A Book About Death

Because I am so behind with updating my blog I am hoping to evince a splurt of activity to rectify this situation.  One of the projects I  participated in of late was "A Book About Death". 


 A good few months back ( maybe about a year ago in fact)  I noticed somewhere (?) that there was a call for artists to submit to a showing of the exhibition in Brazil. 
 Because I have two good friends there, Paula Torres a,d Rosana Paulino  both of whom are artists - I always feel a sense of connection to Brasil.  Rosanna has been busy with exhibitions making lots of new work - check her work out - I think it has wonderful significance.

 And o I thought yes I will  contribute some work to that project.  Oh, How I wish we could all  do that Star Trek "Beam me up, Scottie" mode of transport - attending private views all over the world / dropping in to see friends far and wide.  It would be fantastic !!!


This was scheduled to take place during February 2010, at the Museu Brasileiro da Escultura.  The museum was opened in 1995 and designed by architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha.  Try as I could I just wasn't able to find a decent photo of this museum which reminded me of London's  Barbican Centre and the South Bank Centre.

In the effort to locate some photos of this museum I had to look into Mendes da Rocha's portfolio of projects and still no photos of much merit.  Given that my partner is an architect who has worked on some excellent projects mainly in London I was amazed.   I have seen the kinds of photos the practice he previously worked for,  had produced for their projects and these would be pretty impressive so I can't understand it?!.....    Maybe Paulo finished the building and then thought oh my Gawd ....it's a mess and then just quickly moved on to the next thing.


The photo here  (the last one I promise)  perhaps explains why.  This photo reminds me of places like Bilbao and East London.............. say somewhere like Mile End or was it Bow, where I had to go visit one time,  on the London underground, to buy some microcrystalline wax.  It was a pretty grim neighborhood.

The original exhibition of "A Book About Death"  took place at the Emily Harvey Foundation Gallery, in New York, was instigated by Matthew Rose who has an interesting website himself.


I remember spending far too long having a nosey around it.  He's done lots of collaborative projects and seems quite an interesting artist.


This part of the project i.e., the show in Brazil - that I sent my watercolour works to, seems to have been initiated and overseen by Angela Ferrara., who participated in the original exhibition/project in New York.


I sent a suite of about 33 small watercolours to the Museo Escultera Brasil for this leg of the project.


I HAD BEEN AWARE of the call for works for the project at this point  BUT the idea of getting an edition of 500 together was a tad off putting.   Even ordering 500 postcards,  I mean the cost etcetera -  I must have been feeling a bit "strapped for cash"  at the time.  So that's why I did'nt participate in the original project although it kind of appealed to me.  Ultimately though its not very much a project that has much to do with the book format - it's more to do with the theme "A book about Death" and has been very broadly interpreted.  Although I suppose you could say its to do with an 'open book' in that all the pages are revealed which is in contrast to how the subject of death is usually looked at in Western culture?  Don't know what anyone else thinks?.

I was pleased to hear earlier this year from Sonia Benskin Mesher, who participated in the New York exhibition.  She told me she  was co ordinating an exhibition of "A Book about Death"  at her local gallery which just happened to be the Museum of Modern Art Wales.  This was to be a 'selected' exhibition so all I could do was HOPE that my work would be selected and I am pleased to say that it was.    The show was on display over April and May. 


I made two piece and once I had the image with the horse in it finished I decided that, that would be the one I sent off.  I have to say I really enjoyed making these pieces which in essence are printmaking based collage.