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Exhibition Guide TRICKING THE IMPOSSIBLE word and type · penny rimbaud and bracketpress exhibition guide IN THE BACKGROUND… AN INTRODUCTION by Christian Brett I first came to Penny’s work through a couple of manuscripts – Or Maybe Crass, saving up my dinner money to Tomorrow and This Crippled Flesh buy Feeding of the Five Thousand – which Pomona didn’t want to be when I was about 10 or 11 years old. involved in. When I first saw This dissertation, Censorship by Omission Twenty years later we would start Crippled Flesh I was so excited. It and the Economics of Truth (C4) working together and a great friend- was like being given the opportunity which Penny suggested publishing as ship has grown from that. to work on a William Burroughs text, a pamphlet. Gee suggested the name but more. So, with my partner Alice, ‘Bracket Press’ after my penchant for Our first meeting came about in 2003 began several years of revisiting and bracketing the folios in my book while I was typesetting books for revising the typesetting while trying designs. And so Bracketpress came publisher Mark Hodkinson at Pomona to get someone to take on the book into being and is also my trading Books. Mark had an idea to create a and publish it properly – John Calder, name. series of lyric books by English bands, Hamish Hamilton and Damien Hirst and asked if I had any ideas. The only being those who showed genuine The first pamphlet we published of one I thought worthwhile would be to interest. In late 2009 we revisited Penny’s work was Freedom is such a do a Crass lyric book – but to present the design and overhauled the core big word [2006]. This essay was it like poetry, elegant rather than the typefaces and got the money originally commissioned by Dazed & line / line / line typewriter style of together to publish the first edition Confused magazine for their their earlier LPs. I drafted up some of 100 copies, which much to our ‘Freedom Issue’ [Vol.2 #39, July 2006]. rough layouts, came up with the surprise sold-out before the books Ironically the piece was pulled at the name for the book Love Songs, the arrived back from the printers. last minute and so Penny gave it to us back cover blurb and the publishing to publish as a pamphlet. Since which date (14th February), and also the Bracketpress as an entity actually we’ve published much of his writing non-chronological running order. came about though Penny and Gee and also carried out some typesetting Sometime later, Penny sent Pomona (Vaucher) reading my degree of his work for other publishers. WHO? Penny Rimbaud was born in 1943. He is a Christian Brett (b.1969) left school at 16. He is Alice Smith (b.1983) graduated with a 1st class writer, poet, philosopher, raconteur, painter, fortunate to be one of the last properly taught BA and MA in Design and Art Direction from musician and activist. He was a member of the typesetters, serving his apprenticeship under Manchester Metropolitan University in 2005. performance art group EXIT and co-founder the tutelage of Messrs. Ashworth and Hall at Since which she has produced illustrations and of the Stonehenge Free Festival. In 1977 he The Composing Room, Manchester. Following designs for books, magazines, brand identities, co-founded with Steve Ignorant, the massively the collapse of the industry with the introduc- music packaging, retail, advertising, instal- influential punk rock collective Crass who tion of desktop publishing, he went on to sell lations and exhibitions. She has a particular disbanded in 1984. He continues to perform guitars and amplifiers for 10 years. Having interest in book illustration and cover design, and record with a diverse variety of musicians, gotten sick of selling dreams to people – he she has produced book covers and illustrated drawn mainly from the avant-garde. He has went back to school, eventually graduating books for Penguin Books, Pan Macmillan. She recently participated in events supported by from Manchester Metropolitan University recently produced a series of illustrations with the British Council in Argentina, Brazil and Interactive Arts, BA (Hons) 1st. It was while curator Judith Clark for The Vulgar: Fashion Mexico. He shares a house with his lifelong studying he met his partner Alice, with whom Redefined exhibition at the Barbican Art artistic partner Gee Vaucher. he later founded Bracketpress. He is a self- Gallery. Alice and has worked as the art director employed typesetter and book designer. for the Idler magazine for the past 10 years. 1 “You can make a small fortune in from a stream of consciousness whilst it’s for something very specific – which publishing as long as you start out reading the manuscripts, and then I usually ask Alice to take, much to with a big one.” – John Calder tend to come together as a mixture her irritation at my lack of tech of collage and mark making, and savviness. There’s nothing more Never a truer word spoken in jest. eventually juxtaposed digitally. irritating to me than people constant- Because Bracketpress as a publishing ly snapping away, whether on a trip entity is entirely self-financed and run Penny’s work is challenging. Visceral. out or a concert or whatever. You’ll on the fumes earned from working for It demands attention and concentra- never look at them again. You’ll never proper publishers, we have never tion. It is not easy. It is provocative look at that stuff once it’s posted it actively sought to publish anything; and confrontational. It is deeply on Facebook or YouTube. Surely, the work we have published is the personal and at the same time deeply memories are enough? result of existing relationships and not political. It is also very beautiful, solicited material. At the heart of moving and occasionally very funny Aside from constant use of note- Bracketpress is the idea of doing (in the same way that Burroughs books, I’ve also kept what I call something I love (typesetting) without and Pinter are…funny). workbooks. The first of these I started the interference of non-creatives around 1997. Up until a few years (accounts managers, marketing I’ve said this many times, that through back they are what you would expect, departments and heads of publish- my day job I’ve had the opportunity but since discovering Blurb.com I’ve ing). I’ve never got around to creating to work with some very interesting been creating one-off books docu- a portfolio of work, but the things individuals and occasionally some menting the more interesting things we’ve published have drawn people brilliant writers; but I would choose I’ve been involved in – they are in to work with us. to work with Penny’s writing over effect an edited archive of material anyone’s, bar none. The generosity that would otherwise remain invisible As a typesetter, when working for of spirit and endless encouragement on an external hard drive. I know, the clients – I see my role as both archi- both Penny and Gee have given us time spent creating these could have tect and bricklayer, and the work I over the years is extraordinary. That been spent producing a portfolio, but carry out is one of constant learning. they continue to grow and move hey ho. I also keep an open workbook Endlessly refining an idea, working forward as artists, creating work that on my machine that runs from January towards that perfect piece of typeset- is as challenging as what they were to December each year which I add ting.* The harmonious balance doing 40 years ago is an inspiration. to as I go along. They include all between black and white. The under- sorts, like the ridiculous email I stated beauty. Unfussy, economic and This exhibition has been laid out in a received on New Year’s Eve inviting elegant. The space between the non-chronological order because, as me to estimate costs for typesetting notes … taking those principals and you’ll see, many of the projects span and letterpress printing a book at applying them to Penny’s work is, I time and overlap in a disorderly an outdoor festival this summer. think where I have the most fun. The fashion. But predominately they contain my work on show here is the playground, own work, stuff which isn’t directly it’s where I get to fuck around and fail connected to any jobbing work, that without fear, and it is where I succeed. A note on archiving… has no purpose other than the doing. What is an archive? The process? The My favourite thing is taking the often Alice says: “Christian’s priority is good stuff? The work that wasn’t mediocre images sent to me by always the interior, the exterior cover compromised in favour of what the clients which I then destroy beyond design he seems to dismiss as committee wanted? The detritus of all recognition in Photoshop to create ‘window dressing’, and often goes design? The physical evidence that beautiful painterly abstract images. with a gut instinct minimal design you existed and all the bad decisions There’s hundreds of these now, repurposed from his private projects. you made. It’s like a diary. Like a without purpose other than they give It’s quite the opposite approach to collection of LPs and CDs, it triggers me great pleasure in making them. how most book designers work.” memories. Opening up the archive to pull out the material relating to Ask me the question and I’ll tell you Alice’s illustrations are usually drawn Penny for this show was strange.
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