Text and photos by Kremena Nikolova-Fontaine.

"Handbók í lýdraedi" ("Handbook in Democracy") by Áslaug Jónsdóttir.

The exhibition “Con-Text” at the Nordic House brings together 24 artists from Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Denmark, who share a peculiar love of the book form, known as “artist books,” where the sculptural and expressive possibilities of the book as a medium are explored to its limits, often without narration.

If I were asked why I preferred this exhibition over of the other two major group exhibitions currently on display in Reykjavík, “Coloursynthesis” in Hafnarhús and “Watery Hues” in Kjarvalsstadir (both galleries are part of the Reykjavík Art Museum), I would just say it was because of a personal reason.

I namely love smelling pages of old prints. I love touching handmade paper. I love calligraphy, manuscripts and miniature books (those that are no bigger than 76 mm). I love sequential art.

When and how my love was ignited, I don't know, but I do know that I love words and images equally: they are in no way substitutes for each other.

In the middle of the 15th century, Gutenberg's printing press may have made the written word widely available to the masses, but efficiency came at the expense of handcrafted quality.

Call me an old-fashioned spirit but I sympathize with William Morris's nostalgia for revival of an arts and crafts movement in the 19th century, as reaction against the uniform mechanical perfection of the Industrial Revolution.

Before Gutenberg, the Christian religion elevated the highly-esteemed art of bookmaking to a religion of the book: the manuscripts were illuminated with lavish illustrations, expensive binding, golden and silver ornaments.

For example, in order to produce a single copy of a parchment bible a herd of calves were slaughtered; 150 for the Book of Kells and 250 for the Winchester Bible, according to Masterpieces of Illuminations by Ingo Walther and Norbert Wolf.

"Gaejur" ("Peaks") by Áslaug Jónsdóttir.

Illustrators of manuscripts were called “illuminators” from the Latin illuminare, which means “to light up” the pages. Isn't that poetic?

In the early Middle Ages, it was not unusual for the painting and writing of manuscripts to be done by the same person.

It is interesting, that historians often identically refer the verb craxare in Latin to both the act of painting and writing. By the end of the Middle Ages, “illuminator” was substituted with another term: “miniaturist.”

Perhaps the miniaturist who inspired me to pursue a career in illustration and writing is Christine de Pisan. Following the death of her husband in 1389, she decided to become a writer in order to support herself and her children instead of going to a convent as widows commonly did.

Christine de Pisan wrote a consolation book to contemporary French women, called The Book of The City of Ladies (around 1405), against the misogynist atmosphere of the Hundred Year's War. In an utopian world of women, the muses of Reason, Honesty and Justice instruct the author how to build the city.

The author of Expressive Handmade Books, the American book artist of 20 years Alisa Golden, explains her fascination with the medium of artist's books in the following way:

“I'm interested in how we can transform our (sometimes painful) experiences into something new, perhaps something beautiful that others can understand.”

"Closure" by Marianne Laimer.

“Con-Text” is the first exhibition of handmade books which I have visited. The names of the 24 artists are unknown to me, apart from one, the Icelandic illustrator Áslaug Jónsdóttir, who taught me during a short course on handmade books at the Reykjavik School of Visual Art.

Jónsdóttir is a famous illustrator of children's books in Iceland. Her beloved style of bold black cutouts of monsters with pastel scribbles on top is unmistakable, but the exhibited artistic books in this show differ from her illustrative style. Although her fondness of the color black is evident here, too.

My personal favorite is the work of the Swedish artist Marianne Laimer. The white paper with pop-up figures, cutting and stitches bear a particularly refined elegance. Unfortunately, her homepage is only in Swedish. Judging by the images, she works in all kinds of media.

"Nature Book" by Juha Joro.

The Finnish printmaker Juha Joro exhibits three works, entitled “Nature Book I, II and III,” which stand out from the rest with their dark colors and organic quality.

To my delight, his homepage was a true discovery with its consistency. His gallery of work, be it charcoal drawings, ink paintings, monotype, calligraphy, carborundum prints, photographs or artist books, strikes me as confidently masculine through its abstract primitivism, influenced by Japanese tradition but also very Finnish, I imagine.

I wouldn't say that all of the artwork on display equally impressed me, but the whole experience of seeing this unusual exhibition made me inspired to get some paper and clay, and to start messing around in an improvised play like a kid.

I don't know if everyone would enjoy the exhibition as much as I did—it's pure poetry. To enjoy it, one must not try to rationalize too much.

“Con-Text” runs until February 28, 2010. Admission is free. You can see some of the artwork on the exhibition’s blog.

The Nordic House (Norraena Húsid) is located on Sturlugata 5, 101 Reykjavík.

Kremena Nikolova-Fontaine – kremenan@gmail.com

Kremena Nikolova-Fontaine works at home for the elderly and is a passionate collector of art books, dedicating every spare moment to learn more about art while dreaming about having an exhibition of her own. She studied graphic design at the School of Visual Arts in Akureyri from 1999 to 2002. In college she realized that she didn’t want to be a designer or commercial artist but rather an illustrator and writer. At the moment she’s experimenting with her first graphic novel.