Fiona Banner
Scroll Down And Keep Scrolling
The Vanity Press, 2015
830 pp., 29.5 x 21 cm, paperback
Edition size unknown
Publishing is central to Banner’s practice, and her own imprint, The Vanity Press, has produced dozens of bookworks, magazines, calendars, postcards, leaflets and editions since it's founding in 1994. This retrospective bookwork, published to coincide with three major exhibitions, mirrors the scale of her classic early artist's book, The Nam. It features material from her personal archive, compiled over the last 25 years, while considering the relevance of publishing in the Internet age.
The artist designed her own font for the volume, amalgamating typefaces she had previously used in her work (the Full Stop sculptures, other publications, etc.). “It’s a family tree arrangement where the child of Avant Garde and Courier mates with Peanuts and Didot’s child. Bookman and Onyx mate; their child mates with Capitalist and Klang’s offspring – the final font is an unpredictable bastardisation of styles and behaviours.”
The font can be downloaded from the artist's website, here, and the book is available from Ikon Gallery, here.
"Banner’s dense compendium, 800 pages referencing an archive of work spanning 30 years, mimics the appearance of a large phone directory. Not a Christmas coffee table book, but it is a delight and something to stimulate debate, raising questions about the relevance of publications in the digital age. I have known Fiona for many years, and was thrilled to work with her recently on her ‘anti-survey’ show at Ikon. She is an artist who immerses herself in the complexities, possibilities and limitations of language and the written word. Scroll Down And Keep Scrolling, which is published by her own publishing house The Vanity Press, is as insightful as it is idiosyncratic with her charming and unpredictable font, designed especially for this project — aptly named ‘Font’!"
- Jonathan Watkins, Director, Ikon Gallery
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