The preparation of this project lasted for seven months. More than 60 artists presented their works at the exhibit, both amateurs and experienced masters among them.
“We are striving to shift to a new way of communicating with visitors: we used to be an institution that just preserves unique items. Now we want to be an institution that conducts an active dialog with people. The access to our cultural heritage must not be restricted,” says Valentyna BOCHKOVSKA, head of the project, director of the Museum of Books and Printing.
What makes this exhibit unique is that you can hold and look through the artbooks, which you may not do with other items displayed.
The artists’ flight of imagination is breathtaking. For example, artist Yulia Tabenska “re-wrote” a post-modernist novel Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino with the help of images. The plot is based on a description of 55 cities that were allegedly visited by Marco Polo. The artist tried to capture and render the atmosphere of the cities with the help of wood, paper, leather, film, and canvas. By the way, this is one of the few works created in several copies. Usually every artbook is unique and inimitable. In the work Petals of Sakura and Cherry Blossoms Yulia Polishchuk managed to unite tankas by Japanese medieval authors and extracts from poems by Ivan Franko, Lina Kostenko, and other Ukrainian poets. The authors also displayed a lot of fancy while making covers for their artbooks. For example, artist Anatol Stepanenko “dressed” his book in willow twigs, Rafael Lievchyn chose denim, while Ruta Korshunova and Olha Haze opted for coconut shells. In almost every work the authors experimented with fonts.
Roman ANDRIIEVSKY made his artbook of metal. This “source of wisdom” in brass and steel weighs about 50 kilograms.
“I came up with the idea of creating a metal book long time ago. It was much harder to decide on the topic. Finally I chose The Passion of Christ, it is an eternal theme. I put quotations from the Gospels on the reverse of each page. I worked on this book for almost a year,” the author says.
Olena RACHKOVSKA, co-founder of the Independent Theater Magazine Koza, who also works for the Museum, decided to draw attention to the Little Details of the Big City and save the memories of the vanishing Kyiv in her work:
“I live in Kyiv and I am passionately in love with my city. I love wandering down the streets, taking photos of interesting details of architecture: unique old windows, doors, elements of decoration, before it is all destroyed and replaced with metal and plastic. These tiny details shape the impression of the city, it loses its face without them. I plan on continuing my work; perhaps, someday I will publish an album artbook containing these photos.”
Two more special projects were presented within the Artist’s Book project: “12+12” and “Rutabook.” “12+12,” an international project, united 12 Ukrainian and 12 Russian artists.
“Our project was created to make modern artists ponder over the future of paper. According to the rules of the project, they had to present a book made of only one sheet of A4 paper,” Bochkovska says.
Another special project, “Rutabook,” was initiated by artist Ruta KORSHUNOVA. It involves 20 artists from Russia, the US, and Germany. Korshunova intended for the project to draw attention to budding artists and talented amateurs, who for some reason cannot publish their works:
“I made my own paper using the lifting method, then sewed it into books and sent to the authors. I picked individual sizes for each author, considering their previous works. They painted these books, created illustrations and texts. The authors are not exclusively professional artists. I have found a lot of interesting works on the web, met the authors there, and involved them in this project. In general, it took about a year to create the project,” Korshunova says.
The exhibit will be open until March 31. The museum plans to hold a series of master classes on making paper in the nearest future.
