The Genius of the Crowd

[mjp]

That was The Curtains are Waving...

D'oh!

Not Quite Bernadette is huge and complex in construction - yes, that's the most appropriate word - and it did appear to be worth a great deal of $ - and even then I started to question my sanity.

I sold it because there was just nowhere to display/store it other than under the bed. And what's the point of that?

I saw a copy of NQB at an art fair (?!) in Santa Monica a year or two ago, and it struck me as a bit of an albatross.

As you point out, it isn't exactly something you can stick on the shelf, and you wouldn't leave a book worth thousands of dollars out on the coffee table (well, most of us wouldn't), so what do you do with it? Heat Wave is the same thing - a big, expensive, "white-glove" book. I leave those to the completists.

And I thought Crucifix was a pain in the ass because it was taller than everything else on the shelf. Heh.

 

[Father Luke]

Anyone seen James W Johnson's Etchings for Not Quite Bernadette

 

[nymark]

If he's in Italy and he pays using euros, then he's spending 5,090€ on this, which is not that bad.

I'm sorry, but I still think that's way too much to pay -- even considering the advantagous currency rate. Again, consider what else you could buy for that kind of scratch.

I've never owned a copy of NQB because it's -- what's the word I'm looking for? -- ugly.

 

[ROC]

An ugly albatross - sure, it is. Just too damn big really. And the cover paper art and the really ugly denim clamshell case - very 80's.
Heat wave I don't have a problem with. It just so happens that the bookcase I keep all these things in is deep enough to hold Heat wave and when you take it out and lay it on a table there is enough table left to put your elbows down.
With NQB you could have added legs and it would have been a table (when opened).
mjp - you said something in another post once about the virtues of reading things in book form as opposed to on a computer screen. That is very true, but it also size is important. NQB is just too big - it doesn't feel right.
Beautifully made though.

Oh and Crucifix is gorgeous. Don't dis Loujon work or I'll fly over there and punch you in the throat while you're drinking a hot coffee!

 

[Bukfan]

Anyone seen James W Johnson's Etchings for Not Quite Bernadette

I had never seen them before. I like most of the etchings. Thanks for the link, FL!

 

[mjp]

mjp - you said something in another post once about the virtues of reading things in book form as opposed to on a computer screen. That is very true, but it also size is important. NQB is just too big - it doesn't feel right.

Funny you should say that, because as it turns out, there is an ideal page size and format for presenting text. Printers and typographers have had 400 years to figure it out, and it's always funny to me when people come along and think those rules don't apply to them.

If we're talking about art, then there are no rules. But we're talking about poetry or prose books, and those kinds of books - last I heard - were for reading. So if you make a book (expensive or not) that is a cumbersome size, you distract from the words. And the words are the thing, yeah?

Which is my long winded, too much Kentucky bourbon way of saying that it makes sense that the book didn't feel right to you. It wasn't right! They were making an art book, not a piece of literature.

 

[ROC]

Ja!

:D

Next rounds on me.

 

[Rekrab]

Thanks for the link to NQB images, Father Luke. Great prints, butt ugly binding. The demin cover looks like some homemade crafts project you'd find at a garage sale. I'm amazed it was released like that.

 

[jordan]

how much does not quite bernadette usually sell for?

 

[Vicarious]

Genius of the Crowd

Was paid for in $ and will remain in the good old USA.

Comparisons between Genius and NQB strike me as the height of silliness - pitting a beautifully produced artifact of its time against a manufactured artist book forcing another dubious marriage of artist and poet (see Heat Wave or the Joyce/Matisse edition of Ulysses) in which the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

 

[hank solo]

Shame you weren't paid in pounds and were sending it to the UK :(

The only comparison drawn here is that both items are expensive. NQB was always a pricey item whereas Genius appears to be a flimsy piece not designed to survive. I very much doubt that I'll ever hold either one in my own hands, but for the record NQB looks like an ugly carbuncle of a piece.

 

[jordan]

i'm surprised there is such a sentiment against artist books- i mean, the art often times misses the mark, but i really like the idea of taking a smaller piece of text and combining it with art to create something that goes outside the original author's words. i mean, if you're really attached to the text and you think the art is shit, i can understand why you wouldn't like it, but look at the stuff that bukowski and crumb did together- that's essentially what you're talking about, but those editions don't seem like weird mashups that don't ultimately work.

also, the joyce/matisse edition of ulysses is, in my opinion, one of the more interesting author/artist combinations that i've come across. i'd really like to own a copy someday, but it's probably not happening.

 

[mjp]

i'm surprised there is such a sentiment against artist books [...] look at the stuff that bukowski and crumb did together- that's essentially what you're talking about, but those editions don't seem like weird mashups that don't ultimately work.

But if the Bukowski/Crumb books were bound in eelskin wrapped plywood semi-circles that weighed 40 pounds and retailed for $2950, the sentiment would probably be the same as it is toward NQB. I think people don't like it because they find it ugly, not because of the marriage of writing and art.

There's a difference between "artist's books" and "book art." Book art is not usually about content, but rather presentation ("Look, my book unfolds into a 30 foot long, inch wide strip of hand-painted mylar!"). To me, NQB was a stab at book art, and both as book art and as a marriage of book art and writing-presented-with-art (ala Bukowski/Crumb) I think it fails.

When I saw a copy I found it to be a very unfortunate object. But that's just my opinion. Beauty is in the eye of the buyer.

 

[jordan]

i have never seen NQB, so i guess i can't comment. but your post makes sense- i was reacting more to vicarious's statement about the whole being less than the parts. and, it's not eelskin, but there's the graphic arts edition of the captain that i would kill to be able to afford... and yes, because of the presentation, it's worth more to me than the standard edition.

on a side note, i actually have seen a book bound in eelskin. it's the limited editions club version of grass's "the flounder" and yes, it grossed me out.

 

[ROC]

Comparisons between Genius and NQB strike me as the height of silliness - pitting a beautifully produced artifact of its time against a manufactured artist book forcing another dubious marriage of artist and poet (see Heat Wave or the Joyce/Matisse edition of Ulysses) in which the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

I wasn't comparing the two books...
I was raising the issue of buyers remorse.
You should learn to read more carefully before shooting your daft gob off.

Oh, and if anyone was looking for book art... you can't go past It Catches My Heart...

 

[Rekrab]

I'm all for artist's books, and NQB seems like a good match up between text and image. The binding kills it as a total package. What were they thinking? It must have been made during that brief period in our culture when the trendsetters tried using denim for everything, whether it worked or not, and there were denim toilet seat covers and denim typewriter covers. I don't think any of it looked right. Jeans, yes, book covers, no. But I've seen some wonderful artist's books where everything did come together.

 

[ROC]

Hey! Are you knocking my denim toilet seat cover?!