painted plinths await their destiny

After CHELSEA space’s preparatory work of painting walls and plinths, sending the exhibition publication to print, securing loan agreements for the books and multiples etc , curator Stephen Bury arrived from New York to install his exhibition Aphasic Disturbance.

Stephen Bury examines Daniel Spoerri's 1995 edition of 'An Anecdoted Topography of Chance' while artist and CHELSEA space Assistant Mike Iveson secures the bases of the vitrines

Stephen Bury is the Andrew W.Mellon Chief Librarian of the Frick Art Reference Library in New York but was previously Head of English and American Collections at the British Library and before that was the Librarian at Chelsea School of Art (later Chelsea College of Art and Design). Consequently, the majority of the artists’ books and multiples that he has selected to show are items that he acquired for the collection at Chelsea and most of which feature in his books - Artists’ Books: The Book as a Work of Art (Scolar Press/Ashgate Publishing 1995) and Artists’ Multiples 1935 - 2000 (Ashgate Publishing 2001).

Many of the illustrations in Artists Multiples were photographed by CHELSEA space’s Donald Smith with Liz Lawes, a former keeper of Special Collections at Chelsea and currently Librarian at the Slade School, University College London. Liz also worked with us on the CHELSEA space exhibition Bruce McLean: Process Progress Project Archive and the subsequent conference at Tate Britain The Archival Impulse in which Bruce McLean, Donald Smith, and Liz Lawes used the archive section of the CHELSEA space website as a tool to illustrate how elements from McLean’s own archive spanning 40 years were used to create a new open work or to use the term cleverly coined by Bruce McLean at the time - a Process-spective.

The current person responsible for the Special Collections of the Library at Chelsea College of Art and Design is Gustavo Grandal Montero. Gustavo continues a tradition and maintains standards set by Librarians at Chelsea including Stephen Bury, Liz Ward, and also Clive Philpott who went on from Chelsea to become the Librarian of the Museum of Modern Art New York before returning to the UK as freelance curator and writer. Gustavo’s help on this and other CHELSEA space exhibitions has been invaluable but it is always great to witness a meeting between the current and former Librarians of Chelsea where knowledge is exchanged and a deeper understanding of the nature and the history of the collection is forged. Unlike many collections, Chelsea’s has always been a ‘teaching collection’ and access is as much to inspire artists to make books and multiples and to challenge existing formats as it is a historic reference collection for scholars and curators.

Stephen Bury was hugely popular at Chelsea and beyond and many old friends and colleagues came to say hello during the installation of the exhibition. The show has already attracted interest from students and teachers and even before we are open to the public, projects have been set around the theme and contents of the exhibition.