Book of the Week: The Art & Craft of Richard Woods, edited and with an introduction by Paul Bonaventura
British artist Richard Woods (b.1966) is Lund Humphries’ artist of the week: as I write, he is installing his specially designed panels on our stand at London Art Fair, and we understand that his work will be featured in Time Out’s preview of the Fair tomorrow. On Wednesday 16th January at 5pm the artist will be on our stand (M1) at London Art Fair to sign copies of The Art & Craft of Richard Woods. This clearly had to be my first choice for our Book of the Week.
Installation of Lund Humphries’ Richard-Woods-designed stand at London Art Fair
Go onto Richard Woods’ website and you are hit with the sounds of woodwork – sawing, banging, knocking. Clearly it’s all about timber (often cheap resources such as plywood and foamboard), which Woods uses in ingenious and playful ways (with the colourful addition of household gloss paint) to transform spaces and buildings. Although the creative nerve-centre of this process is Woods’ studio in Hackney, East London, his projects take him world-wide, to Antwerp, Milan, New York and Seoul.
Lund Humphries’ stand (M1) – installed and ready for the Fair!
Paul Bonaventura’s book represents this range of work, documenting specific projects through large-format illustrations of both the process and the finished pieces. It includes short written contributions from those who commissioned or reviewed the work, as well as Woods’ own diagrams and instructions for his installations, giving the overall feel of a scrapbook rather than a more conventional art monograph. The book’s design reflects the work, with printed paper over solid wooden boards replacing the more traditional book-jacket, and a variety of differently textured papers inside.
And as far as the book’s title goes, Richard Woods has this to say about the definition of what he does: ‘The art isn’t really art, the craft isn’t really craft, the design isn’t really design, and the architecture certainly isn’t architecture. It’s all a little bit chippy. I like occupying the position of the enthusiastic outsider in each of the disciplines. Culturally, I think that’s a really interesting and useful place to be.’
Lucy Myers, Managing Director
The Art & Craft of Richard Woods, edited and with an introduction by Paul Bonaventura. 2012. Hardback. 268 pages. 164 colour and 48 b&w illustrations. £40 / $80
