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 e..
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.
