Libro Libero, 2013 “I destroy books...But actually my work is positive. A discarded book is a dead book. I give it new life.” - Jukhee Kwon For artist Jukhee Kwon, a South Korean working in London, the book is where it all begins. “It’s freedom and excitement for me, trying to express what has been hidden inside the book’s closed covers. The book has its own story, its own energy.” Kwon works only with discarded books, painstakingly and meticulously cutting hundreds of pages to create her new objects. From La Scatola Gallery: The artist notes a personal and cultural narrative within her...
Words of Mystery
As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "every word was once a poem", but where do these words come from? Independent filmmaker Jessica Oreck unfolds some of the etymological meaning of words in her new animated mini-series, Mysteries of Vernacular. Each word is skillfully constructed within the pages of old books, then animated in a 90 second short, often taking 80 hours or more to create. When complete, the Mysteries' shorts will contain 26 installments of word origins in alphabetical order. By day, Oreck produces documentary films on such topics as Russian folktales against a backdrop of war in The Vanquishing of the Witch Baba Yaga, and Arctic Cowboys, about reindeer herders in Finnish Lapland. The Mysteries mini-series began as...
The Landscape of the Book
the sky and the ground (for Remy Charlip), Michael Dumontier, 2012, foil stamp on found books.Sometimes we just need labels to explain what we are seeing.::From Stopping Off Place via vineet kaur.
The Altered Bibles of Linda Ekstrom
Circling Altered Bible 9d x 9w x 9h bi·ble/ˈbībəl/Noun:The Christian scriptures, consisting of the Old and New Testaments.The Jewish scriptures, consisting of the Torah, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa.For the believers it is the word of god. For others it is a tool of oppression and for some simply a book of stories taken way too literally. Homeland, 2001. Altered Bible 6d x 12w x 2.5h inchesFor Linda Ekstrom it is the foundation of her 'Word' series. Why not start at the source.Ekstrom is no heathen, her work "is a direct extension and materialization of [her] religious practice and interest...
Altering Louis L’Amour: ‘West of Dodge’ by Nico Vassilakis
Nico Vassilakis has been a cornerstone of the Seattle visual and concrete poetry scene for many years. He is a founding member of the "Subtext Collective" and was co-curator of the recently retired Subtext Reading Series, which for 15 years exposed Seattle to a plethora of new writing from across the country.His latest book, West of Dodge has recently been published by Ireland's Redfoxpress, a press dedicated "to experimental, concrete and visual poetry, or any work combining text and visual arts in the spirit of dada or fluxus." It is the latest work in their series C'est mon dada.The book...