This accordion is a one-person exhibit of prints that were inspired by the Japanese print tradition but Janssen has detourned them and given them his own unique twist. The first four pages contain Janssen's handwritten statement about the theme of the accordion.
Below is a text about Janssen from the Tate Gallery's website: Horst Janssen 1929–1995 | Tate
Horst Janssen (14 November 1929 – 31 August 1995) was a German draftsman, printmaker, poster artist and illustrator. He had a prolific output of drawings, etchings, woodcuts, lithographs and wood engravings.
Janssen was a student of Alfred Mahlau at the Landeskunstschule Hamburg. He first published in the newsweekly Die Zeit in 1947. In the early 1950s, he started working in lithography, on an initiative of Aschaffenburg paper manufacturer Guido Dessauer, using the technical facilities of a coloured paper factory.
The first retrospective of Janssen's drawings and graphic works was shown in 1965, first in the kestnergesellschaft Hanover, then in other German cities and in Basel. In 1966, he was awarded Hamburg's Edwin Scharff Prize. International exhibitions followed. In 1968, he received the Grand Prize in graphic art at the Venice Biennale; in 1977, his works were shown at the documenta VI in Kassel.
The Horst Janssen Museum in his hometown of Oldenburg is dedicated to his legacy. His work is shown internationally in major museums.
His life was marked by numerous marriages, outspoken opinions, alcoholism, and selfless dedication to the art of printmaking.
26 double-sided pages, individual pages 8" x 7", and when unfolded 15ft 2".
The following review of this work is from Aperture's Curated Book Collection and was posted on The Print Center's website [The Print Center]:
"This unique, accordion-folded volume co-published with the artists accompanies the Starns’ recent exhibition Black Pulse 2000-2007. The process of photosynthesis—the energy of light chemically transforming into the life force—serves as a rich analogy for the Starns’ work, which has always concerned itself with materiality, re-generation and entropy. With obvious reference to our own corporeality, the images in this series accentuate the arteries of the leaves, the bold and graphic traces of this essential life function.
The piece is striking in its construction: in scrolling dual lines atop each page, the Starns’ engage in a poetic, pseudoscientific dialogue about the ideas in the series. The pages are printed on both sides, with the images and text looping around from the last page back to the first, underscoring the flow and ongoing, cyclical nature of the material. Each double-page signature is joined meticulously by transparent tape, emphasizing the physicality and three dimensionality of the surface. An introduction by The Print Center’s Executive Director Elizabeth Spungen and essay by Martin Barnes, senior curator of photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, provide context for this work; it is included in a narrow, map-folded pamphlet inserted in a clear plastic flap on the interior of the volume."
26 double-sided pages, individually 13" x 9.5", estimated length 20ft 7" [note: every third fold represents a break in the paper, and these pages have been joined together by tape which means they do not open fully like a natural fold, so total length is an estimate]
