Autumn 2004- Dublin: Artist - Books at the Workroom
Review C109 Dublin: Artists - Books at the Workroom An alertness to the peculiarities of typography has been just one of the lasting effects on me of Artists - Books at the Workroom. Take for example the difference between hyphens and dashes. Strictly speaking, hyphens should only be used to indicate compound words, whereas the longer dash, which actually has to be summoned up using the 'alt' button on PC keyboards, has far more connotations. I've been wondering about the dash between 'Artists' and 'Books'. Is it an 'and', a 'to', or is the title to be understood as a pairing of category headings, perhaps lifted from some longer index? Subverting how information is typically notated was a strong theme running through many of the works in this show. List-making and other forms of 'hoarding on the page' abounded. Mermaid Turbulence's good things or seventy-seven reasons to be still alive today , 2003, alerted us to the everyday joys of 'pebbles' and 'red gingham tablecloths'. A Mermaid Turbulence re-publication, The new guide to the conversation in English , comprised a useless yet hilarious compendium phrase book, originally compiled in Paris in 1885 by a French-speaking Portuguese author using a French/English dictionary. Coracle Press's A little book of cockles , 2004, gathered together cockle-related recipes and anecdotes, while their other works gathered together airmail stickers and interior patterns from envelopes from around the world.  | | Red Fox Press: Cult ; photo: Alison Pilkington; courtesy The Workroom | Using only punctuation marks and symbols, Stuart Mill's Poems for my shorthand typist , 2002, offered readers the ultimate experience in minimal poetry. So much so, I've room here to quote a couple in full: The Tadpoles Poem: ,
The Canal's Poem: = And there was much more. Artists - Books surveyed many aspects of the medium, from individual hand-made books to graphic novels, text, pamphlets, critical journals, comic books, notepads, scrapbooks, diaries and as well as category-defying multiples and editions.  | | Gemma Tipton: Pulped fiction : Tragedy, Sex, Comedy, War ; photo: Alison Pilkington; courtesy The Workroom | Other publishers represented included Kids Own Publishing, Red Fox Press, Big If Publications and The Sun Moon and Stars Press. Outstanding works included one-offs and editions by Jackie Hasset, Louise Cherry, Liam O'Callaghan, Katie Holten, Conor Lucie, Alan Keane, Jon Hunter, Gemma Tipton and Simon Morse. The experience of this exhibition, one of leafing though, folding and unfolding, reading and looking, was both incredibly tactile and cerebral. The whole show left me with a feeling of having dipped into an amazing font of visual creativity that, sad to say, has often been absent or offered only with begrudging parsimony in too many recent exhibitions. Jason Oakley is Publications Manager with the Sculptors' Society of Ireland Artists - Books , The Workroom, Dublin, March/April 2004 Artists - Books will be on show at the Model Arts Centre and Niland Gallery 19 August - 19 September, 2004
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