Jo Cook & Perro Verlag Books by Artists: The Unreadable Sacred. Installation documentation, SFU Gallery, 2023. Photos: Rachel Topham Photography. Image descriptions of the exhibition documentation are available below under 'Support Materials'
Jo Cook & Perro Verlag Books by Artists: The Unreadable Sacred
NOV 14 – FEB 10 2024
SFU Gallery
Is finding a larger and larger audience for one’s work so important? Couldn’t small, local editions contribute to change as much as larger print runs? […] I think local small presses can work with whatever size community they find themselves in to invent ways of doing / making things that call into question just that: “the difference between reality and our perception of reality.”
— Jo Cook (excerpt from The Capilano Review 3.28, Winter 2016)
The late Jo Cook extended her own artistic practice of printmaking, collage, painting and paper-based works into an array of artist book publishing centered on the premise of collaboration and reciprocity. Her dedicated contributions to the camaraderie of artist-led publishing included curating and organizing artist book exhibitions across numerous literary and visual arts community-driven spaces on the West Coast, including The Regional Assembly of Text, Lucky’s Comics, Ministry of Casual Living, and others.
Together with artist Wesley Mulvin, Perro Verlag Books by Artists supported the publication of generative exchanges in editorial, typographic, and artistic experimentation. Through an artistic practice and letter press studio established on Mayne Island, and often using Cook’s variable pseudonyms—Bucky Fleur, Florentine Perro, and Frances Zorn—Perro Verlag produced and distributed many artists’ works and series, including Hell Passport (2006-2008), Collected Works of Frances Zorn (2014), Optophonetic Poetics Initiative and Documents of Psychic Amateurs (DoPA) projects (2010).
Cook described Perro Verlag (perro translates to “dog” in Spanish and verlag to “publishing house” in German) as a press “that recognizes the importance of unstable thoughts and impractical, possibly visionary intentions,” which emphasized the ulterior possibilities of print found within the conversant spaces of marginalia, annotation, citation, and multiplicitous authorial, editorial, and serial print monikers.
The Unreadable Sacred pairs selected prints, paintings, and paper works by Jo Cook along with Perro Verlag Books by Artists held in the Simon Fraser University Special Collections and Rare Books.
Curated by Kristy Trinier with research assistance from Wesley Mulvin and Kasper Feyrer
In partnership with W.A.C. Bennett Library Special Collections and Rare Books, SFU Burnaby
Jo Cook (1946-2021) was an artist publisher based on Mayne Island, BC, preceded by years of practice in Vancouver with the Vancouver Women’s Book Store and other community publishing projects. After attending Printed Matter in New York in 1978, Cook amassed a vast collection of zines, comix, artists books, posters, and flyers. In 2004 she curated (self)Publish or Perish for Open Space in Victoria, Cyclops Dreams (with Owen Plummer) for Access Gallery, and Tales from the Cyclops Library for Third Space Gallery in St John. She organized exhibitions at Lucky's Comics and the lowercase reading room in Vancouver. Cook participated in artist residencies in Tabor, Czech Republic; Tallinn, Estonia; and at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She was the Artists' Books Research Resident (ABRRR) at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in 2016.
In 2005, Wesley Mulvin and Jo Cook founded Perro Verlag Books by Artists. Perro Verlag has published over 125 titles including comics, zines, poetry chapbooks, pamphlets, broadsides, and works of short fiction by artists and authors including Derya Akay, derek beaulieu, Brandy Fedoruk, Kasper Feyrer, Ted Hiebert, Doug Jarvis, Demi London, Petra Poldlahová, Sally Rees, Jackson Two Bears, and James Whitman.
Events
Reading and Tour with Kathy Slade: Jo Cook & Perro Verlag Books by Artists
Saturday, February 10 / 2 – 4PM
SFU Gallery
Support Material
