Curated by Dean Inkster, Éric Mangion and Sébastien Pluot, Double Bind—Arrêtez d'essayer de me comprendre! is an exhibition about language's alteration and distortions. The booklet usually edited in the occasion of an exhibition at Villa Arson — as a regular and direct way for the visitor to get informations about artworks — is here transferred on walls located in the Galerie carrée. Technical details and informations about the 90 artworks in the show and an interview with the curators are brought together in one place and covers entirely the two sides of a wall.
V.RUBBERS, A.DEBOODT, JOS BAEYENS or R.DELVILLE are some of the architects' names collected by rubbing signatures carved on buildings near Elaine Levy's gallery.
Removed from its location, the lettering used gives informations about the style of the building, the architect's influences or the year of construction.
Using remains of the previous show, a table was first built in the gallery to set the workspace.
Cyril Bihan, Morgane Fondrillon, Cyrielle Langiaux, Hugues Le Guen, Yves-Marie Rinquin, Anaïs Touchot, Xiao Xin Wang
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Initiated by teachers Pascal Rivet and Joëlle le Saux, we helped 7 students to work on the gallery's new visual identity and invitation system, galerie-ésab.doc. The first issue announcing an exhibition curated by Élodie Royer and Yoann Gourmel, was finalised by Anaïs Touchot and Yves-Marie Rinquin.
galerie-ésab.doc replaces the regular invitation by a versatile format: invitation, poster, newspaper as well as archive. It gathers documents presenting the forthcoming exhibition ("Preview") and the previous one ("Review"). galerie-ésab.doc aims to play with archive by mixing working documents collected during the creation of an exhibition and archived documents of the past show. Based on the same layout and structure, one or several students are taking care of each issue.
Compared to the previous system, the production of galerie-ésab.doc is cheaper and faster, with printing and mailing being centralized at the town hall.
The way texts and images are treated, Science et Nature can be considered as archetypal of post-war publications, directly echoing the topic of this issue “Pratiques de l’image." For the occasion, Batia Suter's special contribution spreads in all the original pictures.
Original layout: Science et Nature par la photographie et par l’image, Nº21, Paris, May-June 1957.
“All of them produce this same sensation in the visitor. […] Their penchant for exhaustiveness, signaled by a lack of even the smallest cranny of empty space, makes them seem like sums, void of distinction.”
Excerpt of “Archive Stories” by François Aubart
“Les différents textes et images qui suivent ont été réunis sans souci d’exhaustivité sous forme d’un collage dessinant les contours mouvants de recherches en cours. Comme le précisait Roland Barthes en ouverture de L’Empire des signes: ‘Le texte ne commente pas les images. Les images n’illustrent pas le texte: chacune a été seulement pour moi le départ d’une sorte de vacillement visuel, analogue peut-être à cette perte de sens que le Zen appelle un satori […].’ Une dérive évocatrice peut-être de ce sentiment de mono no aware.”
Excerpt of FAN Nº1, by Élodie Royer & Yoann Gourmel
This volume presents the design process of the BAT fonts: BAT regular, BAT italic and BAT fat display. It gathers various documents—notes, sketches, pictures, references, working documents, printouts, tests—produced or collected at each step of the design.
This trio of typefaces will be used in each book of the collection MAP (Mixed Art Pages) and, by extension, for every production of the publishing house BAT (Books Art and Texts) and its visual identity.
The starting point was a Didone structure, a symbol of the French typographic heritage, chosen as a reference to the bland nature of scientific and academic texts. This rigid structure was then modified to increase readability. The high contrast letters, first written using a pointed pen, were given a warmer tone, ball terminals were added, fluid tails placed here and there. Still, the roman alphabet is rigid, almost dull. The italic, in comparison, is dynamic and friendly, emphasizing quotes, book and artwork titles in the text. In detail, the weight increases in the middle of the x-height, like in a kind of muscle enhancement program. A fat—high contrast—display face was produced for the logos of BAT and its subdivisions.
Every invitation for exhibitions at the parisian art gallery Super are made by a different graphic designer. Curated by le Bureau/, Une exposition de Polly Smith can be seen either as a solo exhibition or as a collective one. The exhibition booklet looks like a stack of images produced by the fictive artist Polly Smith. Captions appearing only at the back give clues to understand the group show.
Prototype of the book collection MAP (Mixed Art Pages). MAP series gathers books on contemporary art, printed matter and graphic design. The form of these volumes, their contents, their production and their distribution are jointly conceptualized, giving priority to plurality and hybrid principles.
“FAN (Free Art News) deliveries are part of the UFO series. This irregular gratis publication borrows its form and distribution from newspapers and mail art. The work of an author, a curator, an academic or an artist is presented on both sides of an A3 sheet, displaying the state of a current, ongoing and unfinished project. Issues are then mailed to a variable list of 100 recipients.”
Excerpt of FAN Nº0
This catalog accompanies Lawrence Weiner's public art project at abbaye de Corbigny. It describes the production of the art piece, step by step, like an administrative publication. It combines the various working documents (faxes send by the artist, sketches, …). The final art work can only be seen half way in the publication, and inside the cover once unfolded. The different materials available (text, interview and translation) allowed to divide the catalog in three parts, using the three colors of the art piece.
"The ability to produce elegance without a trace of pretention.
Très merci.
Lawrence Weiner
Corbigny 2009"
If the original layout of “Local/Global” was found in a small administrative archive somewhere in the south of France, such local publication may represent 80% of the French graphic production. According to the style of the illustrations found in this original publication, Baptiste Alchourroun produced a new serie of drawings.
Original Layout: Syndicat d’aménagement du val de Drôme Rhône-Alpes, Établissement public régional, Un Contrat de pays pour le Val de Drôme, Crest, Syndicat d’aménagement, 1981.
ESAG's brochure is completely handwritten by the many actors within the Fine Art school (director, administration, students and teachers) and by guests students of the Type]media course at KABK. The aim was to include all the employes of the school and to reveal the often neglected leading role of the students. Beyond the punitive aspect of the handwritten task, the status of an author is also
Revival of Mercator regular (Dick Dooijes, 1909-1998) based on a type specimen edited by Letterfoundry Amsterdam—Tetterode in the mid-sixties, and according to notes, working documents and correspondences kept in the special collections of the University Library in Amsterdam.
A small essay also describes the life of the Dutch typographer, tells the story of the font and lists possible reasons of its commercial failure.
In relation to the main topic of each issue of 2.0.1, an existing publication is chosen, its layout copied as closely as possible, and its content replaced by new texts and pictures. The topic of each issue is therefore emphasized by the form and layout of the publication. Only the logo remains the same, stamped on the cover.
Entitled “Restrictions,” the first issue had to be authoritative. The dry and rigid layout of the now defunct Revue historique de droit français et étranger is chosen to provide such effect. The book is left uncut on the top, compelling you to cut the pages in order to read the content.
Original layout: Revue historique de droit français et étranger (4e série—19-20es années, 1940-1941, Nº1-2, Éditions Sirey).
Invitation for the exhibition Livraison on one side, precise report of every issues of the journal on the other side, displaying titles, topics, authors, featured artists, graphic designers, publishing dates, dimensions, pages, prices, …
The student guide of the École supérieure d'art in Grenoble is an attempt to organize in a clear and simple way the complex and often rebarbative content of such publications.
Alphabetical index [A–Z] of numerical index [0–154] of register [Folder A–Folder X]. The clear and functional look of this index is misleading: its exhaustiveness of form and contents makes it completely useless.
Numerical index [0–154] of register [Folder A–Folder X]. Has to be consulted alongside register [Folder A–Folder X] and alphabetical index [A–Z]. The 651 rules of the 24 texts are listed by their numbering, from 0 to 154. The arbitrary of this basic classification sometimes produces interesting combinations but also dialogues of the deaf between authors. It is advised to open this index and read randomly some of its rules when one can't create. This creative assistance can help you. Or not.
3 complementary books = 24 texts focusing on methods and protocols in art and design = 651 rules to think well and create right = 5497 words = 31180 characters = A personal library presented as a public one.
The SIRADEL partner company has agreed to export on a daily basis a set of data linked to its computer activities: starting employees’ workstations, waiting list for printouts, number of computer keyboard keys pressed, etc. At the end of the sequence, a programme has been installed making it possible to generate, for each and every day of the exhibition, a graphic display that recycles the statistics from the day before. Through the central place taken up by the computer system, it is the whole life of a modern company that appears in the exhibition of the graphics.
The sabotaging of information is compounded by a hijacking of aesthetics and codes: the use of graphics no longer serves to facilitate a reading but rather to suggest a poetic approach. The saw tooth digital line evokes the Nasdaq graph, the appreciation of the line thus remains closely bound up with the idea of a thriving company.
Using Processing and “Physical computing" tools, the toy writes letters and words previously entered on a computer. Based on loopy alphabets for children, a script font is designed to be used with the machine: the beginning and the end of a letter are drawn in the same direction and avoids to curl the alimentation cable.
The brochure of ERBA Valence contains materials found in the school archive as well as in the city archive and local journals, in order to localise the school in its geographical aspect. A small collection of symbols picked up in Valence was also used on the cover of the exhibition booklet of Forms of Inquiry in Valence.
Portraits of artists Lawrence Weiner and Ed Ruscha drawn using a remote control toy with a felt tip pen at the front.
Drawings made for the LR6-1,5 Volt exhibition at Le RADAR gallery in Bayeux, 30 october-25 november 2007.
“Thanks for contributing Charles! Turned out great! Best, Leo”
Leo Jung and Gail Bichler of the New York Times magazine commissioned a titling for a Wiliam Saphire’s “On language” article. The Reservoir dog system was then improved to draw the word Overwatch. To show the whole process, a video appeared as an online feature on the New York Times website.
Thirtythree Fonts… is a map/poster that lists paintings by Edward Ruscha using texts, words or letters. The inventory is based on the first two volumes of the Catalogue raisonné of the paintings (Gagosian Gallery, Steidl).
Mimicking a specimen of typefaces, each title is set with the original font used, transformed or created by Ruscha, followed by the description of the art piece. It presents Ruscha’s work in a very unusual way and provides extra information about the work.
Homemade system increasing my drawing skills, the whole system works like a large scale stencil with a random filling up. The form of the letters are inspired by the font American Typewriter, chosen for its rounded shapes—its small bubbles allowing the toy to turn over—and also for the idea of a “type writing machine.” Each frame was designed in order to use the smallest number of elements allowing to draw each letter of the alphabet.
Following the first use of the manuals, the final drawing is later cut to form a booklet presenting a real size facsimile of the drawing. Its cover is also a poster presenting each step of the work.
Apprends à dessiner allows you to produce a large scale drawing with the help of 3 manuals. You won't find inside the complete model but each stroke of the outline, deconstructed page after page. The degree of distortion will vary, depending on the skills of the user and his attention to each step.
This research focuses on how the DIN font (1451/T version) is drawn by the machine Rotring CS 55. The focus is turned from the font to the movements of the pen and its invisible paths. The result is a new font family: NC Scriber. Each versions can be overlayed and mixed to create new titling design. Debunking the functioning of the machine reveals that the DIN has been modified to simplify the paths and increase the speed of drawing.
This classification of the symbols used in the book Signes du Capital is divided in 3 parts (Actors—Actions—Notions). It is based on Krzysztof Pomian's classification found in Sur l'histoire.
These symbols are related to each others and form the “Figures du Capital”, a translation in pictures of Karl Marx's Kapital.
77 signs composing 67 figures translating Karl Marx's Kapital. A graphic representation of an abstract theory. A scientific reverie based on graphic language. A 4 month long exclusive relationship with Karl.
Initially made with dancers for a dance festival poster, this anthropomorphic alphabet is later digitized with Lieuxcommuns for the annual report of French Dance centers: L’art en présence published by ACCN in 2006.
Portraits of Jasper Johns and Osip Brik drawn using a remote control toy with a felt tip pen at the front.
Drawings made for the Qu’il fasse beau exhibition at Art & Essai gallery, University Rennes 2, 8-29 september 2005.
