Boeken
Subtitle: Books
By: [designed by] Jan de Waard
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965, poet; Mooi Rood Pers; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: Mooi Rood Pers
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Leeuwarden, The Netherlands
Language: dut
Subjects: Violence; Pictorial works; Booksellers and bookselling; Bombings; Iraq War, 2003-2011; Protest movements; Books and reading in art; Intellectual life; Social conditions; Censorship; Terrorism in art; In art; War and civilization; Vehicle bombs; Visual literature; Specimens; Artists' books; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Other titles: Books
Description: "Books should troop together like street dogs. Piling up in the doorways of shops, sleeping under a blanket of cardboard, beggars without much hope for a hand-out. They should wash away by rain on the benches in parks or lay around on the floor of a tram. Exciting or boring those who pick them up, or leaving them indifferent, or annoying them so much that they want to write an answer that than will drift through the world namelessly. Somewhere that book will disturb the order, bring back balance, freeze joy, commemorate the future or predict the past, irresponsible, at best announced by the rustle of the sheets - the only angels I more or less believe in"--Quote from Erwin Mortier, Godenslaap, 2009, from the Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

Jan de Waard is the owner of a private press in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands. Mooi Rood Pers (Beautiful Red Press) produces hand-bound limited edition books, fine bindings and one-of-a-kind artists' books and boxes. The artist states "Visually, my work reflects my interests in language, text and typefaces. I am also interested in the nature of surfaces and materials. I apply my explorations of these interests along with accumulated technical skills to the interpretation of existing texts or to the invention of content of my own. I aim to create books whose intellectual and sensual facets are integrated, that are interesting and are good company"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.
Notes: Published in a limited edition of 15 copies.

Wrapper sewing binding (non-adhesive) of Kraft board, transparent endpapers 'Voile de papier;' wood-type stamp on cover and inside in white and blue, double folded pages with digitally printed text (FF Scala).

On March 5th, 2007, a car bomb exploded on al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. Al-Mutanabbi Street is located in a mixed Shia-Sunni area. More than 30 people were killed and more than 100 wounded. Al-Mutanabbi Street, the historic center of Baghdad bookselling, holds bookstores and outdoor bookstalls, cafes, stationery shops, and even tea and tobacco shops. It has been the longstanding heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community for centuries. In response to the attack, a San Francisco poet and bookseller, Beau Beausoleil, rallied a community of international artists and writers to produce a collection of letterpress-printed broadsides (poster-like works on paper), artists' books (unique works of art in book form), and an anthology of writing, all focused on expressing solidarity with Iraqi booksellers, writers and readers. The coalition of contributing artists calls itself Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition.

This collection supports and promotes awareness to the important mission and framework of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition's focus on the lasting power of the written word and the arts in support of the free expression of ideas, the preservation of shared cultural spaces, and the importance of responding to attacks, both overt and subtle, on artists, writers, and academics working under oppressive regimes or in zones of conflict, despite the destruction of that literary/cultural content.

Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.

In Dutch.