»catherine griffiths : SOLO IN [ ] SPACE« A documentation

Zhihua Duan [with Catherine Griffiths]

2021

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A documentation of »catherine griffiths : SOLO IN
[ ] SPACE«, a survey of selected works exhibited at The Space Gallery, Shanghai, 2019.

The exhibition was curated and organised by DUAN Zhihua, with curatorial team, LI Haoyuan, Jennifer Liu, WANG Weiying, Kelly ZHENG, QUAN Wenyue, WANG Yifei, ZHENG Ran and The Space Gallery partner (SHEN Liqiong, GAO Jie).

The post-exhibition book »catherine griffiths : SOLO IN [ ] SPACE« A documentation is
an ‘installation on an installation on an installation’—works made over time and space, reconfigured, re-contextualised and responsive.
It is a marker, fragments from an evolving series of works, large and small, that span wide, shoot off on tangents, make sense on examination, where dots join and a typographic thread weaves—nothing comes out of a vacuum—a mapping out. This marker is first indicated through a window installation of white lines and circles: gestural, expressive, and with intent.

What appears abstract outside on The Space Gallery window is revealed inside, pinned to the wall, an unfolded 4 metre long drawing »So far: a map of projects, a drawing« (2016). This mapping out of projects traces the interrelationships of common language (sound and graphic), spatial shift (public/private), and atmosphere (calm to chaotic), found across more than a decade of these conceptions.” —quoted from artist’s statement.

Published by Zhihua Duan and Pocca, and first launched at the 2021 UNFOLD Shanghai Art Book Fair, with a talk hosted by Bananafish Books.

Included are five short essays—poetic, meditative, observational—by Leonardo Sonnoli (Italy), Liza Enebeis (Netherlands), Masayoshi Kodaira (Japan), Anastasia Genkina (Russia) and Scarlett Xin Meng (China). As well, from the archive of selected writing, Gregory O’Brien’s Body, Mind, Somehow: The Text Art of Catherine Griffiths for Art New Zealand’s 150th issue (2014), and a review of »AEIOU, a typo/sound installation« (2009) by curator, writer and researcher Dr Mercedes Vicente, give clues and insights into what simply cannot be gathered in this one space, this moment in time.

The eloquence and refinement of Griffiths’ works belies a process which is very much about connecting, intuitively as well as intellectually, with the energy and character of a location as well as with her materials. Tellingly in this regard, her text-in-landscape works are, as she says ‘an extension of my body, of my mind, somehow.
—Gregory O’Brien, Art New Zealand, 2014 / archive, selected writings

 

view book at Studio Catherine Griffiths

 

Bilingual Chinese and English
Translation Zhihua Duan, Icey Lee
Design Catherine Griffiths, Zhihua Duan,
and Yifei Wang
Soft cover, with reflective dust-jacket
(exhibition poster, folded), 220 pages
Section sewn, exposed spine
260 x 190mm, upright
276 images, photographs and drawings
Printed in Shanghai, China
EDITION of 600

Published by Pocca

‘A Vocabulary’

Bruce Connew

2021

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‘A Vocabulary’, Bruce Connew, is a 604-page, cloth, case-bound artist book in an edition of 325 (Vapour Momenta Books, 2021): 306 works, an introduction, ‘A vocabulary of colonisation’, with He Mōteatea The Lament, and essay The Sandfly Nips...The Conversation Continues by Rangihīroa Panoho.

After three years research, fieldwork, edit, research, more research, Covid-19, research, design, print and bind, the artist book and accompanying exhibition are here, the exhibition previewed 16.00 – 18.00h, Saturday, 12 December 2020, Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery, Titirangi, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. The book is available at Vapour Momenta Books.

“I step mindfully onto the farmland to photograph a panorama of the battle site from both Māori and Pākehā points of view. After several footsteps, and with some bafflement, I stop dead in my tracks at a strange sensation deep inside my belly, which today I’m still unable clearly to throw light on. History was here, I grasp that, but this was out of that range. Does earth hold memory, and deliver that memory when the gravity is ripe? I quietly push forward. It was not the only occasion this phenomenon manifested while roaming the battles of Aotearoa’s reprehensible colonial wars. The memory of that memory has not grown pale.

Over several recent years, not the least abstractedly, I’ve roamed more, this time after the many memorials and gravestones for the dead of these wars, or more specifically, the texts on these testaments to folly. A vocabulary of colonisation.” Bruce Connew

 

Design Catherine Griffiths
and Bruce Connew
Typography Catherine Griffiths
Cloth, case-bound, 604 pages
section sewn, round spine, ribbon
206 x 137mm, upright
496 colour photographs as 306
image works
Printed and bound in Aotearoa New Zealand
by Kale Print and Bookbinding Press
EDITION of 325 including SPECIAL EDITION
of up to 50 copies with ‘Heke’s Pah’ signed,
pigment print, 158 x 105mm image size,
on 308gsm
 Hahnemuhle Photo Rag

Vapour Momenta Books
ISBN 978-0-473-54543-7

 

‘folded eggs’

Bruce Connew

2018

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‘folded eggs’ was published 2018 by Vapour Momenta Books, the pocket-sized publishing arm of Catherine Griffiths and Bruce Connew.

It emerged after a journey from my home in New Zealand to grandchildren in Santiago. It was an inadvertent project from images made without clear purpose in a country whose recent history I understood. My own country’s history became implicated.

 ‘folded eggs’ is an artist book, a modest meditation on history and memory, with 53 colour images made in Chile, from Valparaíso to Santiago, and a concise Connew essay across Allende and Pinochet to New Zealand’s colonial wars.

 The artist book is a simple, tactile, soft-back artist book, printed offset on beautiful German paper with a wrap-around, Risograph-printed, Kraft-paper cover. The essay runs as a single line, below the images and centred in the book, so the essay neither begins at the start nor finishes at the end — the visual and textual reading is at once “filmic and poetic”.

It printed late May 2018 for a September release with @photoq_bookshop at Unseen Amsterdam. The next signing was at Hamburger Bahnhof Art Book Fair, Berlin, October 2018, then during Paris Photo 2018 with the inimitable Andrea Copetti, Tipi Bookshop, Brussels, aboard Sebastian Hau’s pumping Polycopies on the Seine.

 There were two New Zealand launches December 2018 at Lela Jacob’s The Keep, Auckland with poet Ian Wedde, and at {Suite} Gallery, Wellington with Luit Bieringa.

 

Design Catherine Griffiths
and Bruce Connew
Typography Catherine Griffiths
Soft-back, Kraft-paper jacket, 100 pages
section sewn, exposed binding,
200 x 130mm, upright
53 colour photographs
Printed in Hong Kong
EDITION of 600
SPECIAL EDITION of 50
with signed, numbered, pigment print #11,
115 x 76mm image size, on 308gsm
Hahnemuhle Photo Rag

Vapour Momenta Books
ISBN 978-0-473-43770-1

 

‘Body of Work’

Bruce Connew

2015

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‘Body of Work’ was published 2015 by Vapour Momenta Books, the pocket-sized publishing arm of Catherine Griffiths and Bruce Connew.

“What Bruce Connew’s book ‘Body of Work’ recalibrates is the very interesting and historical metaphor of the horse ... ” Brad Feuerhelm’s review for American Suburb X, September 18, 2016.

‘Body of Work’ was published and signed during Paris Photo 2015, first at Le Bal, November 12, and again, Friday 13, at Café Lehmitz Photobooks aboard Polycopies, just before an awful madness came upon Paris.

“In the first instance, ‘Body of Work’ is about the orchestrated process of horse breeding. But, as I wriggled through the months of scrutiny, amidst the rawness of procreation, I became aware of a common anomaly in the mares being served. I came to recognise, in one mare after another, an anthropomorphic capacity to reflect. Through mournful eyes, they would make known an understanding of their peculiar predicament.” ... from the afterword.

Josef Chladek included ‘Body of Work’ on Virtual Bookshelf’s 2015 BEST list. His tweet early December 2015 said:  “One of the most stunning and beautiful books in a long time ...”

 

Design Catherine Griffiths
and Bruce Connew
Typography Catherine Griffiths
Cloth, case-bound, 68 pages
340 x 230mm, upright
38 tritone photographs
Printed in Germany by Optimal Media
EDITION of 600, signed, numbered
SPECIAL EDITION of 50, signed, numbered,
with signed, numbered, pigment print #9, 
180 x 120mm image size, on 308gsm
Hahnemuhle Photo Rag

Vapour Momenta Books
ISBN 978-0-473-33019-4 

‘I Must Behave’

Bruce Connew

2009

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‘I Must Behave’ was published by Vapour Momenta Books, the pocket-sized publishing arm of Catherine Griffiths and Bruce Connew.

It is the second volume in a social and political trilogy of artist books: ‘I Saw You’, 2007; ‘I Must Behave’, 2009; ‘I Drive You Crazy, to the Moon’, which will be published one day.

“This is an unsettling observation of the experience of globalisation: where we are, who we are and what we are, we can’t quite say. Perhaps the sense of anxiety and disconnection apparent in these images is also a manifestation of the personal and social controls and restrictions we submit ourselves to.” Deidra Sullivan

Design Catherine Griffiths
and Bruce Connew
Typography Catherine Griffiths
Cloth, case-bound, 132 pages
121x167mm, upright
85 colour photographs
Printed in Verona, Italy by EBS
EDITION of 600 signed, numbered
SPECIAL EDITION of 50 with signed,
numbered, pigment print #1, 129x86mm,
on 308gsm Hahnemuhle Photo Rag

Vapour Momenta Books
ISBN 978 0 473 14629 0

‘Granta’ 105

Bruce Connew

2009

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The ‘Censored’ triptych, with a Connew text, appeared inside and on the cover of the UK magazine of new writing, GRANTA 105, Lost and Found, Spring 2009.

“Mulling over the layers of art and politics involved, I realised I had unwittingly prepared an artwork of my own, right there in the Louis Hotel.” Bruce Connew

ISBN 978 1905889105 5

 

 

‘I Saw You’

Bruce Connew

2007

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‘I Saw You’ was published by Vapour Momenta Books, the pocket-sized publishing arm of Catherine Griffiths and Bruce Connew.

It is the first volume in a social and political trilogy of artist books: ‘I Saw You’, 2007; ‘I Must Behave’, 2009; ‘I Drive You Crazy, to the Moon’, which will be published one day.

“I peered in on people’s lives, sneaked up on their susceptibilities as they busied themselves mostly in ordinary ways, minding their own business and perhaps a little of yours, when they could reasonably expect no one to be watching—private moments in a public space.” Bruce Connew

Design Catherine Griffiths
and Bruce Connew
Typography Catherine Griffiths
Hard cover, tape-bound, 120 pages
105x148mm, upright
52 colour photographs
Printed by Freestyle, New Zealand
EDITION of 600 signed, numbered
SPECIAL EDITION of 50 signed,
numbered, with signed, numbered
pigment print #16, 91x91mm,
on 308gsm Hahnemuhle Photo Rag

Vapour Momenta Books
ISBN 978 0 473 12457 1

‘Stopover’

Bruce Connew

2007

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‘Stopover’ was published by Victoria University Press, Wellington, New Zealand, and co-published by University of Hawai’i Press, Hawai’i, USA.

The artist book was launched with grace and sustenance amongst the cane cutters and their families, and in the shade of a giant mango tree, by Bruce Connew, Catherine Griffiths, Brij Lal, Padma Lal, Jogindhar Singh Kanwal and Amarjit Kaur in Vatiyaka, Fiji, 2pm, Saturday, 25 August, 2007.

“Connew’s work combines haunting images with a text that is poetic, elegant, and moving in its clarity. There is a power and persuasion to his work that even the most scholarly and responsible analyses cannot match.” Professor David Hanlon, Director, Centre for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai’i.


Design Catherine Griffiths
and Bruce Connew
Typography Catherine Griffiths
Cloth, case-bound, 184 pages
136x185mm, upright
61 duotone, 9 colour
photographs, plus texts
Printed in Verona, Italy by EBS 
OPEN EDITION
SPECIAL EDITION of 50 signed,
numbered, with signed, numbered
pigment print #14, 86x129mm,
on 308gsm Hahnemuhle Photo Rag

Victoria University Press and
University of Hawai'i Press
ISBN 978 086473 557 7

‘Muttonbirds—part of a story’

Bruce Connew with Dean Tiemi Te Au

2004

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‘Muttonbirds—part of a story’ was published in 2004 by Vapour Momenta Books, to coincide with the exhibition launch at McNamara Gallery, Whanganui, New Zealand.


A Wellington, New Zealand publisher said the book was “a bomb in plain wrapping”. It was a contentious project from the get-go, a man attempting to reclaim what he had proved through the Maori Land Court was his and his children’s right.

“I’ve stood in front of the tribe in the correct way. I have my rightful interests and I will stand up for them. I want my children to get on with what it’s really about: muttonbirding, enjoying the world of their ancestors and the treasures they left.” Dean Tiemi Te Au


Design Catherine Griffiths
and Bruce Connew
Typography Catherine Griffiths
Paper, French-folds,
Wiro bound,134 pages,
145x180mm, landscape
30 duotone photographs,
plus an oral history text from 
interviews by Bruce Connew
with Dean Tiemi Te Au
Edition of 600 signed, numbered

Vapour Momenta Books
ISBN 0 9582430 4 2

 

‘Press Escape to Cancel’, SPORT 24

Bruce Connew

2000

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‘Press Escape to Cancel’ appeared as an essay of photographs and writing inside and on the covers of SPORT 24, Summer 2000, the New Zealand literary journal published by Victoria University Press publisher, Fergus Barrowman.

The essays weave the madness of immediate post-war Kosova with the clinical madness of a Kosova asylum.

I entered Kosova from Macedonia on 19 June 1999, seven days after Nato troops, and hitchhiked about for eight days during the early return of Kosovar Albanian refugees.


SPORT 24, Summer 2000
Design Catherine Griffiths
and Bruce Connew
Typography Catherine Griffiths
26 pages, 148x210mm, upright
43 duotone photographs, plus texts

Fergus Barrowman
ISSN 0113 7891

 

‘On the way to an ambush’

Bruce Connew

1999

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‘On the way to an ambush’ was published by Victoria University Press, Wellington, New Zealand, and launched 22 April 1999 to a generous crowd at Unity Books, Wellington, the best bookshop in New Zealand.


“This is his record of time spent looking and thinking about what has been seen and what it might mean. Through a process I can only describe as an unfurling or unravelling, this war in Burma becomes a metaphor for Connew’s own life.” Peter Turner, past-editor, Creative Camera magazine.


Design Catherine Griffiths
and Bruce Connew
Typography Catherine Griffiths
Soft, with flaps, 176 pages
150x210mm, upright
55 duotone, 30 colour
photographs and colour images,
plus a sizeable Connew text
Printed by Graphic Press, New Zealand

Victoria University Press
ISBN 0 86473 376 3

‘Suburbs’

Bruce Connew

1994

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‘Suburbs’ looked at Khayelitsha, a Cape Town squatter camp, during South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994. 


The self-published catalogue was the first project collaboration between Catherine Griffiths and Bruce Connew, a precursor to Vapour Momenta Books, our pocket-sized publishing arm. Catherine, late 1995, with a budget of a modest bouquet of flowers, innovatively reproduced, along with a Connew text, all 23 images from the exhibition. As well, it was the beginning, within our collaboration, of typographic covers—photobook covers without images. So far, only ‘On the way to an ambush’ has escaped this strategy.

“Moving from shack to shack, I discover further fruit cocktails, green this time, and pear halves, a living room of supermarket junk mail, again carefully aligned, kapow! with colour and design.” Bruce Connew


Catalogue for the exhibition
Design and typography

Catherine Griffiths

Paper, saddle stitched

12 pages, 147x210, landscape

23 colour photographs, plus text


Self-published, November 1995
ISBN 0 473 03549 9

 

‘South Africa’

Bruce Connew and Vernon Wright

1987

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‘South Africa’ was published by Hodder & Stoughton, New Zealand, in 1987, when Bert Hingley and Tom Beran were about. I laid out a sequence of large photocopies of the images, as they would appear in the June 1986 National Art Gallery exhibition, along a carpeted corridor in Hodder’s Auckland offices. Bert strode up and down the line, and said quickly that he would publish the book.


I had arrived in South Africa on the day the government declared a state of emergency, 21 July 1985, to be met by writer Vernon Wright, my compatriot on our five-week passage through apartheid. Vernon wrote an important essay for the book, and sought Winnie Mandela to write the introduction.


Design Dexter Fry
and Bruce Connew
Typography Dexter Fry
Soft cover, 134 pages
185x210mm, landscape
62 duotone photographs,
Vernon Wright text,
Winnie Mandela introduction

Hodder & Stoughton
ISBN 0 340 401206

 

‘I Drive You Crazy, to the Moon’

Bruce Connew

2018

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a book one day

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‘I Drive You Crazy, to the Moon’, photographed mostly mid-2007, will be published one day by Vapour Momenta Books.

It is the third volume in a social and political trilogy of artist books: ‘I Saw You’, 2007; ‘I Must Behave’, 2009; ‘I Drive You Crazy, to the Moon’, 2018.

‘I Drive You Crazy, to the Moon’, is a private, political journey to oil, and “... grapples more abstractly with the geo-political implications of capitalist frameworks.” says Dr Barbara Garrie.

As a counterpoint to that immorality, and to underline the lyrical beauty and sometimes creepiness of the moving light, I have added music notation to the smaller, repeated images of the series, which have been placed according to the notes of the opening bars of each of the seven movements of Beethoven’s Late String Quartet #14 Opus 131, a piece of music that is humanity itself.

 

Design Catherine Griffiths
and Bruce Connew
Typography Catherine Griffiths
Newsprint, 72 pages
Folded dust jacket
380x289mm, upright
24 colour photographs

Vapour Momenta Books