Artists' Books

Reading in response. by Rebecca Nicholls

I recently had the opportunity to visit the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and explore the exhibition Beginning with the Seventies: GLUT (on January 12 - April 18, 2018). As a key concern of the exhibition is the potential of reading, and the artists featured are primarily Vancouver based, I chose this week to seek out connections between GLUT and the Emily Carr Artists' Books Collection. What follows are my brief readings of books by Elizabeth Zvonar, Allyson Clay, Jamelie Hassan, Kathy Slade, and Laiwan, all of whom have work featured in the Belkin exhibition. 

MFOI - Elizabeth Zvonar (Vancouver, 2000)

Orange laminate covers creak open to a letter; "puzzles prompt deeper research". The pages are unevenly cut, we see old checkmarks, new black marker over sentences marking simple stories into complex ones. There is some of the bible here, and some crayon. 

Loci - Allyson Clay (Vancouver: Black Stone Press, 199?)

Diagrams and text combine to produce the potential for five performances. They are not always as simple as they claim to be. There is an audience and performer, but others walk in, walk out, leave a trace on a glass. The day catches up to us. Printed in letterpress on good paper. 

Jamelie-Jamila Project - j. hassan & j. ismail (North Vancouver, BC: Presentation House Gallery, 1992)

 A photograph and a poem fold up to create two pockets, inside which two women (or more) mix voices, trade news clippings, write, write again. There is news of the world and sand (a message?) in a glass bottle. We learn about names. 

Love Poem - Kathy Slade (Vancouver: Publication Studio Vancouver, 2015)

A record of attempts to recreate a love poem on a broken typewriter. The machine jams, returns unexpectedly, skips. Each imperfection creates something new. Even the dust and smudges on the pages are reproduced. Love is complicated. 

A mythology in thirteen fragments - Laiwan (1984)

Uncut pages force us to read gently, like opening a box just enough to get a glimpse of what is inside. Laiwan tells a hero's story, of growing up and finding self. Images are of heaven and hell, labyrinths, trees, and angels. A powerful little book, in deep navy blue with velum endpapers. 

Resource:

“Beginning with the Seventies: GLUT.” Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery | Current, belkin.ubc.ca/current/.