A few mornings ago, the thought of publishing a zine made me jump out of bed and get going on a dark winter day. I think it’s a clue that my book collecting, library wanderings, and printing activities are more than hobbies. In fact, publishing might be part of my artistic practice.
What does that even mean?! I don’t know and I want to find out. That’s why I started Book Looking! In some episodes, me and a guest will look at a publication together and explore it as an artwork. Others might be a chat about publishing in general. These conversations will be a way to explore my instinct to make publications through examining books and the practice of making them, with other people.
The first episode was with my classmate Luz Blumenfeld and we looked at Eva Hesse: Diaries on Instagram Live. (Not to worry, even if you don’t use Instagram you can still watch the whole thing!) Fleeing Nazi-Germany in her early life, Eva became a sculptor in New York in the 1960s and just as her career was taking off, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor and died at age 34 in 1970. This book collects her diaries from 1955 through 1970 which are full of interior dialogues, heartache, and glimpses of daily life. First published in 2016, it was awarded that year’s Most Beautiful Swiss Book Award by the Swiss Culture Awards Federal Office of Culture1.
We talked about so much! Like how Luz’s grandmother maybe knew Eva, the allure of a brick-like book (as seen below on Luz’s bookshelf), how this book impacts our understanding of Eva Hesse’s life and work, and more!
The paper in the book is thin and smooth and some pages only have two words printed on them. The font is a gorgeous large serif, making it easy to focus on the words with appropriate margins of white space framing the text on each page. Not even images distract from the words, with only two included in the entire book: a portrait of Eva and a scan of an original, handwritten diary entry, similar to this one from the Eva Hesse Archive:
Towards the end of the conversation I blurted out that whenever I have an idea for a project my next thought is “how can I make this into a book?” and that making something real through the book form is at the core of my practice. Both of those are realizations I might never have said out loud if it weren’t for the conversation with Luz.
It’s been four days since our conversation and I keep thinking of questions I wish I had asked! I’ll save them for the next episode and until then, keep an eye on Instagram for more info on who, what, and when.
The book is edited by Barry Rosen with the assistance of Tamara Bloomberg
Book design by NORM, Zurich / Johannes Breyer, Berlin