Art Metropole

07 Oct. 2023

Small Walker Press Book Launch: Handmade & Touch, Tender Readings

Time

2-3 pm

Join us for the book launch of the two most recent publications from Small Walker Press, Handmade, by Bernhard Cella and Seth Weiner; and Touch, and Tender Readings. Books as Archives by Brandon LaBelle and Annette le Fort.

This event will take place at Art Metropole and online, with a discussion between the authors and SWP editors Nicholas Hauck and Catherine Parayre.

Handmade is the product of a reflection between two artists whose practice includes book design and curatorial projects. For Handmade, Bernhard Cella and Seth Weiner wrote together short creative-writing pieces. Each is the facetious description of contents in an imaginary book. They then used these descriptions to generate images of book covers through AI. The images look like photographs of books, although none of these books (none of these covers) actually exists. The book descriptions refer to content that was never written. The result is a catalogue of books that do not exist. Handmade points to the importance of book design and marketing (book descriptions, catalogues).

In Touch, and Tender Readings. Books as Archives, two artists – Brandon LaBelle and Annette le Fort – visit their local public library, check out a few books, keep these for a few days then return them. The text and black-and-white photographs included in Touch, and Tender Readings. Books As Archives document this trip to the library. They evoke a sensory experience – tactile, visual, and olfactive – and a meditative performance – walking through the stacks, touching book covers, turning the pages of a book. LaBelle and le Fort present the library as an organic space and the destination of an intellectual and sensuous journey during which thoughts expand quickly beyond the books displayed on the shelves.

From the Shop

• Touch, and Tender Readings. Books as Archives.
• Handmade

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