Solitude.
Karlsruhe and Tokyo: Veronika Schäpers, 2021. Oblong octavo. (16)pp., + 14 round filters, loose. One of fifty copies, signed by the artist at the colophon. A book born out of the COVID-19 pandemic, Solitude represents the attempts of Schäpers (and her colleague Susan Pietzsch) to make sense of and find peace during a period of forced isolation. Unlike other artistic responses to the pandemic, the present work takes a meditative and individual position, focusing on the experience of the single reader rather than that of any particular or general collective. Schäpers' characteristic mastery of material necessitates this; Thoreau's "Solitude" chapter of his seminal Walden is printed in transparent ink on white medical filter paper, making it difficult to exhibit. Instead, it urges the reader to sit alone and turn the book toward and away from the light in order to read and understand the text. The same is true of the accompanying round filters, on which are coronavirus data models abstracted into illustrative designs, likewise transparent. Although the text itself and the tactile experience of the book invoke calmness and even sterility, there is something sinister (or comforting, depending on the reader's angle of approach) in wrapping up these contents in the materials of emergency. The use of filters suggests chemical-and, more abstractly, interpersonal-separation, the warding off of something unwanted or even dangerous, and the parsing of a complex global phenomenon into distinct and digestible information. A pensive and carefully crafted publication, bound in Enduro ice paper and non-woven fabric, and without stitching. Housed in various archival cardboards from Klug Conservation, with title silk-screened to lid. Very fine. Prospectus laid in. Item #32146
Price: $1,900.00