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Book Planet by John Marshall
(Source: wordpainting, via libraryland)
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Pop Delusions
A House of Credit Cards
(backed with Chinese money)
Richard Minsky, 2012
10” x 13¼” x 13¼”
Minsky’s credit cards, Chinese paper money, 23K gold leaf,
binders’ board, bookcloth, felt, linen tape, wood,
J. B. Green handmade paper, acrylic, US$10 bills.It is the glory and good of Art, That Art remains the one way possible Of speaking truths, to mouths like mine at least. - Robert Browning
The latest work from book art master Richard Minsky solidifies his position as one of the granddaddy’s of political book art.
With a powerful combination of credit cards, Chinese and American currency and copies of Charles Mackay’s seminal sociological treatise on urban follies and behavior of crowds, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Minsky has concocted a stunning visual totem to the fragility of capitalism.
Minsky calls the piece Pop Delusions and refers to it as a shrine for the Mackay text. Two editions of the book are housed inside the structure.
As with many of his projects Minsky has chronicled the making of Pop Delusions through a facebook page and is offering a limited edition poster and a book detailing the production of the piece.
We need more Richard Minsky’s!
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Stories on the Skin
How close is body art to book art?
Pretty darn close if you follow the reasoning of Arthur Jaffe. Jaffe, the founder of the seminal Jaffe Center for Book Arts at Florida Atlantic University, “saw tattooed people as walking books, because, after all, what is tattooed skin if not printed narratives, illustrations and designs? They are also telling a story,”
Jaffe goes on to remind us that “prior to paper, books were printed on parchment and vellum – the skin of animals – so the book metaphor is not a stretch.”
So why not study the art of the body? Here lies the genesis of Stories on the Skin: Tattoo Culture at FAU , a three year creative collaboration between The Jaffe Center for Book Arts and Dr. Karen Leader, a professor of Visual Arts and Art History.
”The project is designed to engage FAU’s diverse student population in an exploration of the social, cultural, and artistic phenomenon of tattooing, specifically drawing out the relationships between the images themselves and the complex histories and narratives associated with them.”
The project began with a survey (pdf) in which over 1,000 students responded, it was then followed by a call for participants to share their stories. Stories could be about:
choosing your art or its symbolism, about getting your tattoo, showing it off, hiding it, others reacting to it, and anything else meaningful to you. It can be in the form of a narrative, a poem, a song, a dialogue or screenplay, or any other creative interpretation.
and now the project culminates with the release of a film about the project that is “part documentary, part creative exploration of the metaphor of tattoos as books on the body”
There is also an exhibition catalog featuring photographs of the student tattoos by Z. McCarthy-Koppischthat is available through blurb
What a great project and one that leaves the door open for similar projects throughout the land. Wouldn’t it be great to see Stories on the Skin: The PAC 12 edition or the SEC or Big East versions. Then to be able to compare all that data….just think of the research possibilities.
More:
Article in the Sun Sentinel; Marked for life: Documentary examines FAU’s tattoo culture
Previously on book patrol:
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Gwydion ap Dafydd of Konkreet Labs hollowed out a hardcover copy of Mary Hahn’s Praktisches Kochbuch (Practical Cookbook) to conceal a MeeBlip synthesizer.
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A Banksy-style book artist is roaming the streets of Scotland.
4 amazing pieces of book art left at various book-friendly locals since March.
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New blog post at Book Patrol:
