Typo
By: Jánis Nedéla
Contributors: Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library); Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Publisher: [Jánis Nedéla]
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Albany, West Australia, Australia]
Language: eng
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
Description: 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.

"For twenty-five years text has been central to my work. Whether using collage, installation, painting, performance or animation, it is the book as object and the manipulation of text which constantly inform my work. In the past, social, literary, philosophical and political documents, tomes and book pages, some old and some aesthetically exquisite in themselves, have succumbed to a range of manipulations and interventions calculated to conspire a kind of linguistic and artistic subterfuge. Words are sometimes permanently concealed or reconstituted. The jackets, cut, even scorched and modified to accommodate implements such as taps, hooks and saws. The book has also been enchained, wrapped or rendered unopenable and unreadable. In recent years, I have also been working with transparent acrylic to introduce two new series of sculptural work(s) that reference the pages of an open book - Typo and Palindrome. In these works I have etched lines and sometimes painted the acrylic to configure the structure of the open book pages, each pair eluding to text on the printed page (referencing the layout/design artist, creating a double page spread or doing a line count), while others had the text of palindromes inscribed in one direction on one, in the reverse direction on the other. The fold in the open book matches the fold in language created by the palindrome. Viewing the books sideways from the Typo Series gives the impression that the reflected text goes on to infinity"--Artist's statement from the Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

"Jánis Nedéla, director of Gallery East since 1993, is a working artist who exhibits with Galerie Düsseldorf, Perth's foremost contemporary art gallery. Jánis served on the curatorial staff of the Art Gallery of Western Australia for 14 years to 1993, during which time he gained a comprehensive knowledge of the Art Gallery of Western Australia's collection, as well as considerable skill in the mounting and display of art works. He lectured in Art Management and Art History at the Central Metropolitan College of TAFE (Mt Lawley College and Western Australia School of Art, Design and Media) for 7 seven years to 1996, and was Exhibition Programmes Manager for CRAFTWEST, Centre for Contemporary Craft, Perth 1996-1998, giving him an unrivalled knowledge of Western Australia's leading contemporary craft practitioners. Jánis is an authorised valuer for the Commonwealth Government's Cultural Gifts Programme for British prints after 1940, Australian prints after 1950, Japanese prints after 1940, Australian studio glass after 1980, and Australian ceramics after 1960"--Artists-Worldwide.net website (viewed July 9, 2015).
Notes: Medium: Acrylic and etched lines.

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.

Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.