NEW TITLES IN 2008

'Broken and Breaking Ground' by John Harper

Taking his thoughts into, and from the landscape resulted in both the title and content of this book. Throughout 2007 photographic artist and sculptor John Harper took ideas generated from earlier land related projects across Britain to what he calls ‘ the ordinary landscape’ of Fermyn Wood in Northamptonshire. The result of the project is a set of visual notations and resolved large scale photographic works all taken from this area of woodland, which show the artist’s concerns with visual perception and the questioning of conventional pictorialism.

The group of photoworks comprise hundreds of montaged individual black and white photographs taken in the landscape, and subsequently assembled in the studio.

Supported by text transcribed from discussions with Nancy Stedman of the Landscape Research Group, the book also uncovers Harper’s motivation and personal engagement with the land, and what he regards as the associated alchemy of photography.

Standard edition (hardback) now available from Cornerhouse click here to order - price £25

Pages: 96
Binding: hardback
Illustration: 200 b&w illustrations
Dimensions: 221 x 278 mm

Special limited edition (pictured above) comes with a set of 8 photo prints in folder, in rigid slipcase with the hardback book - price £45 - contact RGAP to order

TITLES PUBLISHED IN 2007 click here to order

Some Forms of Availability by Simon Cutts

This volume assembles speculative essays, reviews, interviews, and collected statements and texts by Simon Cutts, long-time publisher of Coracle Press. Its concern is with the recent history of the book and the idea of publication arising from its occurrence in modernism, the small presses and the developing artists book. At the same time it introduces some of the ephemera produced by Coracle over the years, the Polemical Postcards, and a facsimile case history of the distribution of such understated work. These may all contribute to a new optimism for the availability of the small publication and for its sense of achievement within a finite means.

The book also deals with the relationship of printed to public space, the catalogue to the exhibition, the invitation and announcement to the work itself - and its reproduction.

This follows the long history of Coracle as curator and commissioning editor, from the gallery space in London and the early exhibitions of artists like Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Hamish Fulton, Richard Long and Roger Ackling, to books, catalogues and other printings in support of such work. Co-published with Granary Books, New York.

‘Awayday to Paradise’ by Ian Breakwell

As well as his famous diaries, Ian Breakwell wrote an amount of text material which he denoted as ‘fiction’, much of which has remained unpublished. This book brings together such material into a single publication, and, as with our previous publication with Ian - ‘Derby Days’, incorporates some new writing.

The book comprises twenty or more text pieces, dating from 1981 to 2004, together with reproductions of 16 art/textworks by Ian Breakwell which he selected to accompany these texts. It was his proposal to develop and edit this volume in collaboration with RGAP and the format and content was agreed with Ian via a series of editorial meetings and correspondence in 2004/5.

‘Awayday to Paradise’ is significant in that it is probably the last book that Ian Breakwell actively worked on before he died in 2005. It also represents an unusual side of his extensive and varied output, in that it is not autobiographical, but demonstrates, nevertheless, his continuing observational wit combined with some poignant and sometimes dark reflections on living and dying in contemporary Britain

'Irfaran' by Brigitte Jurack

The narrative of Irfaran emerges from the author’s travels across the Baltic States, northern Germany and Italy, as well as in the UK. Tracing a lineage of Wanderschaft back to the Middle Ages, this travelling artist passes through the Baltic States down to Odessa, from West Germany to the former East, from Swansea across to The Mumbles and then on to northern England, seeking to find meaning in the act of arriving, as both tourist and worker. From these journeys, impressions of the places visited are initially recorded in photographs and writings, and subsequently developed into Souvenir Sculptures.
Brigitte Jurack’s sculptural works, travel writings and monochrome photographs provide moments of revelation triggered by the peripheral and neglected architecture of modern cities pressured by tourism. This book is illustrated with over 30 black and white plates, together with photographic documentation of the sculptures.

Other books in development are with

Les Coleman