Catalogue | Cathie Pilkington: Working from Home
Harriet Judd on the challenges of putting together a publication in collaboration with a living artist
At Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, we have a strong history of producing high-quality publications to complement our exhibitions, sharing new research on modern British art, 1900 to now, which helps us in our mission of stimulating new thinking on the subject.
Our books also provide a legacy for our exhibitions beyond their duration, and position the gallery as an authority on modern British art, while also providing an income stream.
Cathie Pilkington: Working from Home has been a fun and somewhat unusual project. Typically, our publications accompany exhibitions of work by long-dead artists (though often they have not been dead quite long enough to see their work out of copyright). This was an opportunity to work directly with a living female artist and bring something of the aesthetic of her work into the book.
In a traditional exhibition catalogue, we would carry a director’s foreword and invite several authors to contribute texts on different aspects of the artist’s work. For this publication, we worked with the artist’s suggestions on who to get to write about her work.
We wanted to keep the volume lightweight and affordable – experience has taught us that many of our visitors do not want a heavy tome to lug home on the train – so we did away with the forewords, chronologies and other end matter that often fill the pages of exhibition books.
As the exhibition morphed and changed right until the day before it opened to the public, a big challenge for the catalogue was always going to be timing – photographing the many pieces in situ among works from the collection, and then getting the book printed and on sale as quickly as possible.
The layout and text needed to be ready and waiting for the photographs to be dropped in at the last minute. Turnaround times are often tight on exhibition catalogues so we rarely have them printed abroad. Instead, we use UK-based printers who can deliver our finished books in a matter of weeks.
The project itself – the tight turnaround, the contemporary artwork, the nature of installation – all contributed to the decision about the format of the book. We chose to adopt a design we had used previously for contemporary installations: a concertina fold with full-bleed images of the installation on one side and the essay on the reverse.
To make Pilkington’s book synonymous with the installation, we opted to use an uncoated and uncoloured board made from 100% recycled fibres (similar to what you might find on the back of a notepad) and a simple neon font to match the artist’s hints of neon throughout her exhibition. Having recently undertaken a rebrand, we were also able to include the gallery’s new monogram on the inside front and back covers.
As it wasn’t possible to have the books available for the opening night of the installation, we scheduled an “in conversation” event a couple of weeks into the exhibition on which to hang the book launch and capitalise on an evening with a dedicated audience. Pilkington agreed to sign some of the books after her talk, which also gave attendees the chance to meet her, and added value to the product.
Harriet Judd is the head of publishing at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester. Cathie Pilkington: Working from Home is at Pallant House Gallery until 31 March
Our books also provide a legacy for our exhibitions beyond their duration, and position the gallery as an authority on modern British art, while also providing an income stream.
Cathie Pilkington: Working from Home has been a fun and somewhat unusual project. Typically, our publications accompany exhibitions of work by long-dead artists (though often they have not been dead quite long enough to see their work out of copyright). This was an opportunity to work directly with a living female artist and bring something of the aesthetic of her work into the book.
In a traditional exhibition catalogue, we would carry a director’s foreword and invite several authors to contribute texts on different aspects of the artist’s work. For this publication, we worked with the artist’s suggestions on who to get to write about her work.
We wanted to keep the volume lightweight and affordable – experience has taught us that many of our visitors do not want a heavy tome to lug home on the train – so we did away with the forewords, chronologies and other end matter that often fill the pages of exhibition books.
As the exhibition morphed and changed right until the day before it opened to the public, a big challenge for the catalogue was always going to be timing – photographing the many pieces in situ among works from the collection, and then getting the book printed and on sale as quickly as possible.
The layout and text needed to be ready and waiting for the photographs to be dropped in at the last minute. Turnaround times are often tight on exhibition catalogues so we rarely have them printed abroad. Instead, we use UK-based printers who can deliver our finished books in a matter of weeks.
The project itself – the tight turnaround, the contemporary artwork, the nature of installation – all contributed to the decision about the format of the book. We chose to adopt a design we had used previously for contemporary installations: a concertina fold with full-bleed images of the installation on one side and the essay on the reverse.
To make Pilkington’s book synonymous with the installation, we opted to use an uncoated and uncoloured board made from 100% recycled fibres (similar to what you might find on the back of a notepad) and a simple neon font to match the artist’s hints of neon throughout her exhibition. Having recently undertaken a rebrand, we were also able to include the gallery’s new monogram on the inside front and back covers.
As it wasn’t possible to have the books available for the opening night of the installation, we scheduled an “in conversation” event a couple of weeks into the exhibition on which to hang the book launch and capitalise on an evening with a dedicated audience. Pilkington agreed to sign some of the books after her talk, which also gave attendees the chance to meet her, and added value to the product.
Harriet Judd is the head of publishing at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester. Cathie Pilkington: Working from Home is at Pallant House Gallery until 31 March
By Neil Walton, Pallant House Gallery, £10, ISBN 978-1-869827816