Inventor
02-28-2008, 10:53 PM
N-bombs And Containers Of Nothing (http://www.freetimes.com/stories/15/43/nbombs-and-containers-of-nothing)
By Michael Gill
A book like Ben Blount's Head Nigger In Charge could derail an entire show. Regardless of whether its nominal subject, Barack Obama, becomes the next US president or even the Democratic nominee, HNIC sits like a quiet bomb in a case in the basement of the Notre Dame College administration building, waiting for visitors to come and tick through its pages. It's a rare synthesis of explosive provocation and profound substance, captured in the meticulous craft of a resurgent art. But let's not derail the entire show.
The medium is the handmade book. HNIC - as Blount's book title is abbreviated in the show catalog and on its information card, while the full title is spelled out only on its cover - is part of Beyond the Codex, an exhibit of handmade books in the art gallery at Notre Dame College. Organized by associate professor of art Rachel Morris, Beyond the Codex is an outgrowth of a local resurgence of bookmaking as an art form. The 13 artists in the show are people Morris knows from her own adventures in calligraphy and bookmaking. The show highlights a variety of distinct ways in which bookmaking appeals, from emphasis on the presentation of content to a complete disinterest in content, manifest in books of inventive design but completely without words.
If the handcrafting of books is on the rise (as the formation of an organization called Artist Books Cleveland, or ABC, seems to indicate), that happens against a digital backdrop. Never before has it been easier to propagate ideas in text, either in virtual form, or more expensively and perhaps wastefully in physical books. Making books by hand - whether one-of-a-kind volumes or micro-runs typically measured in the tens - strikes a blow against the devaluation that has gone with digital printing and mass production on the cheap, or even at the photocopier. No matter what the artist emphasizes, it comes from a love of the book as an object.
Some of the artists in Beyond the Codex treat the book more as sculpture than as an information delivery system, and so with plenty of origami influence they set about reinventing the form. Some of Morris's own work is an example of this. Illuminations, her cylindrical lanterns, encircled with expressive calligraphy, are slightly reminiscent of Noguchi's paper lanterns, but with billowy pastel clouds as a background for her lettering. They evolved out of flood-inspired experiments with ink on waterlogged vellum. The only thing these have in common with books is that they present text. They're nothing like the efficient form that enabled the book to endure across centuries as the densely packed information sandwich that it is.
Book conservator and papermaker Anne Carroll Kearney's works in the show pursue the book as material sculpture, completely eschewing words but binding handmade papers that show off materials like lake weed from Wisconsin and linen thread, which she has integrated into handmade papers. Instead of words, the books make their points through the evolution of color and texture as the pages turn.
Even farther down the sculptural line are the books, boxes and boxes of books made by Barb Morgan. Her crafty emphasis is strongly origami-influenced and mostly focused on meticulous cutting and folding that makes for inventively shaped containers of nothing.
The most exciting works in the show, however, take the book for what it is and through pure strength of content, or by the careful consideration of form in light of content, or by the use of old-school printing techniques that inject human expression in a way that is unavailable through the sterility of digital mass production, gain gravity and emotional resonance by the effort invested in their creation, and by their rarity. Even if the artist made an edition of a few dozen copies, you can't just get these on Amazon.
Take the work of Wendy Partridge. Her Dream Journal I and Dream Journal II were made in the early '90s while she was studying letterpress printing in San Francisco. Both incorporate her own letterpressed words with map engravings. The second of these exemplifies the bookmaking process, which is time-consuming and evolutionary. Letterpress printing has a physicality that "slows you way down," as she says. And as you turn the pages, you learn that as she began setting the poetic text of Dream Journal II, her mother was still alive but was diagnosed with cancer. As the pages turn, she describes walking with her family, hiking at Big Sur, seeing people caught in the receding waves. A note at the end indicates that during the production of the book, her mother passed away. While reading, a person can't help but be stricken by the fact that during the nine months it took to set up the type - handling and setting each letter one by one, like beads on a rosary - the final book, an edition of 35, would be informed by the changing news as the weeks went by.
Several people in this show have studied with Ben Blount, who is director of continuing education at the Cleveland Institute of Art, where he teaches a bookmaking class. Blount has two books in the show, both of which are finely crafted works that integrate letterpress words with images made from polymer plates. He favors bold simplicity - conventional bindings, graphically strong red and black ink on white paper. Both of his books in blunt language examine race issues in American culture, but by its subject and timing and the possibility that Barack Obama will become the first African-American president of the United States, Blount's Head Nigger In Charge steals the show.
It's not so much about Obama as it is on the occasion of the African American's candidacy. Blount has made a bold image of Obama for each right-hand page and letter by letter set media quotations, and occasionally the words of Barack and Michelle Obama that illuminate attitudes about successful African Americans, the weird scrutiny they face. Each spread is headlined with an adjective and the word "Nigger." Under the headline "Nice Nigger," Blount cites a quotation of Democratic Sen. Joe Biden, assessing Obama as a rival for the nomination, as "the first African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."
Under the headline "Real Nigger," Obama himself is quoted responding to questions about whether he smoked marijuana: "When I was a kid, I inhaled. Frequently. That was the point."
Page after page of very slightly teetering, hand-set type presses Blount's message - extracted from culture at large - into the paper and upon our eyes. It's a mirror for our national reaction to the historic candidate. If this kind of thing were a message on YouTube, it would spread like viral contagion across the country, and especially across Ohio as we prepare for our primary. But that's contrary to the point. As a handmade book, it is a precious and very intense object, a bold-face whisper in the ear of the few people fortunate enough to see it.
By Michael Gill
A book like Ben Blount's Head Nigger In Charge could derail an entire show. Regardless of whether its nominal subject, Barack Obama, becomes the next US president or even the Democratic nominee, HNIC sits like a quiet bomb in a case in the basement of the Notre Dame College administration building, waiting for visitors to come and tick through its pages. It's a rare synthesis of explosive provocation and profound substance, captured in the meticulous craft of a resurgent art. But let's not derail the entire show.
The medium is the handmade book. HNIC - as Blount's book title is abbreviated in the show catalog and on its information card, while the full title is spelled out only on its cover - is part of Beyond the Codex, an exhibit of handmade books in the art gallery at Notre Dame College. Organized by associate professor of art Rachel Morris, Beyond the Codex is an outgrowth of a local resurgence of bookmaking as an art form. The 13 artists in the show are people Morris knows from her own adventures in calligraphy and bookmaking. The show highlights a variety of distinct ways in which bookmaking appeals, from emphasis on the presentation of content to a complete disinterest in content, manifest in books of inventive design but completely without words.
If the handcrafting of books is on the rise (as the formation of an organization called Artist Books Cleveland, or ABC, seems to indicate), that happens against a digital backdrop. Never before has it been easier to propagate ideas in text, either in virtual form, or more expensively and perhaps wastefully in physical books. Making books by hand - whether one-of-a-kind volumes or micro-runs typically measured in the tens - strikes a blow against the devaluation that has gone with digital printing and mass production on the cheap, or even at the photocopier. No matter what the artist emphasizes, it comes from a love of the book as an object.
Some of the artists in Beyond the Codex treat the book more as sculpture than as an information delivery system, and so with plenty of origami influence they set about reinventing the form. Some of Morris's own work is an example of this. Illuminations, her cylindrical lanterns, encircled with expressive calligraphy, are slightly reminiscent of Noguchi's paper lanterns, but with billowy pastel clouds as a background for her lettering. They evolved out of flood-inspired experiments with ink on waterlogged vellum. The only thing these have in common with books is that they present text. They're nothing like the efficient form that enabled the book to endure across centuries as the densely packed information sandwich that it is.
Book conservator and papermaker Anne Carroll Kearney's works in the show pursue the book as material sculpture, completely eschewing words but binding handmade papers that show off materials like lake weed from Wisconsin and linen thread, which she has integrated into handmade papers. Instead of words, the books make their points through the evolution of color and texture as the pages turn.
Even farther down the sculptural line are the books, boxes and boxes of books made by Barb Morgan. Her crafty emphasis is strongly origami-influenced and mostly focused on meticulous cutting and folding that makes for inventively shaped containers of nothing.
The most exciting works in the show, however, take the book for what it is and through pure strength of content, or by the careful consideration of form in light of content, or by the use of old-school printing techniques that inject human expression in a way that is unavailable through the sterility of digital mass production, gain gravity and emotional resonance by the effort invested in their creation, and by their rarity. Even if the artist made an edition of a few dozen copies, you can't just get these on Amazon.
Take the work of Wendy Partridge. Her Dream Journal I and Dream Journal II were made in the early '90s while she was studying letterpress printing in San Francisco. Both incorporate her own letterpressed words with map engravings. The second of these exemplifies the bookmaking process, which is time-consuming and evolutionary. Letterpress printing has a physicality that "slows you way down," as she says. And as you turn the pages, you learn that as she began setting the poetic text of Dream Journal II, her mother was still alive but was diagnosed with cancer. As the pages turn, she describes walking with her family, hiking at Big Sur, seeing people caught in the receding waves. A note at the end indicates that during the production of the book, her mother passed away. While reading, a person can't help but be stricken by the fact that during the nine months it took to set up the type - handling and setting each letter one by one, like beads on a rosary - the final book, an edition of 35, would be informed by the changing news as the weeks went by.
Several people in this show have studied with Ben Blount, who is director of continuing education at the Cleveland Institute of Art, where he teaches a bookmaking class. Blount has two books in the show, both of which are finely crafted works that integrate letterpress words with images made from polymer plates. He favors bold simplicity - conventional bindings, graphically strong red and black ink on white paper. Both of his books in blunt language examine race issues in American culture, but by its subject and timing and the possibility that Barack Obama will become the first African-American president of the United States, Blount's Head Nigger In Charge steals the show.
It's not so much about Obama as it is on the occasion of the African American's candidacy. Blount has made a bold image of Obama for each right-hand page and letter by letter set media quotations, and occasionally the words of Barack and Michelle Obama that illuminate attitudes about successful African Americans, the weird scrutiny they face. Each spread is headlined with an adjective and the word "Nigger." Under the headline "Nice Nigger," Blount cites a quotation of Democratic Sen. Joe Biden, assessing Obama as a rival for the nomination, as "the first African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."
Under the headline "Real Nigger," Obama himself is quoted responding to questions about whether he smoked marijuana: "When I was a kid, I inhaled. Frequently. That was the point."
Page after page of very slightly teetering, hand-set type presses Blount's message - extracted from culture at large - into the paper and upon our eyes. It's a mirror for our national reaction to the historic candidate. If this kind of thing were a message on YouTube, it would spread like viral contagion across the country, and especially across Ohio as we prepare for our primary. But that's contrary to the point. As a handmade book, it is a precious and very intense object, a bold-face whisper in the ear of the few people fortunate enough to see it.