More than a book fair

2022 A4 Art Book Fair

A4 Art Book Fair

Chengdu has hosted numerous Art Book fairs in recent years. Of these A4 Art Museums’ 2022 A4 Art Book Fair was the first to be organized by a museum. As a spatial entity, books can play a textual role to be read on paper, or as a painted arena manifesting graphic design and socio-cultural evolution. Artists choose books as a means of expression, expanding possibilities of what it means to be a book.

A4 Art Book Fair

The 2022 A4 Art Book Fair was a big party in which creatives explored the thematic notion of ‘Possesion.’ This theme asked artists to reflect upon whether artistic creation has become too much of a ‘hustle,’ resulting in the objectivication and exploitation of the ‘materiality’ of art. A4 Museum provided a platform for independent publishers both within and outside of China to engage in dialogue. This dialogue also encouraged artists to engage with their public. Artists, with their training and background in contemporary art explored how fine art interfaces with printed matter and the reading public. A4 has always promoted art popularization and cross-cultural communication throughout the southwest region of China. It has done this by establishing a consensus and by supporting an active art ecology, building and mapping relations and systems to create an effective and supportive platform for diversified creators.

A4 Art Book Fair

The fair consisted in four parts linked together by the “book.” These four sections were: Book Market, Main Exhibition, Specialities, and Themed Events. The entire scene saw private art creation displayed  in public spaces in such a way that audiences could interact with artists in person.

A4 Art Book Fair

Flipping through, walking around, communicating, and connecting with creators at the fair, these scenes are full of magic. This is why we wanna present them to everyone.  Perhaps we cannot be magic itself, however we own the right to create magic, to constant creation.

A4 Art Book Fair

How do we tailor and write about a unique Art Book fair that acts as the city’s unique business card? Citing from Carl Sandburg’s (1878-1967) poem—”I write what I know on one side of the paper, and what I don’t know on the other side of the paper.”

A4 Art Book Fair

The most creative components in the exhibition were the plastic turnover boxes seen throughout the exhibition halls, serving as a sort of visual theme. They could be folded for easy handling and transfer, filling entire spaces. Venders were allocated boxes on the spot and were allowed to combine them as needed to create their exhibition  booth.

How to own a book 

within a theme？

We selected what we felt were the most impressive among the 17 exhibits, exploring abundant processes of creation.

Cosmic Calendar & A Thousand Full Moon Nights

Wei & Li Guang

@wei

This exhibition area by Butterfly Effect and LIGGU-Lab presented an artist book project developed over the past five years. It included 5 out-of-print books and 12 new books. Artists embedded the substance of time within various works of art and vice versa, making time concrete, microscopic, and continuous, in order to spread a landscape in which time flows slowly along a page.

Artist Wei talking about her work on-site

I was obsessed with Wei’s moon project on Douban (Chinese social media platform sharing books and movies，especially for art lovers) around 2 years ago. The art book proposal really appealed to me. As an essential practice in and of itself, books are not only a form of documentation and interpretation, but also an essential mode of creation for the artist. This mode is enacted independently or collaboratively by artists and book creators, illustrators, type designers, writers, and poets who specialize in this medium, and love using staplers and printers. Such artist books are often self-published or published by art groups or smaller publishers, and usually in limited editions.

The Douban website of Wei

From mid-August 2018 to late April 2019, Wei created more than 100 moons. We started envisioning an artist book about the moon. Because of the sheer volume of the work, I aspired to having the audience feel like they were watching a book exhibition when flipping through the book. With this intention, I made some cross-page attempts, I always considered it as an exhibition hall as I was designing, and some of the exhibition halls needed to have their entire space filled, and for others I had to take into account the staggered order of the works in a spatial relationship. I also designed the cover as a 4-fold page, like a long corridor full of moons. In the end, “MOONS” was highly recognized and deeply loved by the audience. In 2020 we published another copy as “MOONS2.” The front and back parts of the book are hand-bound using folding pages, and the middle part was made by sewing nails. When opened, the moonlight-like light yellow on the back of the paper is faintly visible.” 

—— LIGGU

@Wei

The finished moon exhibition on the wall is much more gorgeous than when viewed on the website. One of my favorite parts was her colored-pencil sentimental sketches about mountainous views which are extremely delicate，and the brushstrokes were tender and kaleidoscopic in nature. The slogan “Possession is a process” fits perfectly with the theme of “possession” in the presentation of “How the Artistic Book Is Done.”

Xiao Xiao is sharing with audience

At the 2022 A4 Art Book Fair, there were tons of talks, dialogues, and workshops related to Art Book production, encouraging a high degree of engagement. On July 9th, I participated in a sharing session in the Printmaking Section: “Talking about the ‘Story Book’ of Copper Plate Engraving” by Xiao Xiao, the director of the PRESSPRINT print studio.  She shared and analyzed techniques of copperplate engraving, as well as the relationship between copperplate engraving and handmade books such as found in her album Gadget（Die Kleine Dinge vom Leben). These engravings focus on the connection between people, animals, and space, presenting these elements across multiple versions.

@Wei，Copper Plate Engraving

The processes of transferring manuscripts and making printing plates were the most impressive memories I have of doing printmaking in art school. The process seems slow but full of possibilities. Xiao Xiao introduced how the “flying dust method” and the “sugar water method” expanded the process through the use of indeterminacy. The enchantment of printmaking lies in the ‘process’. Most of these works focus on connections between people, animals, and space in their multiple forms. These concise compositions pose questions about society, serving as metaphors for the zeitgeist, and self-exploration.

The greatest value of a work, in addition to the expression, itself, also includes the reflection and independence of the creator.  We can feel that creators have their own distinct personalities and ideas, putting their thoughts creatively into their works. At the end of the talk, an animated short film consisting of a collage of prints presented frame by frame was played. The series of prints took three months to engrave, with more than 300 copperplate engravings produced over a two month period, in the form of dry engraving. The artist’s keen expressiveness and great effort put into the work are moving.

「压版画 PRESSPRINT」

As one of the venders, I engaged in conversations with audience members about the work in my stall. I had presented my more casual sketchbooks and artistic journals, which are a vital part of my daily practice. This way I was able to explain how a work progressed from the formation of its inspiration to its final presentation. Quite different from merely browsing a gallery exhibition, audiences at the Art Book fair were able to give real-time feedback to artists. This way of engaging in soul-to-soul dialogue…how exciting it is!