For Tohu wa-Bohu, Keppel scratches the surfaces of the Nijmegen’s reconstruction buildings. Most parts of the city centre were totally destroyed by a United Army Air Force bombing during World War II. The remarkable tiles are an important part of the postwar architecture. Keppel translates this grid into risoprints for the Tohu wa-Bohu project. He is using the grid to undo the traditional oppositions of figure and ground and motif and frame. The grid does not map the space of a room or a place. The grid had been used in earlier centuries as a perspectival lattice inscribed onto the depicted world as an organising armature. In contrast to this grid, Keppel plays also with a couple of very smooth lines. The soft curves. For the Tohu wa-Bohu Toner Act, he prints and reprints again these elements on a large format copier (Océ 7055).
Tohu wa-Bohu
Unseen Book Market presented the work-in-progress installation of the collaborative book project Tohu wa-Bohu, initiated and curated by Danielle Lemaire, Extrapool, and Taco Hidde Bakker. Press release: Loosely inspired by the concept of 'tohu wa-bohu' (without form and void), from the beginnings of the book of Genesis, six artists, a writer and a graphic designer collaborated with the risograph printers Extrapool in Nijmegen to produce a limited edition artist’s book. The invited artists all explore in their practices the boundaries of photography and alternative printing techniques. In spring 2019, during two working periods at Extrapool's residency, they focused on the city of Nijmegen and its surroundings (keeping the tohu wa-bohu concept in the back of their minds), as well as experimented with the risograph processes. The publication will weave together the artists’ photo-risographic contributions with short texts. Tohu wa-Bohu was published by Knust Press in December 2019.
Participating artists: Awoiska van der Molen, Bart Lunenburg, Eva-Fiore Kovacovsky, Stephan Keppel, Jaya Pelupessy & Felix van Dam / Writer: Taco Hidde Bakker / Graphic designer: Remco van Bladel
The talk about the project: Book Market space, 22 September, 12:00 - 12:30
The installation was accompanied by Stephan Keppel’s special Tohu wa-Bohu Toner Act - a A0-sized Xerox printing happening scheduled for:
19 Sept, 17:00 - 19:00
21 Sept, 17:00 - 19:00
22 Sept, 14:00 - 16:00
