Bibliography

 

Tomorrow is the last day to see the MKG127 summer group exhibition Bibliography, which features novels, math books, textbooks, phone books, matchbooks and more, by Dean Baldwin Lew, Alan Belcher, Adam David Brown, Bill Burns, Michael Dumontier, Dave Dyment, Liza Eurich, Sara Graham, Instant Coffee, Laura Kikauka, Kristiina Lahde, Jason Lujan, Gwen MacGregor, John Marriott, Luke Parnell, Roula Partheniou, Geoffrey Pugen, Jayce Salloum, Monica Tap, Joy Walker, and Laurel Woodcock.

Press release: 

"The format of the book has proved remarkably resilient in the face of breakthroughs in other technologies. Its early demise has been predicted continually – with the advent of cinema, television, the personal computer and the e-book reader. Even the phonograph was once cause for alarm, as evidenced in Octave Uzanne’s short story from 1894, The End of Books:

“If by books you are to be understood as referring to our innumerable collections of paper, printed, sewed, and bound in a cover announcing the title of the work, I own to you frankly that I do not believe (and the progress of electricity and modern mechanism forbids me to believe) that Gutenberg’s invention can do otherwise than sooner or later fall into desuetude as a means of current interpretation of our mental products.”

Bibliophiles needn’t have worried. While the death knell rang throughout the last century-plus, the codex held steady. Today physical books still outsell their electronic counterparts four-to-one. Sixty-eight percent of readers between the age of 18 and 29 prefer printed volumes, suggesting the trend is not drifting downward.

This exhibition celebrates the multi-faceted form of the book with a wide array of treatments, from foregrounding text, typography, the page, the title, or the cover, to using the form of the book as context for content."

For more information, visit the MKG127 website, here. 

Juliane Foronda posted this picture to Instagram the other day, of the shelf at MKG127. The shelf features two artist books by Bill Burns, a DVD by Geoffrey Pugen, monographs about Laurel Woodcock, Sky Glabush, Monica Tap and David Harper, editions by myself, Roula Partheniou, Laurel Woodcock, Dean Drever, Michael Dumontier, Laura Kikauka, and a collaborative artist book by Roula Partheniou & Joy Walker.

David Harper | Entre Le Chien Et Le Loup

[David Harper]
Entre Le Chien Et Le Loup
Toronto, Canada: Doris McCarthy Art Gallery, 2014
120 pp., 22.6 x 14.7 x 2 cm., hardcover
Edition size unknown


A handsomely designed catalogue to accompany the travelling exhibition of the same name, which began at the Doris McCarthy Gallery in February of 2013 and wraps up at Saint Mary's University Art Gallery later this month. It was also hosted by the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, the Kenderline Art Gallery (Saskatchewan) and the Ottawa Art Gallery.  All venues are co-publishers of the book.

The title phrase “entre chien et loup” translates literally into "between dog and wolf" but is used to describe a time of day,  just before night, when the light is so dim one cannot distinguish the two animals. It also expresses that limit between the familiar, the comfortable versus the unknown and the dangerous, the domestic and the wild. It is an uncertain threshold between hope and fear.

Harper's first monograph is a white clothbound book (with a discreet foil stamped cover) held in a die-cut cardboard slipcase, designed by Lauren Wickware. It features an introduction from Doris McCarthy Director/Curator Ann MacDonald and the essays "The Magic of The Handmade Thing" by Lise Stone & Jim Zanzi, "My Life as a Placeholder" by Jan Peacock, "All at Once" by Crystal Mowry and "Whether Pigs Have Wings" by Robin Metcalfe.

The final stop on the tour opens this Saturday (August 23rd) and runs until the 5th of October at the  Saint Mary's University Art Gallery in Halifax. Visit the gallery site, here.

The catalogue will be part of a joint-launch with the pace of days, which documents Monica Tap's recent exhibition at the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre. The event takes place on September 2nd, from 7 to 9 pm at MKG127.