Francisco Varela
The Expanded Practice of the Artist’s Book
Immersion in The Artist’s Museum
FV+msdm, London, 2020,
Video HD,11m 05”, English
Video Editing by Tee Byford
Narrated by Elizabeth Gleave
Video-essay
1st edition for Connections
– Exploring Heritage, Architecture, Cities,
Art, Media
University of Kent, Canterbury; AMPS
(Architecture_Media_Politics_Society)
29-30 June 2020
and
ACI Research and Enterprise Conference
London South Bank University
School of Arts and Creative Industries
8 July 2020
Credits and acknowledgments
Connections
— Programme [pdf]
— Video channel
How do we recognise an artist’s book when it becomes
an expanded practice?
Is the same method of sourcing, research and display of
materials used in books and collections alike?
Can the space where the book is made and exhibited be
considered an artist’s museum?
These were my initial questions when I saw the Blackchapel
book work at the msdm house-studio-gallery in London
in November 2019
Essay [+more]
The video-essay is based on the extended essay about Portuguese, London-based artist paula roush, whose artistic practice presents itself as a unique case study of a live–work method. It is the aim of this essay to analyse, contextualize and query the principles that guide this method. It is an artistic and experiential practice that performs a reinterpretation of the city through collection, research and display of materials as well as an idiosyncratic practice of space making. This is achieved through an immersive practice that results in artefacts and books the artist creates and in the musealisation of the architectural spaces she occupies.
1-THE EXPANDED PRACTICE OF THE ARTIST’S BOOK
The first section of the essay explores the “expanded” characteristics of the artist’s book, probing whether this notion is extensible to the activity of space production practiced in her house–studio–gallery, an activity which is unique to and inseparable from her live-work method. These artistic methodologies are clarified within an interdisciplinary framework that includes the concepts of “autoethnography,” “space–time sequence” and “contemporaneity.”
2-THE ART OF IMMERSION: COLLECTION, RESEARCH, DISPLAY
The second section explores the notion of “dispositif,” with the intention to reveal the multiple structuring elements of a live–work practice here called “immersive.”
3-MUSEOGRAPHY OF THE ARTIST’S STUDIO: THE ARTIST’S MUSEUM
The third section analyses the “museographic” process inherent to paula’s space, a practice associated to the house–studio–gallery. This live–work–curation method is identified in relation to various museological frameworks that are exercised in that space.