AMBruno
Finale Launch
Tate Britain Library and Archive Reading Rooms

The launch of Finale - the final AMBruno project
A report by Maria White

The following report by Maria White was originally published in the Book Arts Newsletter (No. 169, November 2025, pages 57-60).

The afternoon at Tate Library began with a welcome from Gustavo Grandal Montero, Library Collections and Engagement Manager. He mentioned that this was the first event in a public program facilitated by the Tate Library and Archive.

Sophie Loss then introduced Robert Bolick. He spoke about his interest in the book and criteria for acquiring or exhibiting a work. He wants a book to make him read with his eyes, but also his hands and mind. Further, that simply turning the page is not enough, he wants to rotate, unfold, manipulate and handle the work. He wants to be made to think about how the elements work together and how previous books and art might be present in this book. Therefore, in the Finale selection there is a range of work: in physical format and subject, but also in literary and other influences. He said that it was an "honour to be tortured" to imagine what the artists would come up with and that there was "almost every variety" of book except the unopenable book. In response to a question from Sophie he said that he "was surprised that he was not surprised" when he saw the books - they were as he imagined they would be from the proposals.

Philip Lee then introduced the next section of the afternoon where 11 of the artists performed their books in a variety of ways. Susan Johanknecht and Katharine Meynell enacted their book vocally with some sound effects. They read Sunsetting, including vocalising its images ("round flow diagram", "square flow diagram", "splat, splat, splat"). The voice passed backwards and forwards between them, sometimes almost as an echo, while at other times they spoke in unison. Occasionally they provided other sounds by clapping, stamping their feet and banging drum sticks.

Linda Parr was stunningly attired in full funeral regalia, black frock coat, white wing-collared shirt with black ribbon tie secured by a brooch, black waistcoat and top hat, as she spoke about her book Finale, or The Death of the Author. Referencing Roland Barthes's 1967 essay The death of the author which argues that the meaning of a text cannot be determined by the author's intent, emphasising the reader's active role in creating meaning and interpretation, Linda's book explores the metaphorical and literal deaths of authors and a number of authors' reflections on mortality. She ended her performance with Barthes's statement that the "death of the author is the price paid for the birth of the reader" as she produced a baby manikin from her bag.

... And is Karen Blake's Finale work. Karen observed that books and libraries are under threat and hence her book is shaped as a tombstone, a memorial commemorating and honouring books that have been banned and burnt from 712 BC to the present. But ideas endure, and the feathers attached to her book, stretching out beyond its edge, indicate this. Karen read Czeslaw Milosz's poem And yet the books, that captures the spirit of her book.

The End by Judy Goldhill "correlates the naivety of a child's emotions with the sophistication of the cameras used by NASA for their kamikaze lunar space probe Ranger IX. It recreates her excitement followed by horror of the eventual impact". For the event Judy made a highly affecting film showing a young girl initially looking through a telescope at the moon, then seen directly face on, as she watches television as the lunar probe crashes into the moon, going through emotions with developing and increasing fear and terror.

Cosimo I de' Medici commissioned Bronzino to paint a portrait of his favourite dwarf Nano Morgante. The resulting double-sided work is the starting point for Sophie Loss's book Nano Morgante. The front cover and back covers show each side of the painting: the front depicts Nano (face on) before a bird hunt and the back cover shows him looking over his shoulder towards the audience after the hunt. The pages in between are the "illogical space in between, where Nano has made his way through the book/forest, crushing, breaking, and cutting through with his blade". Sophie's piece for the launch was a sound work representing this movement through the forest.

As in his book Sun God performance artist Philip Lee gradually transformed himself into a sun god. Initially he walked among us in just a thong and necklace. Then he climbed on to one of the library's desks to retrieve his golden crown from a high shelf. Next, he donned high-heeled gold boots. He summoned assistance from two subjects to hand him down from the table. Finally, he completed his transformation by swirling a red and gold cloak around his shoulders. Then he strode around the room anointing his subjects with his cloak.

Mireille Ribière showed a video of the pages of her book, Life End-Games, while she and a colleague read excerpts from the work. The plot of which is adapted from La vie mode d'emploi by Georges Perec. The book has a circular hole cut from each page. When the reader reaches the last page and looks backwards, they see the colours and overlapping words of the previous pages, but looking onwards the page is blank, marking the finale of the book.

Rafael Klein's book Sketchbook for the End Times is a vivid coloured sculptural concertina with pop-ups. It tells the story of a road trip to Italy that is interrupted by a series of natural disasters, including storms, floods and fire, "recalling the interference of the Gods in Ovid's Metamorphoses". Rafael read aloud from the book as a film with music played. The film, which can be seen on Rafael's website , combines real scenes with artwork and images from the book. Sketchbook for the End Times

Encore by John McDowall "manifests the repetition of theatrical performances" through the repeated image of a theatrical scene from Dangerous corner, the first of the Time plays by J. B. Priestley. The images are separated by an intervening delicate red leaf. John enlisted five of his fellow AMBruno colleagues to enact this scene - of two men grappling, a woman seated in a chair pointing towards a further woman who holds her hand to her forehead in a wan gesture, another man stands behind the seated woman. The tableau was held for 10 seconds then John, playing the role of "Curtain", walked across in front of the scene allowing the actors to release their pose. He then walked back again causing them to resume their pose. This was repeated to reflect the book.

Ximena Pérez Grobet's Horizontel is a double concertina book, consisting of 132 colour photographs of landscape each with some sort of horizon line. These horizons are aligned, creating a continuum. Ximena unravelled the book allowing its full 20 metres length to extend around the Reading Room until everyone held, or read, the book together.

For the final performance of the afternoon Cally Trench invited those that could to lie on the floor "to be a corpse". She then read from her book FOR THE DEAD. Printed on delicate Bible paper, this work shows the final word of each line of The Order of Service for the Burial of the Dead as placed in a copy of The Book of Common Prayer that Cally was given as a child.

Sophie delivered the closing words of the afternoon. She mentioned that organising the AMBruno projects was like conducting the sea - as in a wonderful photograph that she displayed. She thanked her colleagues Cally Trench, Judy Goldhill, Philip Lee and John McDowall, plus the selectors, for their contributions to the AMBruno projects and to Gustavo for hosting the event. Then Sophie received a well-earned round of appreciative applause for all the imagination, work and driving force that she has put into the AMBruno projects over the past 15 years.

All the books in the Finale project were available throughout the afternoon for the audience to look at, including a further seven books for which there was no associated performance.

Autodafe by Laure Catugier is a sculptural book. Each of the eight black leaves have been perforated with a letter that together spells the word "autodafe", which "designates the destruction of books by fire, usually motivated by cultural, religious or political opposition". The book is bound with hinges around a candle.

Claudia de la Torre's PROLOGUES / EPILOGUES is a tête-bêche book containing 60 fictional prologues and epilogues with the central pages left blank. The reader is invited to bridge the gap, creating meaning from "absence, reflection, and the rhythm of imagined middles".

Pauline Lamont-Fisher's Finale: thoughts and memories is a hand-sized hardback volume with beautiful photographs interleaved with delicate semi-transparent leaves printed with texts. The book is a reflection on the death of a much-loved dog and on the way death provokes thoughts and memories.

Tidings by Alastair Noble is a top-hinged book that has the text "Silence all around marked the termination of his finale" running through it. The remark, from Ulysses, is made by the keeper of the cabman's shelter where Leopold Bloom and Stephen Daedalus took refuge. The words are printed in Lyons typeface in memory of the classical inscriptions on the cover of the first edition of James Joyce's work.

Emergent Occasions by Peter Rapp has hand-printed linocut images and photopolymer text, and is shaped as a bell with pages mimicking the motion of a clapper. The book is "inspired by John Donne's 'Meditation XVII' from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions from which the expression 'for whom the bell tolls' derives".

FINALE by Maria White is a small hand-sized book. It contains an acrostic poem that spells out the word "finale". In addition, each line contains words that begin with the first letter of the line. The poem, which portrays a fictional narrative, appears one line per page, so that as the reader turns the page they are moved on to the next line and letter.

To end on a crescendo, the final book in the project is Touch-Paper by Roy Willingham. A colourful concertina of Turkish map folds which "remembers the delightful names of classic fireworks and pays homage to their simple approach to packaging design while also quietly reconsidering their impact from a twenty-first century viewpoint".

Maria White, October 2025

Maria White first met artists' books at the National Art Library in the late 1980s and went on to work more closely with them at Tate Library, where she purchased for and catalogued the artists' books collection, and curated displays and group visits. She now has her own collection of over 1,500 artists' books. She was a selector for the AMBruno project words in 2016. Maria occasionally makes artists' books and her books were included in AMBruno's Margins project in 2022 and Intervals project in 2024 as well as the current Finale project.