BOOKTALKS｜Artists’ Books Series — Irma Boom

2022-10-15

Sat

15:00

17:00

Speaker

Tsai Yin-Chin Book Art Researcher/Curator

Location

Winsing Art Place (No. 6, Lane 10, Lane 180, Section 6, Section 6, Minquan East Road, Neihu District, Taipei City)

Fee

$500 (including bookstore entrance fee and a cup of hand-brewed coffee)

Introduction

The Art House Salon invited PAPER MATTER Founder Cai Yin-Chin to be the Book of the Year selection and to collaborate on the Artists' Books Series on the collection of Wen Sin Art. This lecture series focuses on exploring artists' books with a focus on artists' books from the 1970s to artists who are considered media/media artists who are still publishing as art practices today. Reviewing and content seminars, parsing the structure of books and their logic of generation, how they act as a complement or node to a creative plan; in other words, why do artists make books? And how his ideas flow, Sui has become the best medium for what art theorist/curator Lucy Lippard calls the best medium for the public.

“I compare my work to architecture. I don't build Villas, I build Social Housing.” -- Irma Boom.

The face of book design today, in part due to the creative practices of the Dutch book designer Irma Boom, 1960-, and the author's attitude of autonomy, makes books more than just a medium, but also as a creative medium for the public, which is extended to the field of art and is widely discussed. From the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) to Madrid, Ivorypress, an important organization for artist books, collect and study them as works of art. The idea of book design is often discussed as a branch of the artist's book. The purpose of this Salon Talk is to be introduced from this context to analyze Ima ・ Fabric senses how concepts can be channeled through editing, arranging, and framing techniques between book design and art practice.

Ima Bou has designed more than 300 books since the studio was founded in 1991. Her work is based not only on the visual basis of abstract, geometric, and triune colors of the Dutch style (De Stijl), but also adopts the design methods and practices of twentieth-century avant-garde design and publishing In addition to combing through the interaction of the above art history and classical works, the lecture also discusses the publication of dozens of books by Ima Bou in the three genres of “independent creation”, “cross-domain collaboration” and “catalog writing”. Deeply recognized the winner of three Gold Awards for the World's Most Beautiful Book Design and the Queen of Books for the Gutenberg Prize for Lifetime Achievement in German Book Design in 2001.

Event Recap

Ima Bouw challenges the extremes of paper book design with her award-winning works, such as the collection “Sheila Hicks: Weaving as Metaphor” by fabric designer Sheila Hicks, a colorful work by a nonwoven designer. The whole book has an elegant look, covers and pages without titles, and special printing and cropping of books. Textile artwork in the interior. Readers who want to attract readers outside the fabric design circle with their mysterious, metaphorical appearance. In the collection “Viktor&Rolf Cover” by the Dutch designer duo Viktor & Rolf, she uses negative images and different thick paper to highlight the texture of the fabric on each garment, consisting of multiple folds on the frame, and finally uses a fuchsia acetate fiber to wrap the book. Headbook. Ima Bouw combed the works of Viktor & Rolf in this very special design, whether in appearance or in the way of reading.

In addition to the above books, selected works from several books will be presented in the lecture: Ima Boe and architect Rem Koolhaas have been friends and partners for many years, and they were born in the Netherlands and first met in the 90s, when Imambo and Koujas had just finished a book of their own — These are SHV Think Book 1996-1896 (1996) and S, M, L, XL (1995). Almost simultaneously releasing most of the major books, similar ideas, and a shared interest in design, the two have worked together for a long time to date. The first officially published book, Project Japan: Metabolism Talks in 2011, is a collection of essays, interviews, and imagery from Koujas and curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist on the history of Japan's metabolitionist architecture movement. Elements of Architecture, published in 2019, is considered the best representation of architecture and books in collaboration between the two. This hefty 2,528-page book comes from the exhibition of the same name curated by Koujas at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2014. Lead the audience to experience the building with 15 architectural elements, including ceilings, corridors, door fans, and more. At the exhibition site, Ima Bouya responded by design: transforming the elements into a 15-book booklet set, where the audience could read the essays as they visited. The brochures are the showrooms, the exhibition is the manuals. Five years after the exhibition ended, Elements was published together with the original content, with an introduction by Koujas and Ima Bouquet to shape the entire book into a more complete “Architecture Encyclopedia”.

The architect masters the sense of space by creating models, and Ima Bouw, a book designer who likens her work to architecture, uses book models to help design ideas. With each assignment, she handcrafted book models, which are important aids in the creative process. For her, just like designing a building, “scale” is important in the design of the book: size, weight, and even smell require careful consideration. And the presence of these book models helps her to view, in a less direct way, the relationships that are distributed across the pages between the texts. Later, she published her own catalogue of works, Irma Boom: Book Manifest, in the form of a small volume. This three-sided brush-colored, thick, bright red booklet contains all of Emma Boelhaas's selected works, and the cover is emblazoned with an emblem designed for her by architect Rem Koolhaas. Its compact appearance and comprehensive content make Irma Boom: Book Manifest the most accessible form of Emma's collection. However, it is only by personally reviewing the books she has designed that one can appreciate the dedication and ingenuity of this important contemporary book creator with each book.