Jo Israel – On the Edge of Nothingness
Here at c4, we almost always deal with newly-published books. Hastings-based artist Jo Israel works with books at the end of their life cycle, poring through discarded volumes in search of lost images. In 2021, Israel was leafing through an old book when she came across a ghostly image on the reverse side of an engraved illustration, formed as the result of an acid migration process within the fabric of the paper. Thus began the After Image series, shown in 2024 at the Hastings Museum in Israel’s solo exhibition On the Edge of Nothingness. Jo and I talked over email in late 2024.
Eugenie Shinkle: Let’s start by talking a bit about your practice – particularly your interest in old books, and the images they contain.
Jo Israel: To date my practice has explored the idea of seeing through – to the space between and beyond the image, using primarily found imagery.
The act of collecting forms a fundamental part of this practice and, in particular, collecting antiquated books. As far back as I can remember I have been around old books as my father is an antique dealer. As soon as you enter a second-hand book shop you have entered into the past, you have gone into a space of yesterday, where time seems to hang a little heavier. A second-hand book comes with a material history and a sense of presence, it has been handled over and over by others.
I am fascinated by the nature of time, and how books are on a journey through time, towards decay. But on that journey, they acquire all sorts of characteristics, forming an index of their history.
My first use of found images was with my Valley series, which involved photographing the interiors of books. I realised subsequently that it is the nature of these books themselves, rather than a reproduction of the images they contain, which for me is vital.
My fascination is with both images and the paper that contains them, particularly old paper, with its inherent qualities. The science of paper is also of great interest to me. As a former scientist, I also enjoy cataloguing the organoleptic aspects of books – their sound, smell – the colour that papers of different ages and acidities exhibit when illuminated. At times paper feels as though it is a living tissue.
I am fascinated by the nature of time, and how books are on a journey through time, towards decay. But on that journey, they acquire all sorts of characteristics, forming an index of their history. My work takes these material objects and isolates them from the flow of everyday time. Despite this focus on materiality, the nature of the images I work with often seem to suggest the immaterial – with their glowing apertures and ghostly traces – evoking something akin to a post-material existence.
ES: The work in On the Edge of Nothingness has a special relationship to time, to materiality, and to the image itself. Rather than reproducing images in books, you’ve actually removed pages from the books. As a collector of old books, this must have been quite a difficult decision to take. Can you talk about this?
JI: The After Image series emerges from books that are at least 200 years old. Rather than attempt to acquire antiquarian volumes, the books I choose to work with have, by the time I’ve found them, already reached a state of advanced ruination. The After Images exist because the books that originally contained them had been stored in conditions that accelerated the processes of acid migration (this is the process by which the After Images are created).
Rather than attempt to acquire antiquarian volumes, the books I choose to work with have, by the time I’ve found them, already reached a state of advanced ruination.
For me, taking even a disintegrating book apart is a difficult and uncomfortable process and, when doing so, I try to be as respectful as possible. I found that I wasn’t able to just take a scalpel and remove a page from the book as it felt important to maintain, in some way, the integrity, not only of the book but also of the page itself. It can take hours to de-bind, page by page, an entire book – removing each page in its entirety, without incurring further damage. With each book I disassemble, I retain the Victorian string, the dust and debris. After de-binding, I archive these material remnants.
ES: I love the idea of keeping all of the ephemera that the book has accumulated in its journey through time. Will these remnants perhaps go on to become the subject of future work?
JI: There aren’t any immediate plans to use these remnants in future work so, at the moment, I am just keeping them archived as part of the residue of the disassembled books.
Whilst preparing the works for the On the Edge of Nothingness exhibition I came across one particular After Image that featured representations of two figures on the piece of tissue paper. As I only wanted to isolate and frame one of these figures, I was presented with the question of what to do with the second figure, which would have to be cut from the paper. Rather than discard this second figure, or keep it in a drawer, I asked the framer to separate it and then place the second figure in an envelope and hide it inside the frame. That way keeping the images together in one space, even if one of them remains invisible. So far, this is the only After Image that has had this kind of physical intervention on my part.
ES: The framing of the images has a special significance in your work, because it actually arrests the processes of acid migration that form the images in the first place. Can you talk a bit more about this process and how it takes place? It’s interesting to think of the act of framing in your work as somehow analogous to pressing the shutter of a camera – in both cases, an image is created by interrupting the flow of time.
JI: The idea of acid migration fascinates me. It wasn’t until the exhibition at the Museum was open – and a paper conservator came along and informed me – that I understood that it wasn’t, as I’d previously thought, strictly an image transfer process but rather an acid migration process, generated from within the paper. From what I understand, this is to do with the lignins (part of the cell walls in plants) in the wood pulp, which are unstable and light sensitive, as they age, they break down and oxidise into acid compounds which, in turn, causes the yellowing on the surface of the paper. Conservators and antiquarian booksellers consider this as damage, something to repair or mitigate as much as possible. To me it feels as if the skeleton within the image is becoming visible. The Victorians and Georgians would have been aware of the image movement process, which is why they employed the use of tissue guards to protect the images. For me, the tissue guards are ghost traps.
I collect duplicate copies of the antiquated books I have found After Images within, just out of curiosity, to see what has happened to another copy of the same book, a book containing the same images, to see if the image movement process is similar. They are never the same twice, they are all one offs, there is no standardisation within acid migration.
I see the After Images in photographic terms, even though the sources of the images are steel plate engravings.
All of my found image work employs the use of acidic paper (i.e. paper produced prior to the 1950s, after which paper started to become acid-free). Ultimately, all of the paper in the After Image series is acidic, self-degrading, and in conservation terms, endangered.
I pay particular attention to the framing of these works. Prior to framing, their status is very transient, some of them are so subtle that in order to see them as something worth looking at, rather than just faded, torn pieces of paper (which of course they are) they require a space of their own.
I see the After Images in photographic terms, even though the sources of the images are steel plate engravings. The exposure time is incredibly long with these works. I see them in relation to proto-photographic images and named the series in reference to the analogy that Fox Talbot made between photographs and the after images that we all experience (as shadow imprints on the retina when exposed to bright light). In some way, these are like seeing a photograph emerging in a dark room developing tank over an extended period. To me, the After Image process feels the same as my straight photography practice, in that something suddenly stops me and I have to hold my position and take the image. The only difference is that the After Images rely on the turn of a page, rather than the manipulation of the shutter.
ES: Although the images are very important, many of the pages also have great character of their own; you’ve been very careful to retain the folds, tears, stains, and other imperfections in the paper itself. Your selection process, then, is not about finding ‘perfect’ images, but about drawing the viewer’s attention to the relationship between image and object. Does the nature of these imperfections play an important part in deciding which images to exhibit?
JI: The imperfections are very much part of an antiquated book’s living index, and I enjoy finding these traces of its material history within the pages. While working on After Images, I have noticed that there seem to be three interrelated categories of damage or imperfection that can occur to the paper: human, environmental and chemical. Within these broad categories I have found there is a scale of acceptability as to the level of damage a subsequent artwork can contain. Some of the work in the On The Edge of Nothingness exhibition had previously spent several decades in an outdoor shed and had sustained a significant amount of environmental damage, particularly to the vulnerable edges of the paper. In these instances, I cropped some of the images using passé par-touts so that I could assist the viewer in maintaining their focus on the delicate images themselves rather than the surrounding damage. As a general rule, if my eye is drawn to the damage before the image, then it isn’t successful as a finished artwork. That being said, there are a few exceptions where I have allowed the properties of the damaged paper to remain fully intact, even when they threaten to overwhelm or distract from the image. With these pieces the interaction between the damage and the imagery creates the artwork, with the damage adding an additional dimension to the figurative elements contained on the paper. In one instance, a group of figures are drawn into a swirl of crushed paper, suggesting to me a vortex or a numinous tunnel. In another piece, a lone figure gestures into the void existing beyond the crumpled page’s roughly torn edges.
The intimacy of sharing a book with somebody over a very long period of time – and seeing their anonymous imprint on the page – is, I find, very moving.
Over time, I find myself learning more about the book’s previous owner through the damage sustained to the paper. The majority of the After Image series emerged from books that were made in an era before electrical lighting. Their owners would use paraffin lamps to see in the dark and coal to heat their rooms. Many of the books in my collection subsequently contain coal fingerprints and smudges. One can’t help but imagine a person sitting close to a fire, turning the pages with their unwashed hands. The intimacy of sharing a book with somebody over a very long period of time – and seeing their anonymous imprint on the page – is, I find, very moving.
One of my favourite examples of imperfection is on a tissue guard work. Over the course of 200 years, the protective tissue guard must have shifted position slightly, which created a new imprint to be overlaid onto the first. This resulted in a double exposure within the image and added a unique, dream-like, apocalyptic atmosphere to the finished piece. It is this kind of event within the work, the non-human agency if you like, which makes the work feel a little miraculous at times.
ES: I love the idea of non-human agency playing a part in the creation of the work. Many of the works in the exhibition contain images of human figures, and I’m now imagining them as collaborators in the finished pieces – human agents interacting with the materiality of the book. Other images are almost abstract. How do you go about choosing images?
JI: For the exhibition, I deliberately chose works featuring figures, with all but one of the works in the show containing at least one figure, all depicted eclipsed by partial whiteout. When looking at these figures, I feel that I’m seeing shadowy remains trapped in a semi-permeable space, a space which is untenable and collapsing in on itself.
Generally speaking, the images in this series find me rather than the other way round. When working on this series it seems that, sometimes, the works reveal themselves to me so suddenly that there is no question whatsoever that these are finished pieces. Other pieces are more subtle and reveal themselves over time. I appreciate the element of surprise contained within this series. There is a quietness to this work and I find that the best way to approach it is slowly.
On the Edge of Nothingness was held at the Hastings Museum from 20th July – 6 October 2024.
Jo Israel
