After Reasonable Research: 20 Years

After Reasonable Research, Years with No Acts of Open and Declared Armed Hostile Conflict are Indicated by a Perpendicular Line. Perhaps They Were Periods of Peace. (Artist Book)

Detail showing the single year, 329 C.E.

Drawing iteration of “After Reasonable Research…”

As with many of my artist books, this drawing is an installation or other larger scale presentation of the book’s material.  This drawing uses archival inkjet printing (to print the pattern); Laser printing for the 4-5pt text; and hand drawn ink: black for the center line; gold accents to the pattern and a single red line indicating the apparently peaceful year. 

Detail of the 20′ drawing.

The full title:

“After Reasonable Research, Years with No Acts of ‘Open and Declared Hostile Conflict’ Are Indicated with a Perpendicular Line. Perhaps They Were Periods of Peace.”

Often, my artists books have a second form more suited to exhibition.  I love playing with the same concept and information presented in a large scale and the hand-held container of the book form.

In 1999 I created a 12in. x 20ft. drawing and an editioned accordion folded book that traced human warfare from 0001 to 1999 CE using the timeline format, but on seductively decorative paper.

I’ve since made three editions of the book to update the timeline (2000, 2006 and 2016) and am now preparing to issue a special 20th Anniversary Edition of the book. To further commemorate my 20 years of tracking human warfare, I will be executing a second 20-foot drawing bearing the same decorative pattern, but with the longer timeline of warfare through 2019/20.  My intention is to exhibit both drawings side by side, as well as the book.  I feel this is a significant moment in my practice (though a disheartening one in American politics). Because of this, I will be offering a modest number of signed copies… I have until this year always refused to sign these books.

from Printed Matter’s catalog:

This astounding document of the absence of peace in our time lists all open and declared armed hostile conflicts that have taken place between the year 1 and the year 2007. Printed in a tiny font and arrayed in two seemingly endless columns, these conflicts fill a mind-boggling twenty-two pages. The book is printed on accordion folded decorative paper, an uncomfortable reminder that the refinements of civilization are inseparably bound up with brutality.   This third edition comes in a plastic slipcase and includes a printed statement by the artist.

Link to Printed Matter:  printedmatter.org/22307

from Catalog of Step and Repeat: Pattern in Artists Books:

A dense axial timeline capturing twenty centuries from 1A.D. to 2000 A.D. charts wars and armed conflicts fromall over the world in 3.5 pt. type. With a thin red marker,Maher draws a single line through 329 A.D., the only yearon record without a known conflict. On the cover sheprovokes the reader, “…perhaps they [sic] were periods ofpeace.” The book is printed over an inverted pattern ofelegant and royal fleur-de-lis. Such aesthetic choices give the reader pause: the finery enjoyed by a few (in the ruling class comes at a price.

https://www.academia.edu/39973977/Step_and_Repeat_Pattern_in_Artists_Publications