It is conventional wisdom that you are not supposed to touch pieces of art. That’s why museums employ staff that stand around in galleries and berate anyone who dares to get too close to the museum’s wares. And mostly, I’m not interested in touching art, in particular painting or photographs. But there actually is art that I would love to touch. Anselm Kiefer’s pieces, for example, invite me to touch them. So do Louis Bourgeois’ fabric works.
In other words, there are pieces of art that inherently create a viewer’s desire to engage with them besides looking at them. I’m not talking about Richard Serra’s overwrought gigantic steel pieces (one of which I have touched — to feel absolutely nothing). I’m talking about pieces of art where the materials themselves evoke a viewer’s tactile experience. With Kiefer, it’s not the paint I want to touch or the metal. It’s the degraded organic matter that is present in some of his work, matter that speaks of the world outside of the artist’s studio.
Their tactile aspects might be the most underappreciated components of photobooks. In my experience, you can tell the difference between a brilliant photobook maker and a competent one by observing whether or not their eyes light up when it comes to the papers they use. Competent book makers will know all about what printing on different papers looks like. Brilliant book makers will know what it feels like to the person looking at a book.
Here, looking entails seeing as much as registering the signals sent from the finger tips. Photographs are said to have no surfaces, meaning that unlike Kiefer’s paintings they don’t strut out into space. But photographs printed with ink (whether in a book or elsewhere) actually do — you might not be able to see them. Your fingertips will pick up on them. They will glide across the surfaces of smooth (or cheaply genetic) papers, and they will notice the possible roughness of other types of paper. They will notice how one type of paper feels fragile while another resists when a page is being turned.
The vast majority of photobooks are made without consideration of their tactile qualities. Production often is an afterthought. Or the flawed goal of the precious photobook is pursued where preciousness means a combination of heavy printing, thick paper, and an almost criminal absence of even the most basic aspects of good graphic design.
The right printing, the right paper(s), and the right graphic design are important. They have to be considered in such a fashion that they’re in support of the work. And “the work” means the book itself — and not its individual constituent photographs. This holds true even for catalogues, collections of images that often are pulled from different projects and that might not easily cohere in a visual fashion.
For me, the most important aspect of the book as an object is the following. As an object, a book (or any publication in general) has to support the material it contains in such a fashion that it helps a viewer understand or feel what they’re made to look at. This means that the object might draw attention to itself. But this has to be done in such a fashion that that attention does not divert the viewer’s focus from what it on view.
This means that if a viewer notices, say, the way the paper feels there should be a connection to the work (meaning the photographs and the overall goal of the book). If there is no such connection (it is clear that for many books, the object does not need to step in), then the materials should not attract undue attention.
A recent example of an absolutely perfectly made catalogue is provided by Kim Boske‘s Kamiyama, published by FW:Books, a masterclass in photobook making.
Kamiyama showcases art work made by Boske during a string of art residencies in a small Japanese village of that name. Japan consists of over 10,000 island, with four main (large) ones. Kamiyama is situated on the smallest one of these main ones, Shikoku, roughly 70 miles (or 110 km) to the southwest of Osaka (which is on Honshu, Japan’s largest island). The area is very rural, with the Akui river passing by and numerous other, smaller ones flowing into it. There are a number of waterfalls nearby.
For the various pieces showcased in the book, Boske collaborated with local artisans, using local materials and techniques. These include the production of indigo pigments to create blue fabrics. Kamiyama sits in the area which is famous (at least in Japan) for its indigo production.
The work showcased in the book is mostly abstract. The most easily recognizable photographs show layered depictions of streams and shrubbery. The rest are completely abstract, and the pieces are not the images themselves but, instead, the images plus their carriers (whether paper of cloth).
How do you convey the range of art pieces made by Boske while helping a viewer understand what they’re looking at? The book does this by showing either the pieces themselves (in some cases, this includes their back sides) or installation photographs. In addition, there are some essays (printed on blue or green paper — this is a nice touch, because historically, the Japanese language did not have a separate word for “green”, including it in 青 [pronounced ao]).
And there is an extended section that showcases the processes itself, with Boske, various artisans, and workshop participants engaged in producing pieces. That process section does a lot of heavy lifting for the catalogue, and it does so very smartly. There are no explanations (it might in fact be rather tedious having to read specific production details). But as a viewer you can see what things looked like.
The process section with its depictions of cloth, water, dyes, etc. combines with the materials of the book itself to communicate the importance of materiality for this particular artist. Looking through the book, I was wondering what, say, the handmade cloth would feel like to my touch. Being far away I have no way of knowing. But I have the book, with its coarse cloth cover (which visually resembles some of the cloth in the book), and I have the different types of paper, some of them smooth, others with what feels like little ridges that my fingertips can’t slide over so easily.
I am somewhat biased in that I am very interested in both Japanese culture and traditions (but not in a fashion that only focuses on the latter). You might wonder whether this does not in fact shade my view of the book. It might. On the other hand, if you showed me Boske’s art pieces in a conventional catalogue, I would probably not be very interested. The abstractions created from layering photographs ordinarily are not my cup of tea.
But I am deeply intrigued by beautiful art pieces and the ways they are made. Kamiyama does a perfect job of pulling me in and of engaging me with Boske’s work from Japan. Which is to say that I personally expect a catalogue to do more than present information: it should create an experience that goes beyond the cerebral.
I want to feel something when I look at a book. In fact, that’s the only reason why I look at photobooks (and art in general).
Whatever you might make of the above, your response to the book and the work it showcases might be different. Still, I am confident in claiming that you would have to have a heart of stone not to be touched (please excuse the pun) by the sheer beauty of this book. There are a few books I pull from my shelf when someone asks me how a book can be a piece of art. From now on, these will include Kamiyama.
Highly recommended.
Kamiyama; art works by Kim Boske; essays by Erik A. de Jong, Ryoko Yoshida, Taco Hidde Bakker, and Menno Liauw; smaller pieces of texts by various authors and participants in workshops held by Boske; 306 pages; FW:Books; 2025
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