Some of you will have heard Emily McVarish's presentation about this fascinating artists book project at the Codex Foundation Symposium in Berkeley, CA earlier this year.

Announcing:

"The Square"

by Emily McVarish

Into screen-studded, phone-riddled public space, "The Square" introduces a figure intent on capturing an everyday scene. Among the vacuums of telepresence and dislocations of real-time, in the face of a multiplied oblivion of "setting," this allegorizing figure counts on material detail to sum up a whole for which it will come to stand. Yet the moment will not be framed as such. Even within the grid of the daily, everything marks its own time. The resulting composition is not an image but a score.

Blind-stamped pages, scattered holes, perpetual calendar parts, pedestrian video stills, dotted lines, and overturned letter-blocks extend and perform "The Square’s" three texts.

"The Square" was written, designed, hand-set, and printed letterpress by Emily McVarish. Published by Granary Books in 2009. Quarter cloth binding with printed paper over boards by John DeMerritt with McVarish. Signed. 10 hors commerce, 35 for sale. $1,200

Emily McVarish is a book artist, writer, and designer who lives in San Francisco where she has operated her presses, Axel and Otto, since 1990. Her work has been widely exhibited, most recently in “New West Coast Design: Books” at the San Francisco Center for the Book. “Gutter Crossing: Emily McVarish” by Kyle Schlesinger appears in the premiere issue of "ON: Contemporary Practice." Emily McVarish is Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at California College of the Arts. With Johanna Drucker, she co-authored "Graphic Design: A Critical History," published by Prentice Hall in 2008.

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