Special collections @ Camberwell

Last week, a session in the library, looking at artists' books - here they are ready to go back into storage.

We each had a book to "introduce" to the group - and what a variety - some by established artists, some by students from the course.

Some things to consider when looking at a range of books like this - the function of images; when is a spiral binding needed and when is it a poor choice; having an introduction to explain why a book was made (and other ways of talking about making the work); the relation of book format to subject matter, eg having a binding at both sides to reflect a state of confusion; transformation of the commonplace; alignment and realignment of text; engaging with an audience; use of technology; visual narrative sequence; sets of books; intercollated texts and systems of choosing how to move through them; putting material into a book vs. material that needs to be put into a book; surprise and revelation.

The book given to me was Vers la Poesie/Towards Poetry/Tras la Poesia by Ulises Carrion, and I quite fell in love with it. It looks rather like this one here -

A shiny (but flimsy) white cover and brown pages, with the "illustration" of lines, which continue throughout the book

Inside, simple words, typewritten perhaps (these books date to the 70s). "My" book had three languages, and "chapters" each starting with "lines" and ending up somewhere else, by various routes -

1 lines-threads-wires-strings-cables-hairs-arteries-canals-rivers-roads

2 lines-needles-spears-whips-arrows-wounds-scars-furrows-streets-horizons

3 lines-stairs-folds-blinds-rafters-shelves-oars-noodles-flutes-pencils

4 lines-edges-levels-degrees-boundaries-diameters-hypotenuses-radii-rays-shadows

5 lines-trajectories-courses-distances-latitudes-spaces-relations-symbols-metaphors-poetry

The time taken to turn the page between each group of words gives you time to reflect on the connections between them.

As with most poems, I had to re-read it immediately.

Addendum (23 November): Keith A Smith, in The Structure of the Visual Book, says: "I am pleased if the book requires several viewings. It then exists on more than one or two levels. The book invites the viewer back. It is exciting to pick up on nuances."