Blue / text by Derek Jarman ; letterpress by Tom Shaw.
- Jarman, Derek, 1942-1994
- Date:
- 1994
- Books
About this work
Description
Letterpress printed book containing the full text of Derek Jarman’s 1993 poetic screenplay Blue, which documents his AIDS related illnesses. The book is casebound in blue papered boards that frame the text, with a facsimile of Jarman's signature blind-stamped on the front cover and four leaves of endpapers (front and rear) also in blue. It is accompanied by loose screenprint, signed by Jarman in pencil to lower margin; numbered 43 of 150. Both are housed in a cloth solander box, hand-painted, with deep blue interior and lip; exterior panels painted with overlapping pale-blue borders.
Publication/Creation
[London] : The Blue Press, an imprint of Salmon Shaw Dane Watson, 1994.
Physical description
1 volume (32 pages of letterpress printed text) ; 46 cm x 34 cm, in solander box 48.6 x 37 cm + screenprint 44 x 32 cm
Edition
Proof copy.
Notes
The film Blue was a ‘film without image’, consisting of a steady screen of the colour ‘International Klein Blue’ (IKB). The book uses the same colour blue. Following the film’s premier at the 1993 Venice Biennale, the work was simulcast on UK television and radio, with radio listeners receiving advance invitations to request IKB postcards on which to fix their gaze. In 1994, the year of Jarman’s death, Blue became an edition, centred upon a loose Klein Blue screenprint signed by Jarman. The edition was never completed, several proof copies exist, the solander boxes of other known copies differ and are a solid IKB blue.
Type/Technique
Languages
Where to find it
Location Status Access Closed storesA81