Above and Below

Alexander Massouras

Above and Below; or Apocryphal Journeys in Thirty Etchings

Julian Page, London: 2013

In Flight, A Trip Down and The Invisible World, the three short fictional texts in this volume, all transport the reader to imaginary places and through equivocal states of being. The narrative is moved forward by sparse, often single, lines of texts - on occasion it resists any momentum, offering only a blank page. In Flight begins 'One bright morning, Joseph woke to find the world as he'd dreamt it' and the dreamlike vision continues across all three stories, in a manner reminiscent of the haunting and surreal work of Edward Gorey. In Massouras's etchings surfaces wiped free of ink deliver an elegant counterpoint to areas of precise and figurative cross-hatching. Everyday objects are often on the verge of being obliterated by infinity. An image from In Flight alludes to the last expedition of Solomon Andrée, the ill-fated Arctic balloonist, while the final text touches on boat-building, mountaineering and environmental catastrophe. 

Paperback, 72 pages, 19 x 27.7 cm. Illustrated with 30 hard-ground etchings. Edition limited to 60 copies plus 5 artist's proofs.

ISBN 980957012417.

Sculpture of the Eskimo

George Swinton
Sculpture of the Eskimo
McClelland & Stewart, Toronto: 1972
[NB A revised edition was later published entitled Sculpture of the Inuit]
The classic reference work on Inuit sculpture by one of the first major advocates and scholars of the form within western art historical tradition. The most thorough, and lavish, visual record of Inuit sculpture published at the time, this volume presents clear images of many important works, spanning all phases of the form from the pre-Dorset and Dorset cultures to contemporary practitioners such as Fabian Oogark and Toona Erkoolik. Chapters considering e.g. Inuit aesthetics and the relationship of art to landscape are supplemented by a detailed bibliography.
Hardback, 256 pages, 32 x 25 cm. Illustrated with 37 colour plates, 770 black and white photographs.
ISBN 0771083718

Arctic Spectacles

Russell A. Potter
Arctic Spectacles: The Frozen North in Visual Culture, 1818-1875
University of Washington Press: 2007
A volume that illuminates the nineteenth-century fascination with visual representations of the Arctic, weaving together a narrative of the major Arctic expeditions with an account of their public reception through art and the mass media. In a century that saw every corner of the globe slowly open to the examining eye of Western science, it was the Arctic - remote, mysterious, untamable - that most captured the imagination of artists and the public alike. The author draws on the illustrated press, panoramas and dioramas of the era, as well as often overlooked ephemera such as handbills and newspaper advertisements.
Paperback, 258 pages, 26 x 22 cm, black and white illustrations throughout, 13 colour plates.
ISBN 9780295986807
£35.00

Read a review: http://www.polarworld.co.uk/arctic_book_review_potter.htm

Itoqqippoq

Nancy Campbell

Itoqqippoq

Bird Editions, Oxford: 2014

Itoqqippoq means ‘washing line’ in Greenlandic. The narrative of this book is created from a series of photographs of a frozen washing line observed in Ilulissat, West Greenland. In the Arctic, laundry is left out to freeze-dry all year round, but these sheets were dancing in the wind – a sign of spring. 

Itoqqippoq was undertaken during a residency at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford, and was printed at the Centre for Fine Print Research, Bristol, on an Epson Stylus Pro 9600.

Edition limited to 50 signed and numbered copies. 14 pages, 14.5 x 14.5 cm. Concertina binding by Manuel Mazzotti of London, in turquoise Wibalin Buckram with white foil-blocked boards.

(£20.00)

Archaeology & Environment in the Scoresby Sund Fjord

Hanne Tuborg Sandell and Birgir Sandell

Archaeology & Environment in the Scoresby Sund Fjord: Ethno-Archaeological Investigations of the Last Thule Culture of Northeast Greenland

Meddelelser om Grønland, Man & Society 15. Museum Tusculanum Press, Denmark: 1991

In 1982, because of surveying for oil in Northeast Greenland, Kalaallit Nunaata Katersugaasivia / Grønlands Landsmuseum began a series of surveys in the area to bring the mapping of archaeological sites up to date. The subsequent excavation of a winter dwelling from the last Thule Eskimo settlement in the area is the subject of this book. The first section describes the natural conditions and living resources of the area, and is followed by a short historical/archaeological review of Northeast Greenland. Next, the results of the excavation are presented. There follows a section on the material and cultural development and adjustments made by the present population of the Scoresby Sund area, as regards ecology and resources.  Theories are put forward to describes patterns of resource exploitation, mobility, seasonal movements, etc. for the people living in the last Thule culture in the Scoresby Sund area. Opportunities for contact with European Whalers and other cultural developments are also discussed.

Typical illustrations include ‘rose root pickled in blubber’, ‘drop beads’ and ‘snow knives’.

Paperback, 152 pages, 26.4 x 19 cm, black and white illustrations.

ISBN 9788763512084

(£30.00)

Alpine Spoilers

Kate Morrell
Alpine Spoilers
Published on the occasion of Armitt Museum and Library's centenary for Sublime Transactions, this book is the artist's response to the archive of The Fell & Rock Climbing Club (FRCC) of the English Lake District. The book appropriates text from a collection of mountaineering memoirs in the FRCC archives, held in the Armitt Library in Ambleside. These books are first-hand accounts of expeditions in the English Lakes, the Alps, the Himalayas and further afield, from the Victorian era to the present day. Alpine Spoilers contains an edit of the last paragraphs from over 500 books in which the author summarises the experience and creates a poignant finale.
120 pages, black and white illustrations.
Paperback, printed and bound by Ditto Press, published by the author: 2012
(£10.00)

The Man In The Ice

Konrad Spindler
The Man In The Ice
Weidenfeld and Nicolson: London, 1994
This accessible account of the discovery of a prehistoric body in the Ötztaler Alps on the Austrian-Hungarian Border in 1991 is written by the leader of the scientific investigation, a chair of prehistory and early history at the University of Innsbruck. The perfectly preserved body and associated artefacts from the Neolithic period were revealed as a result of glacial retreat. The body sparked wide popular interest and was soon named 'Ötzi' by the world's media. As well as recording the complex scientific and criminal procedures involved in the investigation, the author documents the wider cultural offshoots of the discovery, including contemporary newspaper cartoons (to which he takes a dispassionate approach). The Ötzi Archive, which likewise seeks what can be salvaged from global ice melt, and strives to preserve these artefacts in turn, is proud to be the Iceman's namesake.
306 pages, with 32 pages of colour illustrations and 23 line drawings.
(£1.50)