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Neo Emblemata Nova

Item date(s): 1990

Daniel E. Kelm  - (book artist)


Pages: unpaged
Size: 90mm


Publisher: The Wide Awake Garage
Cat. 92
Exhibition 1996

Additional notes:
Box Mobius strip construction 95x95x90mm.

See article on page 8 of "Abracadabra #8, Spring, 1994.

Images by Michael Maier; artist’s book by Daniel E. Kelm; edition produced by Daniel E. Kelm and the mechanics at the Wide Awake Garage - Erin Clay Nelson, Meg Sanders, Sammy Lee, Anthony J. Fiandaca, Amy Borezo, and Kylin Lee, 2005.

The book’s form is a Möbius strip, mathematically a one-sided object. The half-twist in the looped structure allows the reader to run the entire book through his or her hands (see both sides of the book) without ever turning it over - beginning and ending with the title page. The images are from Emblemata Nova, also known as Atalanta fugiens, an important 17th-century alchemical emblem book by the German doctor, philosopher, and mystic Michael Maier. Each of the figurative scenes, or emblems, represents an alchemical process or set of materials. This allowed knowledge to be recorded, but the information could really only be understood by those initiated in the alchemical arts.

Kelm’s wire edge binding uses both soldered brass and laser-welded stainless steel hinges. The two colors are meant to be evocative of gold-the sun, the male princi­ple and silver the moon, the female principle.

Edition: 21 copies.

Illustrated on page 305 of Masters: Book Arts, curated by Eileen Wallace, 2011.

See Additional Material. AB/3594

Exhibition notes:
Item 92 on Artists' Books in the Ginsberg Collection, with some South African Books from Other Collections.

Johannesburg Art Gallery

25 August to 27 October 1996

Ref: GB/3412













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