Saturday, August 31, 2013

On Vesa-Pekka Rannikko's Art, Frame Publications, Finland, ed. 8000, 2011


An interesting example of the genre of exhibition-catalogue-as-accordion. This book includes an essay and interview by curator Laura Koonikka with Finnish artist Vesa-Pekka Rannikko about his work and more specifically the preparatory work he was doing for an installation in the Alvar Aalto pavilion for the Venice Biennale in 2011. Since the Aalto pavilion is a work of art in itself it became a bit confusing separating Rannikko's invovlement with the nature of the space and Aalto's involvement with the same as embodied in this structure. Indeed, one might understand this catalogue to be a dialogue about one work of art that was to be placed within another work of art, all of this overlayed with Rannikko's own aesthetic concerns that in itself involves his overpainting of anonymous works of art by amateur painters.

It could be worthwhile to explore further the history of accordion exhibition catalogues. From my experience as a curator they represent one of the most economical means of presenting a limited amount of didactic material in an easily accessible format. 18 pages (13' x 4.25") fully extended 6' 4.5".

Many thanks to Dave Dyment up in Toronto who is the founder of the really wonderful blog "Artists' Books and Multiples," who sent me this catalogue. Check out his site at: Artists' Books and Multiples









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