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Book 91
Untitled (A String Book)

Item date(s): 1982

Keith A. Smith


Medium: Linen cords strung through holes in paper.
Pages: 24pp
Size: 260mm, oblong
Binding: Cloth boards
Edition: One of 50 copies

Sub-type: String book

Place publication: Barrytown, N.Y.
Publisher: Space Heater Multiples
Cat. I0105 - C6
Exhibition 2017

Additional notes:
Keith Smith's famous "String Book". It was included in a show called Treasures from the Special Collections of the Library of Congress. Hand die-cut, with string strung by Keith Smith, in an edition of 50 with an additional hors de commerce edition A through E. The text block and cover are Fabriano paper.

Keith Smith writes: "After we finished working on Patterned Apart for Spaceheater Editions, Philip asked to produce another book by me, in a rather different approach. Since I was making many ones-of-a-kind imaged with no text or pictures, we decided upon a sequence created by thread piecing the pages of an otherwise blank book. Turning the pages creates sound, and several threads piercing pages varies the tension of turning pages. Viewed with a single light source there are cast shadows that vary in focus. I consider Book 91, A String Book, as a photographic book. When I took a copy of the book into Nathan Lyons’ classroom to show him and his students, he looked at his class and said, This is one of my favourite photographic sequences.” I do not know if his students understood or agreed, but I was honoured by his remark."

Although not shown here that way, Keith intended the book to be viewed by a single 45 degree raking light source. This cast shadows of the thread and circles of light cast on subsequent pages, as Keith mentions above, are some of the fascinating features of this influential and canonic book. The last image in the slide show on the right shows a guide sheet that Keith Smith created at the time of publication to show the proper way to view the book. The sound of the thread going through the holes was an important part of the book for Smith. The book "self-rewinds" so that once one has gone through page to page from start to finish the book can be started again at the very beginning with the string in the proper position for another viewing. - Philip Zimmerman.

Reference note:
Oblong folio (260 x 370 mm). Embossed title on first leaf. 24 unnumbered leaves, thick Fabriano Rosaspina Avorio paper, with linen cords strung through holes in paper. Bound by the artist in cloth boards.

“Since I was making many ones-of-a-kind images with no text or pictures, [Phil Zimmermann] and I decided upon a sequence created by thread piercing the pages of an otherwise blank book. Turning the pages creates a sound, and several threads piercing pages varies the tension of turning pages. Viewed with a single light source there are cast shadows that vary in focus. I consider Book 91, String Book a photographic book" – the artist.

Smith further explained that “This book deals with cast light and shadows. The light spots are caused by viewing the book with a single light source at a 45° angle and three feet to the left of the book. The opened book reveals punched holes with deep shadows. As each page is lifted, however, dark holes throw circular spots of light across the facing page and the close environment of the book. The focus of these spots varies according to the distance from the page to the surface upon which they are cast. Like my books containing photographic film transparencies the composition of each page is compounded and altered by the addition and the movement of the shadow forms across the page…

“The sound, cast light and shadows and their focus and movement are not part of the physical book. They are physical but they only come into existence during the act of experiencing the book, that is, turning the page" (Smith, 200 Books, p.149).

References:

Joanna Drucker, The Century of Artists’ Books (2017), pp. 106-7: “Often referred to as The String Book (Space Heater Multiples, 1982) [it] is constructed of paper and string, without text or images. The structure is such that strings of a set length, knotted and threaded through the paper pages, expand and contract in response to the turning of the pages. The strings are cut to fit the openings and yet to move and breathe with the movement initiated by the reader, sliding with just enough resistance through their paper holes to make a gentle ‘shussing’ sound as they do so. The work…is perfectly engineered. The simplicity of the materials, linen thread and thick, off-white paper, make the book a field for an ongoing experience of space and light. The cast shadows of the various patterns of the string, laid out in straight and crossing grids, with single and multiple threads interacting in a changing sequence of arrangements, are contained within the field of the page, which holds their image against the suspended taut line of the string forms. The whole is physical, sculptural, and textual — an interplay of material (string/paper/knots) and immaterial (shadow/light/sound) elements — which amount to a full experience of book as structure and significance, sense and experience.”

Marcia Reed & Glenn Phillips, Artists and Their Books, Books and Their Artists (2018), pp. 176-7: “In contrast to those casting their artists as star performers, some books are enigmatic to the point of anonymity, offering no clues as to author or subject. A string book produced in an edition of 50, Book 91 deals with its material and structure in the purest fashion. This is a book about the activity of reading, although without text or images; it is all form, producing a beguiling awkwardness that beckons, then disorients. What could be frustrating in fact becomes calming as we leaf through the pages. The book’s structure enforces slow progress through the pages; we experience the added sensory component of noisiness, the sound of cord grating as pages are turned. There is a bit of deliberate trouble as the strings stick. By placing the cords in unexpected places — not sewn into the binding but running through holes in the pages — Smith teaches us implicitly about the structure of books. It is as if we have been ensnared by the book, like a difficult but beloved friend. What makes the viewer respectful and attentive is the elegance of the book’s sculptural quality — nothing more, nothing else to distract or detract from our appreciation of the physical book.”



Exhibition notes:
Item 0105 - C6b on Booknesses: Artists' books from the Jack Ginsberg Collection.

UJ Art Gallery, University of Johannesburg

25 March to 5 May 2017



Ref: GB/6009













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