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London Art Book Fair, Whitechapel Gallery, 26 - 28 September - The Open College of the Arts

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London Art Book Fair, Whitechapel Gallery, 26 – 28 September thumb

London Art Book Fair, Whitechapel Gallery, 26 – 28 September

With more and more students creating books of their projects, the London Art Book Fair presents an excellent opportunity to review the state of art publishing and meet publishers. I encourage students of all disciplines to visit.
A self-contained context
A book is a self-contained context in which to show and potentially distribute your work. Unlike a gallery exhibition, a book is not limited by space and doesn’t present distractions of gallery architecture, cafeterias or other artists work. A book separates your work from the world and provides it with a little space of its own. It is also a great way to give a project a sense of closure and completion. If you make regular books, you begin to see them as plateaus of your artistic development.
Sequence
A book can also help to gel your work together into a coherent series. If you make a book, one of the first things you’ll need to think about is the sequence the images appear in. This sequence (usually left to right in Western culture) is your way of unfolding the work layer by layer and providing the viewer with a developing impression of your subject.
Layout
You can decide whether a picture is viewed on its own, in pairs or as part of a collection, grid or sequence. This was particularly important to me when I made my 3rd artist’s book “Hooks & Buoys” where the images were presented in a long connected scroll from start to finish, and from page edge to page edge. This had the effect of demoting the images, of making them seem less important and presenting them as objects of visual information without the aesthetic connotations usually ascribed to ‘singled out’ art. This, in turn, changed the way they were interpreted.
Scale
Because you have a fixed page size you can experiment with the scale of the images in relation to the page size in a way that would be expensive with single prints on a wall. Alternating the scale of your images can change the interpretation from large/objective
view to a small/intimate view.
HAB
Text
Text with images is another way of extending the meaning of your work and the way the viewer/reader interacts with it, whether the text is ancillary, supportive or a part of the art itself.
Experimental Books
Some books are artworks in themselves. Sophie Calle’s “Double Game” was produced with a fur cover and presents an anthology of Calle’s conceptual work in relation to Paul Auster’s novel “Leviathan” which used Calle’s life and work as inspiration. Diyanita Singh is another photographer who takes great care over the ‘object-ness’ of the books she creates. For example, her “Sent a letter” unfolds like a concertina to function as a ‘mini-exhibition’.
Artist’s Books
You don’t have to use companies like Blurb to print and bind your work for you, you can do it yourself quite easily with the use of an inkjet printer and some glue! If you have an A4 printer, you’ll need to print your work at half the size so that you can
fold the paper in two. You can use double-sided inkjet paper so that you can use images on both sides, but make sure it’s quite thick (over 120gsm) so that the images don’t show through too much.
Books are made in sections, one folded page slots into another and gives you a section. You then sew these together – yes sew! – with a needle and thread. This makes them strong. Then you clamp all the pages together and put a thick layer of PVA glue on the spine. When that first layer is dry, you put another layer and put your pre-folded cover on. Hold it all together with clamps for a day to dry. Then trim the edges carefully with a steel ruler and a sharp knife.
www.whitechapelgallery.org
Free entry


Posted by author: Robert Enoch

One thought on “London Art Book Fair, Whitechapel Gallery, 26 – 28 September

  • Greetings. I hope my email finds you well. I am a 47 year old British Nigerian poet, MC, DJ and journalist born in Deptford. I was homeless for two years from 1992-1994. In spite of this and having mental health and well being issues (I have schizophrenia, depression, aspergers and diabetes) I was able to gain a degree in Philosophy from University of North London and an intermediate law degree from Birkbeck College University of London. I also volunteer helping out at a local charity that organises a reading club for people with literacy problems. I also volunteer as a befriender with the charity Age UK. I am also a qualified further education tutor. I have just had my first book of poems The Leaves that Die by Ricky G published by United PC. If you search for it online you will find it there. It is available online from my publishers website, from the bookshop Waterstones and through Amazon. I need help in promoting my book. I am emailing you to ask if you could help with this. I look forward to hearing from you.

    Kind regards
    Richard Golah-Ebue(BA) aka RIcky G

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