Waste Incant
Newark, VT: Janus Press, 2007. Wrappers. Fine binding. Item #9781
Oblong octavo. [26] ll., illus. Limited edition, one of 150 numbered copies. Van Vliet's woven strip binding contains 12 printed leaves alternating with 14 illusion polycarbonate and flexible vinyl leaves, all laid into a vinyl wrapper and housed in acrylic slipcase. Some of the vinyl leaves have started to break down, their oils leaching into and discolor the paper leaves, an unexpected and, according to Van Vliet, perfectly fitting result.
This book is referential of the author's earlier Hermetic Waste (Gefn Press, 1986) that was issued the summer after the Chernobyl disaster. She writes in an artist statement: "The collagraph prints in Hermetic Waste were derived from alchemical engravings — here [in Waste Incant] the calligraphic line drawings are derived from science illustrations in children's text books. Redrawn and merging, the pictorial 'facts' depict a disrupted 'nature.' Poetic texts sit inside the imagery, functioning as an integrated caption. They describe processes by which toxic material enters into the environment. The back of each page lists hazardous wastes. Plastic interleaving features in both books, referencing materials used in the storage of waste. (How little has changed in twenty years.)"
In her Grolier Club catalog to the collection of Robert J. Rubin, Yvonne Korshak echoes and expands Johanknecht's statement of Waste Incant: "The book, in its acrylic case, is a statement about the storage of nuclear waste in plastic. The line drawings are derived from children's textbooks, redrawn to show a disrupted nature. The toxic wastes, listed partially alphabetically, are printed on both sides of the embossed paper, each page separated by a plastic sheet. The unstable and hence inappropriate and hazardous use of plastic to contain toxic waste is emphasized by the diverse deformations of each of the plastic sheets.
"How fascinating that the book is immaculate and glamorous while its topic - waste - implies what's dirty and distasteful. The ironic disjunction dramatizes the tension between the allure of easy labor, magical communications and other seductions of our high tech culture and the tarnished other side of the coin, deadly byproducts with tenacious half-lives. The book uses the very products it condemns. We can't do without it, can we?" Yvonne Korshak and Robert J. Rubin. Beyond the Text: Artists' Books from the Collection of Robert J. Ruben. Grolier Club, 2010.
Price: $300.00