Thursday 20 August 2015

Kentridge, William (South Africa) Everyone their Own Projector

Kentridge, William (South Africa)
Everyone their Own Projector
Unnumbered copy.
Everyone Their Own Projector is an artist's book published by Captures Edition in Valence, France. It was created as the focus of the exhibition of the same name held recently in Paris. Kentridge made roughly one hundred drawings for the book, using collage on text pages torn from books he has cannibalized for years, such as Mrs Beaton's Book of Household Remedies, and the French Larousse Encyclopaedia, favouring ink and brush drawing with crayon on the text pages.
The artist romps through the history of art on each page of the book, looking at and bringing his own perception to Giotto, Masaccio's Expulsion from Eden, Manet's famous bartender and Rembrandt's beautiful study of his second wife, Hendrickje paddling in a stream. These visual quotations are punctuated by typical Kentridge imagery and obtuse rhetorical questions. His new character, Nicholai Gogol's Nose appears, intimately exploring the female body: contemporary female bodies from South Africa alongside studies of Degas' femmes apres le bain. The Nose travels with Kentridge, examining the artist's selected artistic lineage, and the classic subject of the European artist until the mid twentieth century, that of the female nude”.
from:

Wednesday 19 August 2015

Cyclopedia of Drawing - William Kentridge.

Signed copy dated July 2008, gift from the artist.
 “Using pages from an American Technical Society reference book published in 1924, Kentridge creates each cell of his animation over mechanical and architectural engravings used to illustrate the fabrication of sheet metal and tinsmith projects. Kentridge has often used existing printed material from encyclopedias, maps and charts, indexes to create foundations that reflect knowledge, history or metaphysics.
In Cyclopedia of Drawings, Kentridge’s alter ego Felix jumps into the air and quickly morphs into a bird taking flight. After his brief stint as Icarus, he somersaults back to the ground and ends in a relaxing, almost comic pose. On each page, the diagrams and formulations from the technical book seem to be ‘proving’ the possibility of this remarkable feat while at the same time the page headers of SHEET METAL WORK and TINSMITHING humorously mock with their connotations of home-made construction and physical weight.


This book was published in an edition of 1000 copies, 100 of which were signed and numbered. I know of at least one other flipbook that was published in 1999 which I have heard animates a nude Felix as he scoops water up in his hat. The animation is supposedly drawn over pages from a Catalan grammar course book. Both of these have become very rare and very difficult to find. Originally priced at 28 euros, Cyclopedia of Drawing is now usually a couple hundred dollars. It is soft cover and approximately 6 by 8 ¼ inches with a strip of black binder’s tape on the edge. The reproductions are well done on a creamy yellow heavy paper stock common to technical manuals which is edged in red”.
from:
http://5b4.blogspot.com/2008/01/william-kentridge-prints-and-cyclopedia.html

Tuesday 18 August 2015

Reacting to Renee (Omnibus). Renee Leslie/Cheryl Penn (South Africa)..


Reacting to Renee (Omnibus)   
Renee Leslie/Cheryl Penn (South Africa).
Colophon: unique collaborative artists book.  Mixed media including drawing, digital prints, text, collage, sewing, painting, 32 pages with pockets. Dated September 2009.

Its quite strange looking back to the beginning of making books. I had forgotten so many things.  Reopening these works has been a joy on every occasion.  Using ‘X’ as a character, I responded to some drawings Renee swopped with me or visa versa.  They were dreams I had had, and although when I first looked again, some of the drawings seem irrelevant, they were absolutely not.  One dream:


X hummed love among the ruins whilst sitting on a rickety chair looking at a set of ruins.  A lonely chair in a lonely spot.  It was growing dark, but X kept seeing a flash of blue among the dereliction. A LARGE blue chameleon emerged from the rubble, sitting on a broken pillar, blinking morosely at X.  The chameleon suddenly JUMPED and wrapped its legs about X’s neck.  X got such a fright! But all the chameleon needed was love among the ruins.  I smile as I remember this, so clearly. 

Monday 17 August 2015

One Thousand and One Steps. Cheryl Penn.

One Thousand and One Steps
No. 1 of an edition of intended 5 (only 3 materialized) digitally printed books.  Text from One Thousand and One Nights;
“Thou thoughtest well of the days when they went well with thee
and fearedst not the evil that destiny was bringing.
Thy nights were peaceful
and thou wast deceived by them
in the midst of their brightness cometh gloom.
Who is there to aid me in mine affliction
For my pain hath become intense
and my remedy is scarce procurable…

Let fortune do whatever it willeth
a decreed term is my invisible lot
to bear with cheerful mind
and as soon as its days have expired I die.


As the text wanders out the page, so she wandered through the pages.

Saturday 8 August 2015

The Tinder Box (Part Two) Joan Martin/Cheryl Penn (South Africa)


Joan is an artist I have a great deal of respect for.  She is a teacher of the highest caliber, generous with her time and expertise and is good at EVERYTHING she turns her hand to.  This book was part two as we collaborated on part one together and she kept that book.   Colophon:  Unique collaborative artists book, accordion bound, mixed media including drawing, painting, text, stickers, fabric.  extended - 295cm X 30cm. 



Friday 7 August 2015

Everything and Nothing and Juniper trees and Reacting and Random and impressive and Everything and Reaction and Life and Bald and Paint and Barter and Plans and Eyes  and William and Henry. - Cheryl Penn/Jane Leach (South Africa)

Everything and Nothing and Juniper trees and Reacting and Random and impressive and Everything and Reaction and Life and Bald and Paint and Barter and Plans and Eyes  and William and Henry. 

I tell you one thing I found interesting digging into my treasure trove of books - Everything - appears quite a few times.  
All our thoughts and intuition has been there from the time we start to create, some kind of genetic information chain that resides in the nonphysical.  And, this has to be the longest title I’ve seen in a long time.  I think it came after the book - an indication of the eclectic nature of its pages.  I was very privileged when Jane Leach agreed to collaborate with me.

Colophon:  Unique artists book.  Drawing, collage, painting, text, sewing, acetate, various papers, linoprints, monoprints, stamps, stencils, wax, fabric.  54 pages, 37cm x 25cm x 6cm. Dated December 2009.