Tag: Books and Art

Pop-Up, Walk In

“Space Book” is a life-size wordless pop-up installation by designer Jin-Hui Kim.Though I couldn't find the dimensions for the piece it seems to dwarf the largest pop-up book on record. The Guinness Book of World Records lists Roger Culbertson's version of Aesop's Fables as the largest pop-up book on record. Culbertson's creation is 48" x 30" and weighed in at 28.5 pounds.Thanks to Yanko Design for the lead

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Books as a War Casualty

"I wouldn’t be telling you anything new by declaring that wars create many casualties. Wars kill and amputate humans. This is a vérité de la palice. But there are other casualties: books stand first in line among them." Mai Ghoussoub in the introduction to her play "Texterminators"She goes on:Literature is inseparable today from the books that carry their stories. If we want to save literature we have to save the rectangular objects that carry and spread their words. We have to respect the book for what it is: an art object that we should defend, defend against censors, narrow-minded educators...

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‘The Hairy Times’ of Diane Jacobs

The Hairy Times. Handmade paper from the New York Times & Los Angeles Times, human hair, letterpress text, 2005For her Hairy Times installation Diane Jacobs chooses "hair to explore the contradictions and controversies inherent in our current political climate." The installation ranges from the two items featured here to pieces featuring an oil drum, bubble gum machine and coffee grinder.The Hairy Times which was created from shredded New York Times and Los Angeles Times papers, "manifests the media's failure to ask the hard questions and hold the government accountable. The ramifications of this neglect and deceit are made evident in...

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The Book Carvings of Kylie Stillman

Common Oak, 2007From the trees come the paper and on the paper comes the printed words and from the binding of paper comes the book. Australian artist Kylie Stillman brings us full circle with her incredible book carvings. In Stillman's world the trees come from paper and the birds that once lived in those trees are back nesting between words.Pictorella Finch, 2003In her 2007 installation Little Room Stillman creates a profound environment reuniting the trees and the birds with the paper that originated in their habitatLee Kottner says of Stillman "her carvings remind me of the elaborate fore-edge paintings in...

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The Painted Pages of Annette Mangseth and Will Ashford

For writers it is the blank page, for artists it is the blank canvas but for a growing number of altered book artists the starting point for their work is the printed page.Norwegian artist Annette Mangseth has created an impressive body of work using the pages from old books as her canvas. Mangseth, working under the banner of Carambatack Design, infuses 19th century pages with colorful scenes, reinventing age old texts with a little playful pop surrealism.Girl on a Swing 8.2" x 11.6" acrylic paint, ink and marker on a printed page.I Fly Over Rain Clouds8.2" x 5.9 " Acrylic...

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