September

New bookbinding and boxmaking evening classes

Come and join our Boxmaking and Bookbinding workshops starting next week. Boxmaking for Beginners runs on Monday evenings from 16th September for 8 weeks, and Bookbinding for Beginners runs on Wednesday evenings from 18th September for 9 weeks. You will learn how to make beautiful books and boxes which you can recreate in your home or studio with the use of minimal tools.

Click on the links below for more information or contact [email protected] to sign up.

Boxmaking for Beginners (starts 16 September).

Bookbinding for Beginners (starts 18 September).

September Book of the Month – The Council of Spent

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Our Book of the Month, with 30% off throughout September 2024, is The Council of Spent by Inventory.

Capitalism continues to disempower us, with its corrosive mantra that it provides the best of all possible worlds and that we must stay silent and accept its violent side-effects as unfortunate necessity: we are told to tolerate its hereditary and dynastic aspects; to keep our faith in the humane reformist role of the state; to trust in the electoral process and to turn a blind eye to unrepresentative lobbyists and private interests.

We are told that technological change alone will bring the deleterious effects of profit and loss to heel. And so it appears, that unless we are driven to the brink of extinction, there will be no collective counter-attack of lasting value. This is the counsel of spent, asking how far we must be pushed as a species, as a planet, and how much more must be tolerated in the interests of ‘survival’ before we awake and understand that there is no natural evolution under capitalism?

Another end of the world is possible.

Formed in 1995, Inventory was a loosely associated group of writers, artists and theorists, currently guided by the efforts of two artists/heretics, Adam Scrivener and Paul Claydon, who advance a practical and theoretical notion of what they call ‘fierce sociology’.

The Wastes reviewed in Art Monthly

Order The Wastes

Roy Claire Potter’s debut novel, The Wastes, is reviewed by Lauren Velvick in the September issue of Art Monthly. It’s rare and welcome for reviewers to consider the book as a whole object in this way – thanks to Lauren and Art Monthly for this comprehensive reading, and shout out to Traven T. Croves for the design

Early in the novel, in a section written in second person, as if part of an inner monologue during a moment of trauma and paralysis, the protagonist states, by way of explaining her mannerisms, that ‘there is something aback of everything. It webs outward and I fly into it every time. I get caught up in the world’. This mode of experience also describes how I approached the reading of the book as a whole: cover, sleeve, dedication, story, epilogue and further research. Given the explicitly experimental scope of this artist’s book, the spaces around it and what you find in them are as relevant as the central text itself.

The full review is subscriber only – order the magazine here.

What Did You Do…? in Venice

Friday 13 September 2024, 5pm.
Index Art Book Fair
Calle Buccari 3, S.Elena, Venice, Italy
Free & open to all

Book Works’ Director Gavin Everall will be part of an event at the Index Art Book Fair in Venice this week alongside a member of the Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA) who have been campaigning against the inclusion of the Israeli pavilion in this year’s Bienniale. Gavin will be presenting our fundraising poster project for Palestine, What Did You Do…? The project features new editions by artists including Jeremy Deller, Rosalind Nashashibi, Katrina Palmer, Charlie Prodger and many more, and are all still available to buy from our shop, with all proceeds going to Medical Aid for Palestinians.

For more info on the Venice event, visit the Index website.

What Did You Do…? in Venice; ; January 1970;

ABOUT US

Book Works is a leading contemporary arts organisation with a unique role as makers and publishers of books.

Established in 1984, we are dedicated to supporting new work by emerging artists. Our projects are initiated by invitation, open submission, and through guest-curated projects. Book Works consists of a publishing and commissioning department; and a studio specialising in binding, box-making and multiples.

STUDIO

The Book Works Studio offers a specialist bespoke service for a range of clients, from artists, designers, galleries, and businesses. We provide binding solutions, develop prototypes and specialise in unique book artworks, boxes, and portfolios. We have an extensive archive, and offer tailored educational events, and bookbinding courses. The Studio generates income from clients and is self-sufficient.

PUBLISHING

Book Works Publishing is dedicated to supporting new work by emerging artists. Our projects are initiated by invitation, open submission, and through guest-curated projects and include publishing, a lecture and seminar programme, exhibitions, the development of an online archive, and artists’ surgeries and workshops.

Our audience is vital to our work. The process of engaging and developing our audience is initiated with our commissioning programme, and driven through all aspects of our activities, particularly our public programme of events, our workshops, artists’ surgeries and education activities, and through our interest in collaborating with other organisations and libraries. Our programme of commissions is diverse, and reflects our commitment not just to work with cultural workers from all backgrounds, but to invest in networks and programmes that engage, and develop and create new artistic voices.

Recent Commissions

Includes new projects with: Ayo Akingbade, Deborah-Joyce Holman, Bouchra Khalili, Amy Ching-Yan Lam, Samia Malik, Harun Morrison, Sofia Niazi, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha and Jimmy Robert, Prem Sahib, Derica Shields, and Cecilia Vicuña. Our current Open Submission is Arrhythmia, guest edited by Katrina Palmer, and has commissioned new work from Andrew Colarusso, Roy Claire Potter, Kamwangi Njue, and Alice Walter.

SUPPORT US

By supporting Book Works you will help support artists and writers at the emerging stage of their careers through our diverse commissioning programme of open submissions, guest editorships, public events, exhibitions and publications.

CHARITY

Book Works is a registered charity, dedicated to advance education for the benefit of the public in the visual arts, particularly books which may be recognised as works of art in their own right.

TRUSTEES

We have a board of trustees who input their range of diverse expertise and interests into our development:

Teresa Drace-Francis (Chair)
Maria Amidu
Nick Brown
Tess Denman-Cleaver
Aliya Gulamani
Gerrie van Noord

Book Works

19 Holywell Row

London EC2A 4JB

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