Black books: The use of color in artists' books

Bodman, Sarah L.

Abstract

When I began thinking of examples of colour in recent artists' books for this article, many works sprang to mind. The first work I thought of was Alison Turnbull's Spring Snow-A Translation (Book Works, 2002), a beautiful reworking of Yukio Mishima's novel Spring Snow in which the aritst transcribed the narrative into a series of more than 600 color blocks asa visual essay on the act of translation. Then there was Kurt Johannessen's perfectly green book, I Am A Frog (2009), a surreal account of his performance lecture (conducted entirely in green) using science and philosophy to ask whether he could actually be a frog, and Mark Pawson's Pink Paper (2004), a book made from lurid fluorescent pink paper, repeatedly creased, crumpled and smoothed out by the artist until it reaches a state where it becomes easier to manipulate and acually look at.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2013
• Journal: Art in Print
• Print ISSN: 2164-2702
• Publisher: Art in Print
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 3
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 4-10
• Keywords: artists' books, colour
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/936885
• Publisher URL: http://artinprint.org/index.php/journal