art and lies (lies and misdemeanours)...

Well folks it's past time for me to show you all
what I created for my second BAO project

based on an excerpt from Jeanette Winterson's 'Art and Lies' 

I made a small edition (just 12) of vertical hanging concertina booklets

 Rhonda Ayliffe

'Lies and Misdemeanours'

2011

archival inkjet print on TH Saunders

handcrafted distress dyed book cloth by the artist

satin ribbon 

The piece features a print from my ongoing 'codex incendium' series of ephemeral book/fire installations and an excerpt from 'The Enemies of Books' by William Blades 

Each 'Lies and Misdemeanours' booklet also contains a folded printed excerpt from my draft exegesis chapter (on biblioclasm). I thought this excerpt was especially pertinent to the Art and Lies project, as it contains my research and writing about the loss of the great library of Alexandria

There's also a small folded card-as-colophon (featuring a tiny print of an ephemeral work completed at the Cape Byron lighthouse in August this year...)

 (here's a few of the finished books... all folded up) 

I've blogged a couple of times about how this piece gave me quite a bit of grief, as I struggled with just the right approach to the Winterson text... In the end I decided to create a piece that was my response to the text (indeed there's no sign of the jumping off text in the final piece).  I chose a very simple structure as the text was incredibly dense... Misgivings and highly self-critical debate aside - I'm content with the final piece...

I'm especially thrilled with how the entire BAO 'Art and Lies' edition pulls together as a collection of books. When these books were exhibited together at Impact 7 recently, it was amazing to discover the unity of the collection. Despite that all the pieces were worked on separately and simultaneously on three different continents, by wildly different artists (all without any 'checking in' with each other about just how we were approaching the work) - strangely (fortunately) the work has a complementary aesthetic - and the edition looked fabulous sitting together. From a dispassioned, curatorial viewpoint, it was a nice moment!


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