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	Book Reviews

ABeCedarium: An Exhibit of Alphabet Books
March 13 - May 15, 1999

The Newberry Library
R.R.Donnelley Gallery
60 West Walton Street
Chicago, Illinois 60610-3305
Telephone: 312/ 255-3700
http://www.newberry.org

"ABeCedarium," now showing in the R.R.Donnelley Gallery of The Newberry Library, is a two-part exhibition.

The first part, "ABC Books Now," highlights about 40 items on loan from the Guild of Book Workers, a national organization of book artists, binders, printers and conservators.

The works are first-rate: creatively inspired and excellently executed, sometimes unconventional in conception and often simply beautiful. The central theme of Alphabet Books brings an underlying unity to a wide latitude in formats and techniques.

From the ancient to the avant-garde, the alphabet has been not just a key to records or a tool of knowledge; it is first and foremost a concept. Whatever the contemporary expressions of it by this exhibition's artists, the alphabet itself is a unique invention with several millennia of transmission and development.

Jody Alexander's "Ras Shamra Abecedary" (1998) is both an homage and a individual interpretation of the alphabetic concept's ages-old gestation. This book's images are block printed characters from the lost language, Ugaritic -- characters found at Ras Shamra on the Syrian coast and which date from the fourteenth century B.C.. Alexander's "Ras Shamra Abecedary" is not only an enjoyable artwork, but a fitting introduction to the exhibition. The book's leaves evoke the clay tablets of Ugarit upon which the wedged-shaped cuneiform was imprinted. But these leaves are handmade by the artist from recycled Mohawk superfine and abaca. The paper is a modern universal that supersedes the clay, papyrus and parchment of the alphabetic past. And her binding of linen thread on hemp cords adds a still later historical, it has for many later centuries been the essential technique for our modern book in codex form. "Ras Shamra Abecedary" telescopes so much of alphabetic and book history in a very modern art object.

The alphabet, and the book-form to transmit it, have shown bewildering experimentation over the millennia. Exhibitions such as "ABC Books Now" are particularly well-chosen as the second millennium of our age approaches. It is an essential showing because it offers so much 'state-of-the-art variety and yet maintains a perspective on both the genre's ancient genealogies and potential futurities. The items in "ABC Books Now" still retain their functionality, but do lead us to reexamine the alphabet and its book expression, and to do this apart from their immediate and unchallenged utilitarianism.

When, in 1969, Greek-born American artist, Lucas Samaras, exhibited his "Book," it was as a sculptural assemblage. That "Book" is pictured in several references, among them The American Livre de Peintre (Grolier Club: 1993), and Contemporary Illustrated Books: Word & Image, 1967-1988 (Independent Curators, Inc.: 1990). Samaras once said that he sought to negate "the possibility of a single Platonic ideal acting as measure for any physical thing." This exhibition, "ABC Books Now," suggests his premise is reversed. The physical object is the measure and specifies a possibility as an ideal after the fact.

Hannah Arendt in Between Past and Future wrote on art in "The Crisis in Culture" and noted of cathedrals that "...while they as buildings certainly served the needs of the community, their elaborate beauty can never be explained by these needs, which could have been served quite as well by any nondescript building." She further asserted that:

"...art works clearly are superior to all other things; since they stay longer in the world than anything else, they are the worldliest of all things. Moreover, they are the only things without any function in the life process of society; strictly speaking, they are fabricated not for men, but for the world which is meant to outlast the life-span of mortals, the coming and going of the generations. Not only are they not consumed like consumer goods and not used up like use objects; they are deliberately removed from the process of consumption and usage and isolated against the sphere of human life necessities."

It is because the items in "ABC Books Now" maintain functionality and display continuity with an alphabetic and book inheritance that they inspire, delight and have real value -- as art, as books, not as philosophical props. And yet they innovate, within set traditions, in ways as to have lasting significance beyond an immediate utility. "ABC Books Now" is a timely exhibition, which offers much for the general public, and perhaps even more for those involved with art.

The Samaras "Book," and many like it in art circles, played upon every convention of the book arts, except the book's original raison d'etre. "ABC Books Now" shows a panoply of unconventional inspirations and techniques and the artworks remain -- satisfyingly -- books. I really found great pleasure in this exhibition.

Exhibition Curator, Barbara Lazarus Metz, MFA, of Columbia College, Chicago, voiced a common sentiment about these books: "When books have to be in vitrines, as in this exhibit, we lose the intimate tactile experience that comes with handling the work." The works do inspire the urge to handle them.

Lucas Samaras' "Book" aggregated every book possibility to produce in essence a non-book. "ABC Books Now" demonstrates how skilled artists orchestrate possibilities and select what is appropriate to their expression.

The exhibit offers several books in concertina or accordion format. Elaine L. Downing's "ABC" (1998) is made of one sheet of Mohawk Superfine cover stock, and when folded includes its own covers. Here the alphabet is its own book and it is a striking tour de force, It does what Samaras postulated.

That book artists are in love with their art is evident in the frequency of punning titles, and a wit of assemblage in their choice of materials.

"Mac's ABC's" (1996), is a collaboration by Donna and Peter Thomas, The pure cotton of this accordion book displays Peter Thomas' hand punched holes and perforations to mimic computer paper, but the illustrations of letterform are watercolors by Donna Thomas, and their binary equivalents are letterpress by Peter.

"A Hatphabet by Frank J. Anderson" (1998) was created by Gabrielle Fox and presents one concertina book sewn onto another using silk thread and Japanese decorative papers. This book is presented with a multi-color goatskin box to house it. The entire piece is cleverly designed to work with Anderson's ABC of hat types, even down to its 'Hatphabet box'.

Nancy Ruth Leavitt's "A Light Alphabet, The world of light from A-Z" (1998), binds a vellum concertina spine with coptic sewing technique; the painting and lettering are of gouache, glair, crayons and colored pencil. The quotes from texts on light constitute, in the words of the artist, "a journey into and realization of my obsession with light, color and the alphabet."

Mary Ann Sampson's "Alphabeticus" (1998) also employs an accordion-folded paper spine, a long tradition in oriental binding, but uses it in a very bright and contemporary mode. It is a visual pleasure and the viewer here can only regret it must be in a case for display.

"Abecedario Della Cucina" (1998) is an Italian butcher paper accordion book, in Italian and using the 21-letter Italian alphabet. The watercolor, supracolor and ink illustrations are by Susan Rotolo, and the calligraphy is by Paul Shaw. Here, Rotolo makes excellent use of the format: a page opens behind each letter to reveal a recipe for the food illustrated. This kitchen abecedarium convinces one that these artist bring their love of life into their works.