEW MATERIALS IN THE READING OF THE WORLD
OUblii is an organisation which has been founded in London which you can join
without turbulence. Oublii is not some pretext to bolster up the pride of
a few neo thinkers (as our enemies would have the world believe).
Oublii is a state,
you are an oubliist or your aren't. Out of Uncertainties.
To be an Oubliist means
being thrown with angular momentum by events,
being against matter that settles to the bottom of the abyss; but
it also means putting your life in a vacuum... One says yes
to an existence that seeks to grow by negation.
Down with atomist-aesthetic-ethical tendencies!
Down with failed innovations!
Down with the literary hollow-heads and their theories for improving the material
universe!
by Chooc Ly Tan
Contributed to the text: Shabaka Hutchings, Peter Lewis, Dada and recent Astrophysics
64

65

Christine Mitrentse
66

67

68

69

Copy
A space for recording, thinking through, drafting,
Presentation,
Often treat with reverence if it is crafted,
A social space,
Somewhere between production
A repetition, disseminated widely, encountered individually,
A work of art
Folded, pasted, passed around, thrown away,
Open
A thread binding artist, author, idea
A space in which things are shifted around
70

documenting, archiving, presenting, exhibiting
not re-presentation
or of great value
an event not an object
and display
located in multiple places simultaneously yet mobile, placeless
made with/for/as the book
stuffed under a table leg, re-read
/closed
and reader
and climbed or reclined on for a while
71

72

73

David Rickard
74

75

76

77

Erica Scourti
78

TEN BOOKS I STILL
HAVEN’T READ
SUMMARISED INTO
ONE SENTENCE
ERICA SCOURTI 2012
79

80

OF GOD:
THAT HE
EXISTS
81

82

ONLY
CONCEPTS
CAN FULFILL
WHAT THE
CONCEPT
HINDERS.
83

84

WHAT AN
EXTRAORDINARY
MAN!
85

86

IN WHAT
STRANGE
SIMPLIFICATION
AND
FALSIFICATION
MAN LIVES!
87

88

THE
JUDGEMENT
OF TASTE IS
AESTHETIC.
89

90

LINE OF CHANCE,
LINE OF HIPS,
LINE OF FLIGHT.
91

92

CREATION
OF VALUE IS
TRANSFORMATION
OF LABOUR-POWER
INTO LABOUR.
93

94

FURTHER,
HOW WILL
PERISHABLE
THINGS EXIST,
IF THEIR
PRINCIPLES ARE
TO BE ANNULLED?
95

96

IT IS
THUS A
DREAM OF
CONVENIENCE.
97

98

EGO IS INFINITE
SELF−RELATION OF
MIND, BUT AS
SUBJECTIVE OR AS
SELF−CERTAINTY.
99

Francisca Ferreria Larsson
100

101 97

98
102

103

Frenchmottershead
104

Use this art book for
dipping
yourself
not much
a doorstop
inspiration
breeding dust
future reference
completing the set
impressing your guests
hand-crafting a lampshade
an Amazon resale investment
showing support to a contributor
a ‘heat-sink’ for your external hard drives
information about artists you’ve never heard of
sculpting a terrain model of your chosen landscape
as part of a bequest to art students in the city of New York
a symbol of your individuality and belief in personal freedom
Developed from responses to a facebook post: thanks to all contributors
105

106

107

Giorgia Sardotti
108

Wha is not a Art Bok?
109

Gordon Shrigley
110

111105

112

106
107
113

114

108
115109

116

110
117
111

Grayson Perry Studio
118

From:
Subject:
Date:
To:
Grayson Perry <grayson_perry@hotmail.com>
Vacation reply
11 September 2012 22:32:49 GMT+01:00
keh.ng@modernlanguageexperiment.org
Hello,
Thank you for your email. I am currently away and will deal with your query on the 12 September.
Grayson will be checking this email intermittently.
Charlotte
Grayson Perry’s assistant
Please note that I work with Grayson on Thursdays, so any requests should be dealt by within a
week from receipt.
If the matter is super urgent you can try me on: 07966 351 260 Thank You!
http://alanmeasles.posterous.com
113
119

120

121

Jesse Darling
122

123

124

125

126

127

128

129

Joey Holder
130

131

132

133

134

135

136

137

138

139

140

141

142

143

144

145

146

147

Karl England
148

149

150

151

152

153

154

155

156

157

158

159

Leslie Deere
160

161

162

163

164

165

166

167

168

169

170

171

172

173

Linda Stupart
174

175

Maite Zabala
176

137 177

138
178

139
179

140 180

181
141

142 182

183

Marita Fraser
184

185

Mike Miles
186

147
187

8
188

189

Paul Knight
190

191 151

192

193 153

194 154

195

196

197 157

198 158

199 159

200 160

160
201

202

203 163

204 164

205 165

206 166

207

208 168

209 169

210 170

211 171

212

213

214 174

215 175

216 176

217 177

218 178

181 219

220

221

Richard Ducker
222

223

224

225

226

227

228

229

230

231

232

233

Rebecca Meanley
234

235 195

236

197 237

238

197 239

240

241 199

242

201
243

Rosalind Davis
244

245

246

247

248

249

Rui Gonçalves Cepeda
250

207
251

208 252

209 253

210
254

255

Ruth Procter
256

213
257

214
258

259 215

216
260

261 217

218 262

263 219

220 264

221 265

222
266

223
267

224
268

225 269

226 270

2271

228 272

273

274

275

Simona Brinkmann
276

277

278

279

280

281

282

283

284

285

286

287

288

289

290

291

292

293

294

295

296

297

298

299

300

301

302

303

304

305

306

307

308

309

310

311

312

313

314

315

316

317

318

319

320

321

322

323

324

325

Steven Morgana
326

327

Welmoet Mortena
328

329

330

331

332

This book was produced
as part of collaboration
between The Modern
Language Experiment &
The Mews Project for
The Artists Book Weekend
15th September 2013
Editors
Keh Ng & Matthew Stock
Copy Editor
The Modern Language Experiment
Design
The Modern Language Experiment
Published
The Modern Language Experiment
First published 2013
contact@modernlanguageexperiment.org
Issue #2
Available to buy at
www.modernlangaugeexperiment.org
© the modern language experiment 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any mechanical, electronic or other
means known with out the permission in
writing from the publishers.
333

334

With Contributions by
Alex Lawler
Beth Fox
Bruno Borges
Bureau
Carlos Correia
Carmen Billows
Catt Bagg
Cedar Lewisohn
Charlotte Norwood
Chooc Ly Tan
Christina Mitrentse
Copy
David Rickard
Erica Scourti
Francisca Ferreria Larsson
Frenchmottershead
Giorgia Sadotti
Gordon Shrigley
Grayson Perry Studio
Jesse Darling
Joey Holder
Karl England
Leslie Deere
Linda Stupart
Maite Zabala
Marita Fraser
Mike Miles
Paul Knight
Richard Ducker
Rebecca Meanley
Rosalind Davis
Rui Gonçalves Cepeda
Ruth Proctor
Simona Brinkmann
Steven Morgana
Welmoet Wartena