The Blue Notebook, Volume 7, Number 2, April 2013 / Edited by Sarah Bodman

Identifier:REF.SE.2378.8

Dimensions:8.125 x 11.75 in

:2013

Description:Essays: A history of alternative publishing reflecting the evolution of print. An edited extract from Chapter 2 of a new book by Alessandro Ludovico, offers an analysis of the strategic use of print, by avant-garde artistic movements throughout the 20th century, as well as in the context of the underground press from the 1950s through the 1980s, and finally in light of the most recent developments in underground publishing (such as the production of technically perfect ‘fakes’ made possible through digital technology).

Beth Williamson in conversation with Helen Douglas, explores Douglas’s Traquair House, a bookwork commissioned in 2012 as part of Reflective Histories: Contemporary Art Interventions at Traquair House. Responding to the oldest inhabited house in Scotland, and its contents, this manuscript book echoes the small devotional books in the library at Traquair. In its dialogue with both house and reader, this contemporary manuscript calls forth the histories of the house and the book in a fashion that reclaims their importance for the twenty-first century.

Emma Powell explores the development of we love your books – a book arts collaboration that held its first exhibition in 2005. The article charts the eight exhibitions that have been held: Meeting in the Middle; Full Circle / Random Journey; ABC; re: closure; (e)motive; Crop and minute. This is integrated with a discussion of the work of twelve book artists who have exhibited with we love your books. The book-work of Melanie Bush and Emma Powell, co-founders of we love your books, is then explored and the article concludes with a summary and a Call For Entries.

Jim Butler explores printmaking and the artist’s book. While the rise to prominence of printed multiples opens up new possibilities, it presents particular problems for the printmaker, especially those working with non-digital media. This is due in no small measure to the economics of the artist’s book. The development of the concept of an original limited edition print in the late 19th century established an artistic and economic framework for artist printmakers which is still largely valid today. The article considers how this framework might apply to artist printmakers working in book form.

Artists’ pages by: Ellen Golla, Alexander Mouton, Benedict Phillips, Aymee Smith and Daniel Speight.

Cover design by Tom Sowden.