Monday, October 10, 2011

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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3 comments:

  1. Great images Ronnie, and very apt for the text I think.

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  2. Great image Ronnie, very aptk for the text I think. The books look wonderful. It can be an interesting experience to see works you are familiar with in a different environment.

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  3. Yay to unity! Your piece is wonderful; I loved it as soon as it landed on my doormat, the bookcloth is just fab and works so well. Was that bleeched/discharge dyed?

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thanks for all your lovely comments - your words are greatly appreciated xx