Site Gallery in Sheffield has a long history of publishing and a large archive of books and pamphlets dating back to the beginning of its nearly 40-year history. Our latest publication, Liquid Crystal Display, was made for the first exhibition after a major expansion project.
The exhibition (until 27 January 2019), of the same name, brings together the work of 17 leading contemporary artists and collectives, and is positioned around an ambitious commission by the artist Anna Barham, all of which reference the theory that we are living in a liquid-crystal world. Liquid crystals are the basis of most up-to-date screen- based technology and give us the acronym LCD.
It was important that the content of the book reflected the breadth of work on show and provided an additional platform for explaining the curatorial themes.
As a result, it includes contributions from the previous artistic director of Site Gallery, Laura Sillars; Barham; a transcript of a conversation between curator Jeanine Griffin and media theorist Jussi Parikka; and an essay on the scientific attributes of liquid crystal by Esther Leslie, a professor in political aesthetics at Birkbeck, University of London.
We also decided to include two pages detailing each artist/ collective in the exhibition with a short text and an image. We had to agree on photographs well in advance, some of which we had to pay for – such as the Mungo Ponton drawings from the National Galleries of Scotland and Liliane Lijn’s Saurian – but they were worth every penny.
Once we’d agreed on the content, we started to think about design and production – could we do it in-house, should it be a digital-only publication, and so on. Together with Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, which signed up to be our touring partner, we decided to go ahead and find a brilliant designer and print a limited run of 400.
Our long-term print collaborator, Evolution Print, came on board straight away. Choosing a designer was also straightforward – both our curator Angelica Sule and I had come across the Nottingham- based designer Joff + Ollie Studio while working in other arts venues and we agreed the firm would be perfect.
We were lucky enough to be offered support from the paper merchant GF Smith, which I, as a paper geek and long-term fan, was excited about. Its signature catalogue of papers, The Collection, has been sitting on my shelf for years waiting for this moment.
We decided to use different papers throughout the book to help delineate the essays, interviews and image sections. Then it was time to decide on the cover. Joff + Ollie Studio designed the cover typography. Its unconventional composition evokes early digital displays from the 1980s synonymous with LCD.
The designers used a font called GT America, which is “monospaced”, meaning the space around the letters is equal rather than dynamic. It’s the kind of font that is associated with typography used on a screen or in coding, without looking overtly technological.
The paper we chose for the publication’s cover is a good representation of how fabulous GF Smith is – it is called “electric blood” and is an example of the Gmund Action range. The paper is made by the family-owned, southern German paper-making dynasty Gmund, which was founded in 1829.
The impossibly bright fluorescent red material, with crystal-like flecks seemed like a natural choice. Its colour is like a secret energy, small and powerful – just like liquid crystals themselves.
The exhibition (until 27 January 2019), of the same name, brings together the work of 17 leading contemporary artists and collectives, and is positioned around an ambitious commission by the artist Anna Barham, all of which reference the theory that we are living in a liquid-crystal world. Liquid crystals are the basis of most up-to-date screen- based technology and give us the acronym LCD.
It was important that the content of the book reflected the breadth of work on show and provided an additional platform for explaining the curatorial themes.
As a result, it includes contributions from the previous artistic director of Site Gallery, Laura Sillars; Barham; a transcript of a conversation between curator Jeanine Griffin and media theorist Jussi Parikka; and an essay on the scientific attributes of liquid crystal by Esther Leslie, a professor in political aesthetics at Birkbeck, University of London.
We also decided to include two pages detailing each artist/ collective in the exhibition with a short text and an image. We had to agree on photographs well in advance, some of which we had to pay for – such as the Mungo Ponton drawings from the National Galleries of Scotland and Liliane Lijn’s Saurian – but they were worth every penny.
Once we’d agreed on the content, we started to think about design and production – could we do it in-house, should it be a digital-only publication, and so on. Together with Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, which signed up to be our touring partner, we decided to go ahead and find a brilliant designer and print a limited run of 400.
Our long-term print collaborator, Evolution Print, came on board straight away. Choosing a designer was also straightforward – both our curator Angelica Sule and I had come across the Nottingham- based designer Joff + Ollie Studio while working in other arts venues and we agreed the firm would be perfect.
We were lucky enough to be offered support from the paper merchant GF Smith, which I, as a paper geek and long-term fan, was excited about. Its signature catalogue of papers, The Collection, has been sitting on my shelf for years waiting for this moment.
We decided to use different papers throughout the book to help delineate the essays, interviews and image sections. Then it was time to decide on the cover. Joff + Ollie Studio designed the cover typography. Its unconventional composition evokes early digital displays from the 1980s synonymous with LCD.
The designers used a font called GT America, which is “monospaced”, meaning the space around the letters is equal rather than dynamic. It’s the kind of font that is associated with typography used on a screen or in coding, without looking overtly technological.
The paper we chose for the publication’s cover is a good representation of how fabulous GF Smith is – it is called “electric blood” and is an example of the Gmund Action range. The paper is made by the family-owned, southern German paper-making dynasty Gmund, which was founded in 1829.
The impossibly bright fluorescent red material, with crystal-like flecks seemed like a natural choice. Its colour is like a secret energy, small and powerful – just like liquid crystals themselves.
Kirsty Young is the marketing and development manager at Site Gallery, Sheffield.
Additional text by Jonathan Casciani, the creative director at Joff + Ollie Studio. Liquid Crystal Display is at Site Gallery until 27 January 2019
Site Gallery, £8, ISBN 978-1-899926-09-1
