Textfield, Inc. » Fiction

False Friends

Textfield — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 23:22:36 +0000

Garamond Press, False Friends
Hardcover, 48 pp., offset 1/1, 115 x 185 mm
English, French, and Dutch
Edition of 500
ISBN 0 978-94-90629-02-1
Published by Kunstverein

$18.00 ·

Antonio Pigafetta’s questionable travelogue from 1591, titled Regnum Congo, was based upon stories from Duarte Lopez, a Portuguese explorer who supposedly visited the Congo. The travelogue introduces an odd vision of European landscape in which fantastic creatures are presented. South-African artist Ruth Sacks re-contextualizes these historical interpretations by re-appropriating them into contemporary conditions, juxtaposing the varied characteristics. Hence the logo of her fictional publishing house, Garamond Press: a fantastic animal based upon a description of one of the possible animals from Regnum Congo. The narrative of the book False Friends derives from the storyline of Edgar Allen Poe’s Murders at the Rue Morgue from 1841, generally agreed to be the first detective story ever written. This contemporary version is set in Antwerp, Belgium, and is split into three languages: Dutch (Flemish), French and English. To follow the story’s plot, one has to be fluent in all three languages.

(pause) 21 scenes concerning the silence of Art in Ruins

Textfield — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 21:32:19 +0000

Eva Weinmayr, (pause) 21 scenes concerning the silence of Art in Ruins
Softcover, 72 pp., offset 1/1, 210 x 297 mm
Edition of 500
ISBN 978-0-9562605-4-3
Published by Occasional Papers

$16.00 ·

Why did Art in Ruins, a once prominent art collective, suddenly fall off the art world map? Did they run out of ideas, move on to other territories or simply withdraw in disgust? During brief lulls in their frenetic peregrinations around the glittering international art circuit, a loose group of artists, curators, critics and other art professionals discuss the mysterious disappearance of Art in Ruins, maintaining a sober tone of inquiry even as they encounter herds of bison, anomalous Richard Serra walls and security personnel steeped in art theory. Using actual dialogue from interviews with art professionals who knew Art in Ruins, Eva Weinmayr constructs a hypothetical play as an anti-documentary or anti-biography.

Falling Into Place

Textfield — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 19:46:37 +0000

Heather and Ivan Morison, Falling Into Place
Softcover, 144 pp., offset 4/1, 155 x 215 mm
Edition of 1500
ISBN 978-1-906012-09-0
Published by Book Works

$30.00 ·

In this beautiful, limited-edition artist’s book, British artists Heather and Ivan Morison continue their inquiry into cultures of self-sufficiency and the topography of escape, bringing together sketches, drawings and an engrossing narrative: part science fiction, part history, part autobiography and part fairytale. The Morisons represented Wales at the 2007 Venice Biennale with their timber structures Pleasure Island and Fantasy Island, which were inspired by the hand-built shelters associated with the “back-to-the-land” movements of the ‘sixties and ‘seventies. As they write, “It got to the point where I just had to get out. That’s when I built my first escape vehicle.”

Dracula

Textfield — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 05:15:08 +0000

Bram Stoker, Dracula
Hardcover, 496 pp., offset 1/duotone + red fore-edge printing, 148 x 240 mm
Edition of 2000
ISBN 978-0-9545025-7-7
Published by Four Corners Books

$27.00 ·

This new edition of the most famous of vampire stories has been illustrated by James Pyman and has been designed by John Morgan, in collaboration with the artist. Although the figure of Dracula has long loomed large in the public consciousness, for this edition, Pyman returned to the original text, illustrating a line or phrase from each of the book’s 27 chapters in a series of beautiful pencil drawings.

The novel, made up of a series of diaries, letters and newspaper cuttings, has been typeset by designer John Morgan with a different typeface for each character, the fonts based on those in use at the time of the book’s original publication. The yellow clothbound cover echoes that of the first UK edition.

Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor

Textfield — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 05:07:28 +0000

David Musgrave, Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor
Hardcover, 84 pp., offset 1/duotone, 145 x 205 mm
Edition of 2000
ISBN 978-0-9545025-6-0
Published by Four Corners Books

$19.00 ·

In this volume, British artist David Musgrave revisits Franz Kafka’s novella Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor, the tale of a man who arrives home one day to find two plastic balls bouncing off the ground of their own accord. To his great irritation, these balls follow Blumfeld–who is a stickler for absolute order in his universe — wherever he goes, and his attempts to divest himself of their presence are described with Kafka’s customary flair for the detached observation of the extremely bizarre. Musgrave has responded to Kafka’s story with a series of pencil drawings of curious artifacts and pseudo-archaeological fragments of his own invention. Combined with John Morgan’s austere design — which finds the book typeset in Kafka’s preferred font and large type size, which he was never able to see printed in his lifetime — this volume almost feels like a case study of some unique bygone supernatural phenomenon.

Textfield V

Textfield — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:44:43 +0000

Textfield V
Softcover, 128 pp., offset 4/1, 6.5 x 9.5 inches
Edition of 2500
ISSN 1934-2446
Published by Textfield

$20.00 ·

Contributors; Darren Bader, Stuart Bailey, Nina Jan Beier, Chris Bolton, Rainer Borgemeister, Binna Choi, Ryan Conder, Chris Cullens, Jason DeLeón, Thomas Eberwein, Marco Fiedler, Steve Hanson, Danielle Kays, Robin Kinross, Marc Kremers, Marie Jan Lund, Yukinori Maeda, Miltos Manetas, Emily Mast, Slobodan Milosevic, Angelos Plessas, Manuel Raeder, Achim Reichert, Rafaël Rozendaal, Eduardo Sarabia, Artur Schmal, Nanette Sullano, Gerard Unger, Amy Yao, and Cosmic Wonder.

James Earl Scones

Textfield — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:30:58 +0000

Darren Bader, James Earl Scones
Softcover, 96 pp., offset 1/1, 6 x 9 inches
Edition of 1000, signed and numbered
Published by David Kordansky Gallery, Rivington Arms

$25.00 · out of stock

“In an art world vernacular, Darren Bader joins the pointed yet poetic, museumoligical interventions of Christopher D’Arcangelo to the cheesy, rank diaristic meditations of Dieter Roth. Punster and prankster, the demon spawn of Julia Child and David Markson, in a less highfalutin patois, he’s about the only guy I know who one-ups Don Novello’s great Lazlo Toth letters by signing his own name. Taking (so-called) institutional critique apart brick by gold-sanctioned brick, he’s critiquing the world and partying at the same time—Tom Cruise and NASA, stand warned. It’s about time someone tapped Al Qaeda as an aesthetic. James Earl Scones are my new favorite way to start the day.”

—Bruce Hainley