Arthouse

I'm about to send my copy of Graham Percy's Arthouse back to its owner, so I thought I'd write a quick piece about it.  It was published in 1994, and is based around Percy's design for a house for artists, with rooms and pieces of furniture dedicated to particular artists.  

Some of my favourites include:

• A guestroom for El Lissitsky
• A sewing room for Claus Oldenburg
• Doorway to study for Piero della Francesca
• Tableware for Kandinsky (silver and enamel)

As well as individual pages and spreads devoted to artists, Percy includes a floorplan in the book, as well as elevations showing the house's coastal location.  These are executed with a sense of real space, with details like stairs and doors.  

The back pages are an index of artists, with small bios and thumbnail reproductions (sketches of their works rather than photographs).

Gregory O'Brien on Arthouse:

"As well as being a marvelous person with whom to perambulate through a city, Graham Percy could also offer a similarly insightful tour of unreal spaces.  His most elaborate publication was Arthouse, which appeared from Chronicle Books, San Francisco, in 1994.  In this imaginary schema - part Escher, part Borges - he proposed an imaginary dwelling in which a selection of artists from the Western cannon have each contributed a room.  Effortlessly pastiching  their styles, Percy offers a mailbox wrapped by Christo, a Hieronymous Bosch kitchen, a Kurt Schwitters toaster and an attic derived from Casper David Friedrich and Anselm Kiefer.  Arthouse also presents a kind of self-portrait of the artist, the rooms in the book echoing the influences in his artistic consciousness."

The inclusion and detail of floorplans certainly illustrate Percy's architectural awareness, something that can be understood as a constant theme in his work.  

The book has an obvious respect and acknowledgment of the artists included, while remaining irreverent and witty.  

Percy uses a wide range of media, varying this from spread to spread, and creating a diverse range of visual styles.  Unification is created with Percy's sketchy handwritten captions (although there are a few exceptions to this too).  Media includes: pencil, coloured pencil, pastel, ink and wash, collage, crayon.  The most familiar look in coloured pencil, which shares the rounded forms of many of Percy's children's illustrations.

Most illustrations feature a hand-drawn boarder.  This is a feature of many of Percy's works for the exhibition.  Often ink or colour travel over this edge, which is always slightly irregular.   This is a key consideration in the framing of the works, as this edge should not be masked out.