installation view, NYABF, 2008 (essay: Introduction, p.11, The Thing The Book, Chronicle (SF: 2014), Jonn Herschend & Will Rogan)
You may consider this the front desk, or the docent, or the wall text. It is these thngs as much as it is the introduction to this book, a letter from the editors.
Being Event, 2008 (Issue #5, THE THING Quarterly, San Francisco, photo: Will Rogan, essay: Introduction, p.11, The Thing The Book, Chronicle (SF: 2014), Jonn Herschend & Will Rogan)
As editors of THE THING Quarterly, a periodical in the form of an everyday object, we have spent the last seven years producing something that is not a magazine at all.” Yet we insist on calling it a magazine. Even when many say, “What you are producing is not a magazine. A magazine is a particular object, with specific qualities, such as pages and a binding.” Even then, in the face of these facts - facts that would be hard to deny - we still insist on calling THE THING Quarterly a magazine. Why? Because we are interested in the way text affects objects. We like the way things can change when their context gets adjusted.
Being Event, 2008 (Issue #5, THE THING Quarterly, San Francisco, photo: Will Rogan, essay: Introduction, p. 12, The Thing The Book, Chronicle (SF: 2014), Jonn Herschend & Will Rogan)
Enjoy the Exhibition.
Enjoy the Object.
Being Event, 2008 (Issue #5, THE THING Quarterly, San Francisco, photo: Will Rogan, essay: The Thing The Book, Chronicle (SF: 2014), excerpt from “Introduction”, Jonn Herschend & Will Rogan)
Hello,
Welcome to this Object.
Also:
Welcome to this Exhibition.
THE THING THE BOOK, A Monument to the Book as Object, Chronicle Books (San Francisco: 2014) essay: Introduction, p.11, Jonn Herschend & Will Rogan
When we decided to make a book, our first instinct was to turn the book into an exhibition space. Both of us work within the art world and tend to approach projects with a more physical sensibility first, thinking out how our work will sit within the context of a gallery or exhibition space. We wanted to approach the book as an exhibition space, as an object, and reexamine the structures of both its contents and its physical self. This meant that all sections of the book would need to be addressed.
THE THING THE BOOK, A Monument to the Book as Object, Chronicle Books (San Francisco: 2014), p. 26-27, essay: Introduction, p.11, Jonn Herschend & Will Rogan
We all know that books are a delivery information, but we wanted to make the case that books might be one of the best delivery vehicles. Along with this, we wanted to make a case for the physical attributes of books in general, things that can be done with books that cannot be done with e-readers: they can be used as a place to set a drink, if a coaster is not nearby. They can be used to help level a table. They can be used to prop doors open, and, in some cases, to hold them closed.
THE THING THE BOOK, A Monument to the Book as Object, Chronicle Books (San Francisco: 2014), p. 28-29, essay: Introduction, p. 11-12, Jonn Herschend & Will Rogan
We at THE THING Quarterly are drawn to my the physicality of things in general and the particular histories they carry with them: marks they receive over time and the stories we imbue them with. And books are amazing vehicles for both of these kinds of artifacts. The book on your shelf with the decaying spine, for example, falling apart since you left it on the balcony of your hotel room and it was caught in a rainstorm and swelled up like a textual marshmallow. The book happens to be Haruki Murikami’s Wind Up Bird Chronicle, which marked a sort of turning point in your live as a reader, so it stays on your shelf, even though you know that the pages are ready to explode with the slightest touch. It’s a manifestation of your own history, a marker. A library becomes a history, weighed in moving boxes, that we drag around with us from one place to the next. We (by which we mean us in particular, Jonn and Will, the editors of THE THING Quarterly) find the clunky, messy nature of this sort of history to be so much more compelling than a virtual history of files or photos that exist somewhere on a server in the cloud.
THE THING THE BOOK, A Monument to the Book as Object, Chronicle Books (San Francisco: 2014), p. 30-31, essay: Introduction, p. 12, Jonn Herschend & Will Rogan
We won’t make too much more out of this, because this book is intented to be a physical (and sometimes textual) argument for the points mentioned above. But the general notion is that we asked artists and writers, whose work we love and whose work also had some vest interest in physicality, to each take on a particular portion of the book - the endnotes, the epigraph, the endpapers, the footnotes, book marker ribbons, thumb tabs, et cetera - and to create a new and original work that addresses the physical nature of his or her own particular section. Realizing that the content of the book would need to ba addressed in a similar manner, we also asked the contributors to consider creating works that address the case to be made for the physical nature of all books in general, and this book in particular.
engraving detail, 2008 (photo: Sputnik, essay: The Thing The Book, p. 11, Introduction, Chronicle (SF: 2014), Jonn Herschend & Will Rogan)
Put it to good use.