NEVERMORE

I just got a copy of my latest publication Nevermore from ZimZalla run by Tom Jenks. This is a standing poem in the form of a zigzag folding card with a silkscreen text printed on both sides. A tribute to the poet Robert Creeley, the text in full is a variation on the statement 'form is never more than an extension of content' attributed to Creeley by Charles Olson in his 1950 essay 'Projective Verse'. My poem is designed as a portable Creeley memorial, alluding also to Olson and (because of the title) further back to that pioneer of American poetics Edgar Allen Poe. Ideally this piece would be made in wood and fabric and installed as a free standing folding screen with a face size of just under six foot square.
The folding card is 350 gsm Antalis Perfect Image printed by Handbench Screenprint.

The black side of the sleeve cover is letterpress printed in three kinds of Univers type and the red side is a purpose-made ZimZalla rubber stamp, both on 300 gsm Somerset printmaking paper. This is a hand made edition of 40 copies available only from ZimZalla.

LETTERPRESS PRINTING IN PLYMOUTH

Exmouth from the train at Starcross

I got an early train to Plymouth University on Tuesday to take part in a letterpress printing induction in the Faculty of Arts Scott Building, with writers Anthony Caleshu, Angela Szczepaniak and Jamie Popowich. The three-hour workshop was run by Paul Collier -- a printer, technician and teacher who is in charge of the outstanding type collection located in Plymouth. There is a large range of lead and wood types which are no longer manufactured commercially. I understand that the collection is of national importance, there is certainly no other collection like it in the region. So it was a privilege to have a demonstration of how type is composed and how some of the different kinds of printing machinery work. We set our names and some lines of type and they were combined into a column that we each got to print on good quality paper. It came out OK for a first try, the feel of the impression on inked paper does it for me, beautiful. My first books were pulp novels printed letterpress by NEL in the early 1970s and I saw each one first in a heap of galleys with I think three pages on each long sheet, very different from the current digital print.
    I'm hoping to get some new work made in letterpress over the next few weeks.

The printshop at Plymouth University

NEON WORK EXHIBITED IN BURY, MANCHESTER

Still on show at Bury Art Museum (5th October 2013 to 1 February 2014) is the exhibition Time for Light which comprises works by Grazia Toderi, Brass Art and Tony Lopez.
Grazia Toderi's video installation Atlante Rosso (2012), a huge disc of revolving lights accompanied by machine-like sounds, seems to be based on night time illuminated cityscapes seen from the air. Brass Art's new installation of The Air That Held Them is three large fabric heads that slowly inflate and individually collapse, filling up the main gallery and creating a strange spooky atmosphere. My neon Are We Not All Palestinian?, manufactured in Manchester in 2012, is shown for the first time in a gallery with Trespass a neon piece in a suitcase by Brass Art.

BOB COBBING ABC IN SOUND

On 8th October I went to the opening of Bob Cobbing: ABC in Sound, curated by William Cobbing and Rosie Cooper at the Exhibition Research Centre, Liverpool John Moores University. This is an exhibition about the whole career of the leading British concrete and sound poet, virtuoso performer, publisher, poetry activist, teacher and intermedia artist Bob Cobbing (1920-2002). The exhibition features recordings going back to the 1960s and 70s, lots of publications and printed works, framed artworks, and works by some of his collaborators such as Dom Sylvester Houedard, Henri Chopin, and his wife Jennifer Pike. There are also documents relating to his activities as an arts and poetry activist, and to his early career as a teacher. Apart from the sheer compression and brilliance of his best work (see above, read it aloud), Cobbing was an influential poet and artist who inspired a whole generation through his generous workshops, performances and work as a publisher. It was a pleasure to see this show and have the many aspects of Cobbing's career sampled and effectively shown together, some of the best visual works reprinted and shown in large format. A new film by artist Holly Antrum presents Jennifer Pike's dance performance work. This was my first visit to the Exhibitions Research Centre in the John Lennon Art and Design Building, next to the Catholic Cathedral in Liverpool. Thanks to Robert Sheppard and Patricia Farrell for their kind hospitality.
Image: 'wan, do, tree' from the Exhibition flyer, copyright (c) 1977 by Bob Cobbing, courtesy the Estate of Bob Cobbing.

BOOKBINDING WORKSHOP IN PLYMOUTH

I went to a great bookbinding workshop run by Tom O'Reilly at Plymouth College of Art on Thursday 31 October. This event was part of the Plymouth International Book Festival. I made two bound books from scratch in a day: one casebound in maroon bookcloth with marker, headbands, shiny endpapers and vellum laid pages, another a Coptic binding in blue and white. Tom O'Reilly the bookbinder is a great teacher -- everyone in the class made their own books. His own work is really various and interesting, lots of detailed embossed leather bindings, displayed on his website (see the Gallery) here. 

EDINBURGH EXHIBITION AT SUMMERHALL : THE DARK WOULD

       

ONE HOUR : A SIXTY MINUTE CIRCLE WALK ON DARTMOOR 1984 by Richard Long, courtesy of the artist and Lisson Gallery

from Black List -- Saul and Elaine Bass -- 2006 by Simon Patterson, courtesy of the artist

Arcadia, 2012 by Tony Lopez with Orchard Memorials, photo by John S. Webb

These three images are from a forthcoming exhibition in Edinburgh -- details in the announcement below -- my works will be shown 'in conversation' with Ian Hamilton Finlay works also on display. What a great idea to put on this ambitious exhibition Philip Davenport.

THE DARK WOULD 

Summerhall, Edinburgh 7 Dec - 24 Jan (Public preview 7pm, 6 Dec)

World-leading text artists and poets have been invited to make work about living and dying for The Dark Would exhibition, which includes work by Richard Long, Susan Hiller, Tom Phillips, Simon Patterson, Richard Wentworth, Tony Lopez, Caroline Bergvall, Erica Baum, Ron Silliman and many others, including ‘outsider’ artists. 

Whether homeless people or outsider artists or art stars - we all have to find our way through the dark. Challenging and uplifting, The Dark Would reads the human traces that we leave in the world. This is an extraordinary gathering that asks what it is to have a body and to lose it. As well as including work from the living, there will also be 'answering' works by dead artists and poets including Stephane Mallarme, Ian Hamilton Finlay and Joseph Beuys. 

Summerhall hosts the world premiere of this ground-breaking exhibition curated by poet Philip Davenport, before it travels elsewhere in Britain and abroad. The Dark Would exhibition is an ‘out-growth’ of the large anthology of text art and poetry edited by Davenport and published by Apple Pie Editions 2013.

There will be a series of artist's talks paralleling the exhibition.

Further information here: Summerhall

TEXT FESTIVALS NOW PUBLISHED

The Text Festivals: Language Art and Material Poetry, edited by Tony Lopez, is now published by University of Plymouth Press: ISBN 978-1-84102-359-5; 13 new essays, 164 pages including 16 colour plates, notes on contributors, and a catalogue of works shown.

CONTENTS
Preface
Tony Lopez, Introduction: Language Art and Material Poetry
Tony Trehy, Curating Text
derek beaulieu, The Value of Nothing
Christian Bok, The Xenotext
Carol Watts alphabetise // Different Alphabets and Damage Control
Philip Davenport, An Alphabet of Fishes: Curating Bob Cobbing
Colour Plates
James Davies, if p then q three and the Text Festival
Robert Grenier, Bury Memories (whilst yet living)
Alan Halsey, Memory Screen at Bury Met
Holly Pester, 'I did not know till afterwards': An Archive Artwork
Hester Reeve (HRH.the), But the Real Work Was to Place a Stone in my Mouth
Liz Collini, Versions
Carolyn Thompson, You're so Pretty when You are Unfaithful to Me
Contributors
Catalogue

Get the book from University of Plymouth Press here.

Cover art: Versions (detail) © 2009 by Liz Collini