Centre for Fine Print Research University of the West of England Centre for Fine Print Research
 

Identity Books and Multiples

Place: The library, AKI, ArtEz, Enschede, The Netherlands
Curated By: Sarah Bodman
Date: 17th May - 19th June 2008
Catalogue ISBN:
URL Links: www.bordersofperception.com






These books and multiples explore aspects of human identity, whether a study of artist themselves, or of gender or assumptions made about the sexes. There are also studies of people observed - Guy Begbie’s New York Dolls is a book of printed video stills of people observed on New York streets and subways, unaware that their actions are being observed. In Paul Auster and Sophie Calle’s Double Game, Auster writes a fiction that Calle lives for one week.

Other books explore more personal aspects of the artist-makers, from Bird High in the Sky (You know how I feel), by Louise Best, to Harland Miller’s book about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: First I was Afraid, I was Petrified (Book Works, 2000). Meir Agassi’s Correspondence, sees an exchange of letters and artworks by three fictional artists Mo Kramer, David Strauss and Susan Lipski. As a document of an artist’s residency Forty Two 19.03.06 - 30.04.06, by Lucy May Schofield, examines the artist’s own personal observations of spending six weeks in the remote and beautiful countryside of the Scottish borders.

The books reflect upon many aspects of the human psyche, from assuming another’s identity as camouflage, or celebrating unsung heroes to deliberately impersonating others or furtively looking through people’s belongings to make assumptions about them.