Tuesday, February 28, 2012

The Wordless Wonder Books of Tauba Auerbach

When viewing the wordless books of Tauba Auerbach, one has to suspend their belief of the traditional narrative story. There are no title pages or signposts for chapter openings or endings. There are no entries or exits. They are books designed for inspection and reflection. When first discovering this colorful book recently, my immediate reaction was "how the hell was this thing fabricated?" I'm sure it was not without challenges. 
      This wordless cube of a book, titled RGB Colorspace Atlas, is an 8x8x8 inch structure which was featured in Auerbach's most recent exhibit at the Bergen Kunsthall in Norway along with many other of her works on color perception. Weighing in at 1670 pages, it was digitally offset printed on paper, with each page a slightly different spectrum of color. The extraordinary binding with airbrushed bookcloth and page edges, was constructed by Daniel Kelm. Auerbach was evidently dissatisfied with the first edition of this book provided from the publisher, so she went back to the drawing board and conceived this impressive edition. I cannot imagine the enormous task required to retain such a uniform spectrum of color across all of these two-dimensional surfaces. Quite a remarkable achievement.



RGB Colorspace Atlas on display last year at the Bergen Kunsthall in Norway. 

Wood, 2011. Digital offset on Mohawk Superfine, 55 pages with hand painted edges. Binding is constructed by Daniel Kelm.

Marble, 2011. Digital offset on Mohawk Superfine, 55 pages with hand painted edges. Binding is constructed by Daniel Kelm.
:: Images via Arrested Motion, and Triangulation. 

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