Johnny Kelly Talk about immersing yourself in a book. Welcome to what might be the world's first walk-in book. Sky Arts Ignition: Memory Palace is a collaboration between author Hari Kunzru and 20 internationally acclaimed graphic designers, illustrators and typographers. Kunzru wrote a dystopian novella set in a a futuristic London where recording, writing, collecting and art are outlawed. Then each artist was given a different passage to fuel their muse. The results are now on view at the Victoria & Albert Museum Mario Wagner Stuart Kolakovic Frank Laws Åbäke Luke Pearson If you are so inclined there is a...
Reading Pictured: Then and Now
To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark. - Victor Hugo Hundreds, possibly thousands, of images of people reading are uploaded to the web everyday. Us book types would be hard-pressed to get through a day without seeing an image of someone reading something. This was not the case in 1971 when Grossman Publishers released On Reading a compilation of photographs by Hungarian-born photographer Andre Kertész. For over a half a century Kertész took pictures of people reading, from his first photograph of a reader in 1915 until the his last...
A Bookish Look at Art Basel 2013
Art Basel is the world's premier international gathering for Modern and contemporary art. The leading art galleries from all over the globe converge on its shows held in Basel, Miami Beach, and Hong Kong each year. Fortunately for those who can't make it to Art Basel 2013, which begins today in Basel, Switzerland, Artsy gives us a front row seat to the action. Here is a small sampling of works for the book set that are currently on view: Noriko Ambe, A Book of Minimum (2013). SCAI The Bathhouse Anselm Kiefer, Für Paul Celan: Rutengänger (For Paul Celan: Diviner) (2005-2007),...
Joe McKendry illustrates Angelika Taschen’s favorite reads
Stefan Zweig’s Marie Antoinette; by the pool in Argentario, TuscanyLast year the arts and culture website Nowness had a chat with Angelika Taschen on the novels that shaped her life.Taschen, the former wife of the renowned publisher Benedict Taschen and the daughter of bookshop owners, chose eight gems and then Joe McKendry went to work illustrating them.Here are the fruits of his labor. The captions refer to the book and the place read:Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables; in hospital, CologneGottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan; a camping site, EnglandHans Fallada’s The Drinker; Ayurvedic resort, Sri LankaThomas Bernhard’s The Loser; in my bed, BerlinHans...
Anouk Kruithof’s Book Wall
Anouk Kruithof likes to "invent new things out of fragments of the past"So it shouldn't be much of a surprise that the book is at the center of her work. Enclosed Content Chatting Away In The Colour Invisibility is an installation that reinvents itself everytime it appears. Comprised of about 3,500 books, many published in the old East Germany, the wall changes each time it is constructed. Using the size of the books and the colored page ends as her palette Kruithof builds these unique walls where books become colored bricks.Each time the wall is installed it is accompanied by a video loop...