Ya comentamos por aquí que hasta mayo es posible visitar en el MACBA de Barcelona la exposición “Janet Cardiff – George Bures Miller: The Killing Machine y otras historias”, que incluye un total de diez instalaciones realizadas por estos artistas en los últimos años. Hace un par de semanas estuve por allí, y además de visitar la muy recomendable muestra, encontré algunas de las publicaciones de y sobre el trabajo de estos artistas, y el Walk Book de Janet sin duda me pareció de lo mejor, por su interesante contenido textual y sonoro, además de todo un regalo a la vista por su cuidado diseño. Ahí van unos links con algo de info, incluida una entrevista que le hizo el director de cine Atom Egoyan para Bomb Magazine.

[janet cardiff´s walk book]
[janet cardiff by atom egoyan]
[janet cardiff wikipedia]

The Walk Book sits nicely in your hand and can be taken everywhere. It works like a garden, inviting you to follow its paths that branch off in different directions. Like a labyrinth, the book has more than one entrance. You may enter it to read the texts, or to look at the pictures, or else to hear Janet Cardiff’s voice on a CD included in the book as it leads you through the texts and images. It’s about the disappearance of places, and memory loss, but also about offering something unique to whoever takes the book in their hands, something to take along with them in time. The Walk Book collects and rescues some of Cardiff’s words and dialogues that are part of her walks, transposes them in a literary form and yet, as it is a walk in its own right, it dissolves all possible determinations and codifications. By resisting definitions, asking questions and engaging audiences, The Walk Book offers different approaches to the nature and the experience of an artistic practice that has revealed itself as one of the most potent and thought provoking sites in contemporary culture.

The Walk Book was announced as „eines der schönsten Bücher“ (one of the most beautiful books) 2006 by the German Stiftung Buchkunst Frankfurt, and was awarded the TDC52 “Certificate of Typographic Excellence” in 2005.

Edited by T-B A21, Vienna, published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne. English, 345 pages, ca. 200 illustrations. ISBN 3-88375-824-8

Author: Mirjam Schaub. Texts by: Janet Cardiff, Susie Allen, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Tom Eccles, Bruce Ferguson, Marnie Fleming, Gary Garrels, Donald Goodes, Ulrike Groos, Madeleine Grynsztejn, Francesca von Habsburg, Martin Janda, Kasper König, Markus Landert, Matthias Lilienthal, James Lingwood, Réal Lussier, Joel Mallin, Ivo Mesquita, Rochelle Steiner, Marika Wachtmeister, John Weber, Daniela Zyman