Components of a Special Collection Section

Richard Orjis Erica van Zon Simon Esling Peter Madden Andrew McLeod David Merritt Arch MacDonnell/John Reynolds Tara McLeod Peter Simpson Brendan O’Brien Greg O’Brien Megan Jenkinson Max White Mary-Louise Browne Simon Denny Fiona Jack Kate Newby Gail Keefe Tom Irwin Books in my practice operate in numerous ways. They function both in an archival sense and as a work of art in I started making small artists books in 2001 when I was still at AUT. I started o! making catalogues using formats that I I think the ‘book’ I made operates mostly as an artwork and then as a document of the sketchbooks that I no longer have Mostly my books are vey small runs, i.e. one o!s. Being a collage artist I think a lot about were my images come from The books are mostly for my drawings which are mostly b&w and so are cheap to copy. I’ll give a copy to my friends and a One day I was on tour around the top of the South Island with a group of musicians called Curbside Cabaret and they TO DO ONE'S LOLLY / LARRIKINISM! / CRAP-TO-GRAM Always a problem, the de"nition of 'artist’s books'. The Holloway Press aims to honour the tradition of small press publishing in New Zealand, as represented by people like The projects that I have been involved in do resemble something a juggle of varied intentions, but most signi"cant As someone who works as a writer as well as a visual artist, the 'book', in its broader sense, is very much my most natural A book is a small, portable container that invites the viewer to enter the intimacy of its expanded spaces. My book-based work was originally produced and exhibited as part of an MFA I did at Elam in the early 2000s. My books are meant to operate as single objects even though they exist in small editions. They are conceptual artworks One recent book Video Aquarium Broadcast was a 'compilation' of exhibition projects that masqueraded as a DVD, in size Most of the books I have made are objects in themselves, not documentation of something else. Some have been My books are intended to operate in many ways – as collaboration, artwork, a di!erent kind of documentation for ideas The collection began with the donation of books from Alberto Alvarez’ printmaking students at Elam. Beginning in 1985, My role at the Fine Arts Library is as one of two Subject Librarians for the departments of Fine Arts and Art History. themselves. The artist's book is a very open and versatile platform that operates successfully for many di!erent purposes. copied from institutions like The Auckland City Art Gallery (local artist's series) that I initially intended to make a or make. An epitaph to the sketchbooks I made before and during my Masters degree. At some point it occurred to me (mags and books). The books I have made are extensions of these thoughts. They are nearly always intended to be art few copies to Parsons Bookshop and they distribute them through their networks which I don't know much about. They were ribbing me about my lack of merchandise. I already had a nice rubberstamp set and a old i-mac that could dtp Ron Holloway, Bob Lowry, Pat Dobbie, Robin Lush, Denis Glover, Leo Bensemann, Bob Gormack and Alan Loney – by among them would be the prospect for collaboration, the construction of artworks and documentation. The “Pine” within the con"nes of commercial publishing producing extraordinary work, books loaded with character and energy. I’d habitat. It is a zone where words and images can strike up relationships, go about their separate and joint business. This three words in the last poem in my book Days beside water ... I would like to acknowledge the long-term commitment of Elam librarians past and present – speci"cally Valerie in a domestic residential setting, can for the most part never be. For this reason hand-made books are ideal for present- in the guise of a book that serve as a vehicle to address socio cultural and socio political concerns. and organisational principles. I wanted to tap into certain histories of video documentation, and to confuse purposes and exhibited, many not, but most have circulated independently of an exhibition. and to think though projects. I have made several publications over the past years that I consider components of the Alberto set his students an assignment to make books. They had to make two copies of their books, and one copy was to Together with the Fine Arts Librarian we develop and care for the library’s collection to best meet the academic require- The playful jack-in-a-box nature of CLOUD BOOK signals our shared sense of wit as an accelerated vector for blurring The gradual unfolding of a book is a necessary foil to the overabundance and rapid confusion of much contemporary For several years prior to that I was making paintings based around The Whau Portage, at Avondale and its environs. renegade 'donation' to their library as a means of distribution. In the end I sold catalogues through Parsons, which were that the sketchbook was no longer a signi"cant part of what I did. I tended to go straight into making a large drawing, so works. go on my website as pdfs. If you call them 'zines' the political-punk-comic kids might look at them and if you call them pdfs for photocopies. I bought a $60 stapler, staples, a gluestick or three from Warehouse Stationary, and started - My press (The Pear Tree Press) is based around letterpress print technology, so all the work undertaken is within the using letterpress technology to print materials unlikely to be suitable for commercial publishing but which have literary, project with Bill Manhire and Ralph Hotere worked primarily at these levels. The work on “Pine” involved a sharing of like to imagine my book work #oating (or perhaps even bouncing) between these extremes. intimate juxtaposition of words and images (and their merging in the case of Colin McCahon or Ian Hamilton Finlay) has Richards, Gail Keefe, Jane Wild, and Tom Irwin – to the establishment, and ongoing enhancement, of Elam’s signi"cant ing subject matter which is in some way culturally contentious: it is a format which may more underline the compromised, somewhat dusty dissemination methods that books o!er. exhibitions that I have made them in support of. be donated to the Fine Arts Library. This continued for a number of years and was the start of the Artists’ Book Collection ments of the University and achieve the objectives of the Library. I have made several books through the years, from six page books that I printed on the colour printers at art school and Winter I was was an exhibition as well as a book. There's a lot of tra%c going to and fro, between the writing and then distributed or made free ones to give away. making geek prayers, which had just been published earlier that year by Kilmog Press in Dunedin. I got books from the boundaries between the "elds of design, publishing and art. It seemed very appropriate that a collaborative project limitations of the process. always inspired me. When I was a teenager, I bought a copy of Colin McCahon's 15 Drawings (published by the Hocken media. In a similar way I "nd the control inherent in an imposed sequence, such as may be established within a book, is Artist’s Book Collection. In addition Elizabeth Eastmond, formerly of the Art History department at The University of Photography was part of my practice as documentation for this work. I made several books between 1979 and 1982 while at Elam School of Fine Arts. These books "t into my wider practice as I have made a large amount of books – since I was a teenager. Something happens to a collection of papers when they at the Library. However, before that the Library was buying books such as Edward Ruscha’s Various Small Fires. These it seemed redundant for me to try and make preparation drawings. In this sense the clipboard became a device that 'artists’ books' the more academic people might look etc. But there's only so much acceptance I can expect from anyone artistic or historic merit. ideas and skills; it involved the re"nement of the unusual techniques that were incorporated to create an edition where book-making and drawing (and, when I get the chance,) painting ... and now printmaking has entered the equation too. stapled together to large one o! books like the one I did for 'My Empire of Dirt' series. This book was a yellow volume that The content was always my own original work – in some cases more of a documentation of various artworks and events. I I have made lots of di!erent kinds of books: loose leaf ones, casts of books, concertinaed books, books with holes, books conceived as a fragment of Cloud, a vast massing of written New Zealandisms, should toy with 'the book' in some form. - Printing from metal type, hand cut printing blocks: linocut, woodcut, wood-engraved. Plus photo mechanically Beyond the function of books as vehicles for commonplace communication, they can assume critical roles as gathering preferable to the random oblivion of hypertext. Auckland University, also greatly enriched students’ appreciation and understanding of rare manuscripts and contempo- readily avoid censorship. Amongst other texts on a shelf, hand-made books can even be hidden in plain view and as they my work was then as now, preoccupied with the material qualities of language and the notion of ‘translation’ from one Another book that I am working on now, Cruise Line, consists primarily of commissioned texts (one science "ction, one are bound together that I am repeatedly drawn to.

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