AMBruno,rhythm,2023

AMBruno's new book project for 2023 was rhythm, with twelve books by fourteen artists.

New book works conceived in response to the subject theme of rhythm in terms of one of these instances:

i A pattern of movement or sound
ii The measured flow of spoken and written language
iii A regularly recurring sequence of events or processes in time

The selector was Catriona Gourlay, who was a Research Assistant at the National Galleries of Scotland before becoming Assistant Curator in the National Art Library at the V&A, where she curated the 2019-22 V&A display Landscape and Language in Artists' Books. Catriona is now Curator of Printed Heritage Collections at the British Library.

Catriona wrote: 'It was a pleasure to select this year's AMBruno proposals and fascinating to see the different takes on the theme of rhythm. Music and language were recurring subjects with many proposals evoking sound. There were coincidental connections between proposals, which I look forward to retracing in the finished works, and it was especially pleasing to see original approaches to rhythms inherent in the structure of books such as sequence, narrative and pace of reading.'

The twelve rhythm artists are: Guy Bigland, Karen Blake, Laure Catugier, Judy Goldhill, Susan Johanknecht & Katharine Meynell, Julie Johnstone, Stefan Klein, Sophie Loss, John McDowall, Ximena Pérez Grobet & Kati Riquelme, Anne Rook, and Cally Trench.

Please see the AMBruno Shop Window if you might be interested in buying a book from the collection.

The rhythm project was previewed at the Vienna Art Book Fair, 20th-22nd October 2023, and launched at the Small Publishers Fair, Conway Hall, London, 27th-28th October 2023.

A full set of the rhythm books was bought by the British Library in November 2023, by the Tate in December 2023, and by the National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, in February 2024.

The rhythm project was exhibited at Printed Matter Chelsea, New York, 19th March - 14th April 2024.

The rhythm books will shown at The Society of Bookbinders' annual Book Arts Day on Saturday 1st June at Kentish Town Congregational Church Halls, Kelly Street, London, from 11am to 4pm.

Guy Bigland - rhythm mhtyhr

All 720 possible arrangements of the six letters of the word 'rhythm', with each of the six letters in a different grey tone. The permutations are arranged according to a numerically logical order with the final one being 'mhtyhr' - rhythm in reverse - which bears a sonic resemblance to 'metre'.

Edition of 100. Concertina fold, digital Indigo print on Mohawk Eggshell Superfine Ultrawhite 216gsm. £15 €18

Karen Blake - Bĕgīn

Reading - turning pages and absorbing their content - is like the come-and-go rhythm of waves on a beach. Bĕgīn is a sound book featuring a line of poetry from Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach, 1867. As the reader turns the pages, they emit a sound like a wave reaching and receding from the shore.

Open edition. Ring binder, acrylic covers, paper pockets, mono/foil printed, salt. £150 €175

Laure Catugier - architecture is frozen music #

The book evokes the idea of a score, a musical notation in which the lines indicate the pitch of the sound. Articulated on two axes, it proposes a play of superimpositions allowing the lines to intersect, thus multiplying the possible variations of collages between the images.

Edition 100+3AP (signed and numbered). Folded object, silkscreen and risoprint. Published with einBuch.haus gallery. £77 €90

Judy Goldhill - Sand Sea Star Dune

The magnificent rust-red dunes of the Nabib Desert are continuously sculpted by the wind. These time-sequenced photographs recreate the sensation of sand gently cascading down the windward edge of Dune 45 in this, the oldest desert in the world.

Edition of 12. Casebound, 32 pages, Indigo print, Letterpress printed title page incorporating sand from the desert. £165 €190

Susan Johanknecht & Katharine Meynell - !!

Taking the notion of protest in Casserolada; a repetition of movement, banging pans and rattling lids etc. Old and infant hands engaged in the rhythms and explorations of domestic timpani. Flaps on each page unfold, accumulate a sense of sound, play and dissent, building to a cacophony.

Edition of 40 copies. 20 pages - each with a fold out flap, digital printed b&w photographs, with neon letterpress. £50 €58

Julie Johnstone - rhythm lines

A playful reading experience of rhythmically repeating and interacting visual components in a process of gradual revelation and escalation. Horizontal sight-lines explore how the human eye is alerted and attuned to developments in visual rhythms as each page is turned.

Open edition. 18 pages, handbound, inkjet on watercolour paper, 8cm x 37cm. £30 €35

Stefan Klein - Archiving the Universe

Resembling cartography of the universe this ongoing archive consists of photographs that show dust of different moments. Appearing and dispersing in a constant floating state of being these tiny bits of matter create a rhythm of all things we and the world around us exist of.

Edition 50. 52 pages, digital offset print. £12 €14

Sophie Loss - He trots the air

Inspired by a statue of a horse at the British Museum, this legless horse trots the air and my book depicts the rhythm of his hooves across sky, coming closer, going further away, louder at times, fainter at others.

Edition of 16. Leporello of fourteen pages folded into a French flap cover, plus loose card, Indigo print. £75 €87

John McDowall - Sound by sound

Clapping Music is a composition by Steve Reich for two people clapping in which one continuously repeats the pattern, and the second gradually shifts out of unison. The book's configuration has been informed by the dance of Clapping Music produced by the choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker.

Open edition. 36 pages, sewn, laser print on Fabriano Arena 90gsm and Colorplan Pale Grey 270gsm. £20 €24

Anne Rook - Sisyphus' rhythm, an erasing

Drawings and a short text on the relentless punishment given to Sisyphus by the gods. A rock is pushed up the mountain to fall down again. To the gods' anger Sisyphus finds reassurance and contentment in the absurd rhythm. Until the laws of nature slowly erode the rock, depriving Sisyphus of his life's task. A rhythm broken. The gods' punishment restored.

Edition of 20. 14 double folded pages, inkjet printed. £45 €52

Cally Trench - Tapping Score

As children, my brother and I entertained ourselves by tapping rhythms on the bathroom door; the other, who was inside having a bath, tried to identify the tune. Readers are invited to tap the eight rhythms in the book, and identify the tunes, thus placing themselves on both sides of the bathroom door.

Edition of 20. Signed and numbered, hand and machine sewn, printed inkjet on watercolour paper. £27.97 €32