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Publication Date
12-1-2020
Description
HONORABLE MENTION | $100
Keywords
artists' books, Baker & Whitehill, Honorable Mention
Disciplines
Book and Paper
Student Status
Undergraduate student
Year of Graduation
2024
Major
BRDD, Furniture Design, History
Faculty / Course
Not associated with a course, personal project.
Materials + Techniques
Accordion artist book in clamshell box; gouache, paper, transfer paper
Student Narrative
After studying early 20th-century avant-garde movements, I created this artist book as a contribution to the avant-garde dialogic tradition in which visual artists and writers respond to and enhance each other’s work, both contemporaneously and retrospectively. My book is an aesthetic vessel for the long poem "Zone," which was written in 1913 by French avant-gardist Guillaume Apollinaire. The literary challenge of translating “Zone" has been attempted by many poets, and Louis Simpson’s version is the one I chose for my book. "Zone" is a travel poem, with words that wander from observation to recollection and often seemingly do not make sense. I reflected the structure and tone of the poem in the structure and typefaces of my book. Particularly inspired by the artist book collaboration between poet Blaise Cendrars and artist Sonia Delaunay (who were contemporaries of Apollinaire), I drew on Delaunay’s bright painting style—simultanism—to render the imagery in the pages. Apollinaire/Simpson’s words directed my painting, but the overall effect is nonrepresentational.
Photo Credit
Hannah Nigro, PH 2023
Recommended Citation
Chang, Naya; Collections, Special; and Library, Fleet, "Zone: Apollinaire, Simpson, Chang" (2020). 8th Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest 2022. 4.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/bookcontest8th2022/4