Entitled The Lifelong Lesson after one of the inmates books, this installation involved giving 120 books half of them red and half of them blue to prisoners in the medium security state prison in Dendermonde, Belgium. My request was that the books were to be used in whatever manner they chose for a period of one month; later the books formed part of an installation during the “Papierbiennale” in the nearby city of Aalst.
Engraved text on book:
“Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer in which to shape it”
Bertold Brecht, 1931
Artists book Killing I in new Publication;
Fur: A Sensitive History by Jonathan Faiers
A groundbreaking, informative, and thought-provoking exploration of fur’s fashionable and controversial history the first and only book of its kind, Fur: A Sensitive History looks at the impact of fur on society, art, politics, and, of course, fashion.
Published by Yale University Press, 2020
Jonathan Faiers is professor of fashion thinking at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton.
My Artist book in Publication by Stephen Bury: Artists’ Books
London, Bernard Quaritch Ltd, 2015.
The history of artists’ involvement with the book format between 1963 and 2000 includes a fascinating range of artists and movements from Mallarméto the Piece of Paper Press via Cubism, Futurism, Dada, Fluxus and conceptual art. This second edition includes updated text with new bibliographic descriptions of 600 key artists’ books and over 130 new, full-page, colour illustrations taken from the internationally renowned Chelsea College of Art & Design Library collection.
Dr Stephen Bury is the Andrew W. Mellon Chief Librarian, Frick Art Reference Library, New York.
Killing I, leopard and Buckram cover, 1988, Chelsea Special Collections, Chelsea College of Art & Design Library collection, UAL, London
Film in Space is a group exhibition selected by British artist-filmmaker Guy Sherwin. The exhibition focuses on expanded cinema, a film movement which came to prominence in Britain in the early 1970s, at the time Sherwin started making films. The movement was closely associated with the London Filmmakers’ Co-operative, an organisation set up in 1966 by artist-filmmakers to exhibit and produce experimental film work which challenged mainstream cinema.
Artists include: Angela Allen, Gill Eatherley, Louisa Fairclough, Steve Farrer, Nicky Hamlyn, Emma Hart, Dan Hays, Denise Hawrysio, Neil Henderson, Malcolm Le Grice, Lynn Loo, Rob Mullender, Annabel Nicolson, Simon Payne, William Raban, Lucy Reynolds, Guy Sherwin, Chris Welsby
“In the work at the National Art Library the artist uses rabbit skin to make pages by gluing them back-to-back. Five such pages are bound together with a printed title on the cover: Killing. The use of animal pelts in these works has frequently led to their attribution as a wordless protest against the senseless slaughter of animals for the fur industry. On encountering ‘Killing III’ however there is a pervasive sense of irony at play as any notions of protest are expertly mingled with the irrefutable seductiveness and allure of its highly tactile and deeply sensuous fur pages.”
Victoria and Alberta Museum, London
Killing III was featured in The Art of the Book: from medieval manuscript to the graphic novel, published by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2001.
Hawrysio’s books have been purchased by The Victoria and Albert Museum, The Yale Art Library, the National Gallery of Canada, the Bruce Peel Collection, and various private collectors. Killing II was featured in The Art of the Book: from medieval manuscript to the graphic novel, published by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2001.
