Margaret Atwood – the first writer for Future Library from Katie Paterson on Vimeo.

A forest in Norway is growing. In 100 years it will become an anthology of books.

The Scottish artist Katie Paterson conceived of this 100-year-long project she calls Framtidsbiblioteket (The Future Library). It is one of four public artworks produced for Slow Space, a program of public artworks for Bjørvika, Oslo’s former container port, and commissioned by Bjørvika Utvikling.

The project has begun:
1. 1,000 trees have been planted outside Oslo, Norway, which will supply paper for a special anthology of books to be printed in one hundred years time.
2. The first writer, Margaret Atwood, has accepted a commission to write the first text over the next year, which will be sealed in a box, unread and unpublished until 2114.
3. Between 2014 and 2114, one additional writer every year will contribute a text, with the writings held in trust, unpublished, until 2114.
4. In 2114, the forest will be harvested and paper made to print an edition of each text.
5. Princeton will receive one complete set of the books.

According to Paterson’s website, the texts will be held in a specially designed room in the New Public Deichmanske Library, Oslo. Tending the forest and ensuring its preservation for the 100-year duration of the artwork finds a conceptual counterpoint in the invitation extended to each writer: to conceive and produce a work in the hopes of finding a receptive reader in an unknown future. Atwood comments:

I am very honoured, and also happy to be part of this endeavor. This project, at least, believes the human race will still be around in a hundred years! Future Library is bound to attract a lot of attention over the decades, as people follow the progress of the trees, note what takes up residence in and around them, and try to guess what the writers have put into their sealed boxes.

Guiding the selection of authors is the Future Library Trust, whose trustees include the artist, Literary Director of the Man Booker Prize Ion Trewin, Publishing Director of Hamish Hamilton Simon Prosser, former Director of the Deichmanske Bibliotek Liv Sæteren, Publishing Director of Forlaget Press Håkon Harket, Editor in Chief of Oktober Press, Ingeri Engelstad, Director of Situations Claire Doherty and Anne Beate Hovind, Bjørvika Utvikling’s Project Manager for the Slow Space Programme.

Thanks to the James Cohen Gallery for helping us be a part of this wonderful project.www.futurelibrary.no

Future Library, Katie Paterson from Katie Paterson on Vimeo.

After nine years of rejection, James Joyce’s book of short stories, Dubliners, was finally published by Grant Richards in 1914. To help celebrate the book’s centenary, Stoney Road Press, in collaboration with the James Joyce Centre, has published a fine press edition of its final and longest story, The Dead, illustrated by the American artist Robert Berry.

Based in Dublin, Stoney Road Press is the only independent commercially run fine art print studio in Ireland. Princeton collects all of its limited edition books and we are happy to add The Dead. Although we don’t own a first edition Dubliners, we do have the 1917 copy owned by Sylvia Beach.

The Dead begins:

Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet. Hardly had she brought one gentleman into the little pantry behind the office on the ground floor and helped him off with his overcoat than the wheezy hall-door bell clanged again and she had to scamper along the bare hallway to let in another guest. It was well for her she had not to attend to the ladies also. But Miss Kate and Miss Julia had thought of that and had converted the bathroom upstairs into a ladies’ dressing-room. Miss Kate and Miss Julia were there, gossiping and laughing and fussing, walking after each other to the head of the stairs, peering down over the banisters and calling down to Lily to ask her who had come.

James Joyce (1882-1941), Dubliners (London: G. Richards, 1914).

James Joyce (1882-1941), Dubliners (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1917). “Published, December 1916; second printing, April 1917.” Rare Books: Sylvia Beach Collection (Beach) 3807.38.331.1917

James Joyce (1882-1941), The Dead. Illustrated by Robert Berry (Dublin: Stoney Road Press, 2014). One of 150 copies. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process

See also:
Paul Muldoon, At Sixes and Sevens, with etchings by Rita Duffy ([Dublin]: Stoney Road Press, 2013). Rare Books (Ex) 2013-0082Q

Fighting Words, foreword Roddy Doyle ; text Russell Banks … [et al.] ; limited ed. print Sean Scully ([Dublin]: Stoney Road Press, 2012). Rare Books (Ex) 2014-0002Q

John Montague, Many Mansions (Dublin: Ireland Chair of Poetry Trust ; Stoney Road Press, 2009). Rare Books (Ex) 2010-0201Q

Michel Fokine (1880-1942), et al., Les Ballets suédois dans l’art contemporain (Paris: Editions du Trainon, 1931). Texte de Fokine, Hedvig Nenzén-Haquinius, Rolf de Maré; Georges Rémon; Alexandre Tasman; Pierre Tugal; Contributions de Claudel, Casella … [et al.]; hors-texte en couleurs de: Pierre Bonnard; Giorgio De Chirico; Paul Alfred Colin; Fernand Léger; along with Dardel, Foujita, Gladky, Hellé, Hugo, Lagut, Laptade, Murhpy, Nerman, Parr, Perdriat, and Steinlen. Copy 292 of 1000. Graphic Arts Collection 2014- in process

The year 1920, in which the Ballets Suédois made its debut in Paris, was not a good year for Sergei Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes. His tours were not successful, and his financial situation was complicated by theft and lawsuits. … Rolf de Maré and his Ballets Suédois would, for the next five years, produce modern theater works incorporating dance, mime, painting, and music that would rival anything Diaghilev had created in terms of their avant-garde aspirations. It was perhaps partly due to Diaghilev’s reaction to the success of the Ballets Suédois that the Ballets Russes began to turn away form Russian painters and composers and instead employ the newest French artists as collaborators. — Sally Banes, Writing Dancing in the Age of Postmodernism (2011) GV1623 .B36 1993

Graphic Arts is fortunate to have acquired this limited edition compendium, with covers designed by Fernand Léger (1881–1955). A suite of fourteen plates are colored by pochoir (stencil) and the volume includes sixty-four heliogravures, with text contributions by Luigi Pirandello, Jean Cocteau, and Frances Picabia.  The colorful pochoirs feature costume design by Léonard Tsugouharu Foujita (1886–1968) and set designs by Léger and Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978).