Designblog

Using my last tags, I found a really interesting book from an artist I already knew before. Because I found something with the words architecture and library, which were the most important tags of my last post, I was surprised, to find a book which is so nice even when I had to search quite specific.

Andreas Gursky makes pictures that are famous over the whole world. In my first post I told something about a book which is totally focussed on libraries. But this book shows not only libraries, but it shows a whole content of buildings photographed on a way only Andreas Gursky is able to. He makes pictures that show a new view on a building. Most of them are enormously big, or extremely complicated. They show an index of these buildings.

It is related to my second book because Andreas Gursky also photographed some interesting libraries and museums. And that is also the reason it is related to my first book. The difference between the books, is that this book is all about photography of the buildings. That’s why the images in the book are so interesting. In this book, the main subjects are the photographs of Andreas Gursky, in my other books it was about the building itself.

I think it is really interesting I found this book. Andreas Gurksy is one of my favorite photographers, and combined with the subject of this book and my earlier books, it is a nice collection if you want to know more about the architecture of the library, and specially when you want to see some brilliant pictures. It all fits together, but I think it also fits really well in the project we worked on.

Public Library Amsterdam: 761.2

I was looking in the art department of the library and found a book about folk art of Istanbul, in the time of the rising of the Ottoman Empire. When I looked through the pages I found that it was about getting a glimpse of the lives people (read, the sultan and rich people) lived in those days by showing the art, and the artifacts the people used. You can very well see the style of the period in the statues and the paintings and also in the cups, they drank out of, the rugs they walked on,the plates they ate from and the many other furniture and things they used. In short, for me this book shows the way the world looked in that period. In the same way that for us Pinocchio is a well known item now. He would look very strange and out of place in the world of Constantinople, especially if he was blue. To me this is a good link with design and art for both reflect the mentality of the times we live in.

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As I let my fingers caress the spines for a second time, I cannot simply let my personal preferences surface. Instead I let my fingers stop at big books, interesting letters, big old tomes and backs with interesting colors. With the latter in mind I pull out a thin yet big book out of the shelf. A smooth, new spine, with bright yellow letters on a background of bright red, turning to pink. How could it not attract my attention? ‘China now’ is the title and the front immediately makes my decision easy; naked Asians running through a hallway accompanied by red airplanes. How can one resist opening such a book?

The art of a people, suppressed and unable to produce art freely until recently, is fascinating. Different mentality, history and culture make their art unlike any western art in my opinion. And it is refreshing to see modern art from such a different angle. It is nice that not only the cover has beautiful contrasts, but also our cultures and countries. (me being Dutch)

Satisfied I carry the book to the check out desk, to take it home and immerse myself in another world and go back to the busy and colorful markets of Beijing and Chengdu.

CHINA NOW 707.9

The word in my mind was the tag which also linked to older posts, Mystery.

Beside that I also wanted to find some images that could show technical or absurd feelings, but I was not sure, just a kinds of feelings, because the first post was about a sort of unknown special skill.

I saw this book, Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement. Females are sensitive. Maybe I could find a link to mystery things there. And this book remind me a Chinese character “Yin”which from the word “Yin-Yang”,It is not only about gender, also many things unclear or unreal.So, I use Yin as a tag word.

The art works inside the book seemed dreams, subconscious, inner desire, myth and pagandom.

The image with one glove holding an other one, reminded me of the image with the feet from last post. It was not a bloody ritual, but the numbers under the gloves, and the dice hold by the white glove seemed to reveal something.

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The people on the cover of this book were the main reason that I chose this final book for the posting. On the front cover there is a group of people wearing the same outfit: English police uniforms. Even though everyone is dressed in the same uniform everyone is different from each other. This made make me think immediately about the tags which I was focused on in the previous posts namely: nomadic, reality, and city. After opening the book I saw even more faces of random people inside. It is not clear whether they are all from the same city and whether these people are traveling at first sight. It does not matter to me who these people are, and what they do, what interests me is the fact that this book is all about people.

Book nr: 12958

Excited.

Fulfilled with excitement I rushed to the library. I entered the room for the third time.

Now.

Finally.

The forbidden part unlocked. Like a child in a candy shop. Delightedly seduced by all the delicacies.

All of a sudden the assignment slipped away.

One book after the other blew air into my face, while the images caressed my eyes.

At once.

The notion.

A mission.

To find an escape from reality, but was I not absent for a while. Withdrawn from my boundless fantasies, disappeared into the space between time and space.

Entwined in thoughts, the book in my hand scattered the light.

Déjà vu.

This time the reality was soft and friendly. The green glittering smiling at me.

Still one goal to achieve.

What does all this candy have to do with the other books.

What is art in comparison to design. With these questions in mind my fingers danced on the covers of the books.

Gently.

Still following shape of the books.

Faster and faster.

Until the dark force was clearly sensible. Everything was dragged inside.

The book still resting in the palm of my hand.

Even questions were redeemed to exist.

The answer appeared.

Art is like the cover of the black book, endless and deep. With an absorbing force, whereby it is expanding.

Is design among one of them.

Not recognizable as such, is that clear.

Boek nummer: 705,9 -Li- 1  en -toe- 1

For this last posting I wanted to find a book wich I could connect to my other two postings. In the search system of the library I searched on the tagword ‘754.‘. Out of the hole list of search results one title popped out as ‘could be interesting’. The book was in the design category and had the title: ‘Prop Art over 1000 contemporary political posters’ . So on the cover of this book you could already find two tags of my previous posts (1000 and 754.). Political posters always try to convince you of something that the party who spread them stands for. In that way this book is also connectable to the tagwords direction and signs.

The book itself is filled with pictures of political posters, some of them in color. Most of the posters have something to do with war, or the remembrance of a war. But next to them are also posters shown about ecological movement and the women’s liberation.

754.1 -YAN-

Thinking of women artists and graphic design leads me to the work of Barbara Kruger. It connects design, feminism, art and references also to my personal story, namely of seeing an exhibition of her work and loving it.

The work of Barbara Kruger can be qualified both as conceptual art and graphic design. She combines black and white photographs with phrases set in vivid colors, juxtaposing imagery and text. Her work addresses the complex interconnection of gender and the marketplace, and criticizes sexism and the circulation of powers within cultures.

I find her work interesting because it is interdisciplinary. She is not bothered by formal qualifications (is it design, is it art, is it politics?), but instead says that she likes to work with words and images. She wants to address her audience directly, and chooses the medium which she finds fitting. This ‘no fuss’ attitude in combination with the content of her work is inspiring.

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Unique obsession is my current and last goal.

This time it’s all about miniature textile. don’t ask me why.  It’s just a random what I put my hands on kind of thing.

I am flipping the pages of this miniature and unique book and I am amazed !

hundreds of miniature works of art that looks like collages, assemblage, sculptures, paintings, napkins and other abstractions.

than I go back to the title of the book and ask myself textile? miniature?  where are all the textiles? apart from two conseptual napkins I didn’t see any.

Confused and full of inspiration I go home, I flip through the pages of the book and I find myself impressed.

but is this a coincidence or am I drawn to miniatures ?

And why am I asking it now after more than a decade of working with miniature trees and other vegetables?

1649, 779.0 cat 4

My third search in the library, this time not limited to the design section. I wonder, if I should start looking at art, or the section ‘normal’ books in the library. It tickles my curiosity, what kind of ‘normal’ books would a library of an art school have?

The first books I see, are books about airplanes. One of them pops out of the bunch. It’s a thick green book, way too heavy to bring home. The spine of the cover shows part of the structure of a wing. Inside the book I see detailed, structured drawings of airplanes and other flying objects. It looks really old-fashioned, out-dated maybe. I see big machines, which sometimes look like alien-things, that don’t even exist. Especially drawings like the Apollo Lunar Module descending to the moon’s surface, or ‘Egg’s Folly’, a dolphin shaped balloon from the 18^th century. Probably this balloon indeed never existed. From the first human attempts to make flying machines untill the last.

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My second search in the library, this time with a whole list of tag-words in the back of my head. I try not to search for something precise, but rather let it come to me. I pick up a lot of books, not knowing what feels right. Then I see a book with an interesting structure on the cover. It looks like a computer-drawn structure, like a cheap 80’s wallpaper. On the first page I read that this publication is part of a numbered series, from 1-1000. While making this book, by using different techniques, 1000 different books were made. Each unique book has its own number, this one is numbered 756. I expected this book to be about production techniques, but instead it’s about human behaviour and how we perceive things. More human than the cover. More human, less machines.

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It should be here – here somewhere in the crowd. So small and delicate with it’s plain surface. A small rectangle to be overlooked so easily among the other squares: Rectangles, check rectangles, parallelograms and trapeze.

It’s suppose to be here – right here on the shelf! But others have taken its place. Pushed it from the archive. Where is it? with its special and beautiful exterior – it is fascinating like the other two.

I have it so clearly in my mind, but I don’t see it. Black spots all over – not the one I’m looking for.  

The small black dot on the woodlike surface you could look through whenever you have been allowed to look inside. Who really decides who? Why have the others dispelled it from its normal place? Maybe it wasn’t alienated, but someone found it and found it as interesting as I did. Maybe they chose it for the same reason – or maybe another just as reasonable. Who really decides who? The book or me? Or do we even get the chance if the others beat us to it! Hopefully it will be back!

The book is coverd with old dirty paper. You can find a title, if you look very well. The cover is strange binding the pages together. It gives a feeling you can swarm into it.

The book is old,

The book is different from normal,

Attracted me with the feeling to discover it.

The content is a way of questions. Why there are pieces of paper in it? What is this text about? Some kind of boring story. But because how it is made you want to read it.

The book is like an experience of the artist,

The book is a story without structure,

Attracted me because every page is so different.

Strange you, collage, experience, funny book!

758.3

I entered the library with a goal to find a unique book, and I did.

But what is unique ? Isn’t it pretentious ?

A funny thing happened, I picked a unique book about one of the least unique subjects that I know. Shoe obsession, which is really almost every average woman’s obsession.

The book is a miniature with more than 500 pages of text and images with at least one image of some kind of shoe per page.

Pretty unique.

But what is unique ?

I came to a conclusion that :

Unique Is Not So Unique.

(Unique Shoe)

12178 / 908.3 o’kee 1

If the three books of these postings would meet, they would be like strangers staring at each other seeking something in common to speak about. From the child in fashion, dating back in content and production, to the nomad designer in it’s contemporariness and the language of art drifting in between.

They were all connected by the same criteria of chance; being strangers by name, but not unfamiliar by the subject, books which I passed judgment on by their bare covers. In the end, a conscious (or subconscious) choice, they all became connected into a context. The links between the words and the pictures and the connotations which they created.

Maybe that’s why my last choice for a book is so appropriate – it fills out the gaps between this project even in it’s title. Taal in kunst/Language in Art

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When picking up an unknown object, a book, the idea of it’s properities and contents start to form in my head even before opening the covers. The title and the graphics become like tag words in a jungle of random and anonymous ideas yet to be discovered. Sometimes, these ‘tag words’ speak so clearly about the content, that the idea forming in my head corresponds to the unfolding story, and sometimes the subject is so open that my idea and the idea of the author digress from each other so much that the ‘need’ the idea of the book created is left unfullfilled.

For the 2nd time in a row, the criterias whilst searching have been the same with a lot of influence by mere chance. There is something tempting and intriguing about the subject itself / which creates interesting openings in my mind / but when shifting through the pages I discover that the need it creates leaves me with a bitter taste of unfullfillment.

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