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Multipart artists’ books push the boundaries of the traditional codex of sequential bound pages. What are the separate parts that together constitute the “book”? They could be a set of booklets, folded pages tucked in an envelope pocket, a portfolio of prints, a deck of cards, or just about anything.
Multipart books invite the reader to open the box or case, to untie or unwrap and remove the different parts, discovering how they all fit together and what stories they conceal and reveal.
For more information about multipart books, click here.
b. 1956, United States
Atta Kwami
b. 1956, Ghana
Pamela Clarkson
Dates unknown, England
Listen, Listen: Adadam Agofomma: Honoring the Legacy of Koo Nimo
Minneapolis, MN: Take Time Press, 2011
Edition 10/50
Smithsonian Libraries
“Listen, listen.”
Can you hear the palm-wine, also called highlife, music of musician Koo Nimo?
Inside the clamshell box are three booklets and one portfolio of prints that tell the story of this Ghanaian music legend.
Handmade papers are the hallmark here. Even the clamshell box is made of papers from mulberry pulp. Booklets wrapped in handmade paper enclose Nimo’s biography, lyrics from his song, “Obra Ne Nea Wabo” (“Life Is What You Make It”), and a DVD.
Atta Kwami’s Sound Fabric suite of three etchings resonates visually with the music.
“Listen, listen.”
For more information about Listen, Listen, click here.
b. 1974, Nigeria
No Be Today Story O! (detail)
Amsterdam: Lumen Travo Gallery, 2010
Smithsonian Libraries
Otobongo Nkanga’s story, told as filtered memories and social consequences, is illustrated in four chapters that are enclosed in a translucent envelope.
Five connected images in this accordion fold are visually linked through projectiles, geodesic lattices, leaking oil tanks, and rivulets:
Constructivism
Choices we make
The Overload
Hostage
Wastescape
The Overflow
Five cut-up images repeat the motif of the dismembered arm, as if it had fallen off the now armless puppet.
Through these fragmented images, Nkanga’s socially constructed realities trigger memories of objects, events, and environments from her past.
“No be today story O!” is Nigerian Pidgin English for “this is old gist.” Yesterday’s news.
For more information about No Be Today Story O!, click here.
