Creative South London-based visual artist Rhea Dillon celebrated the U.S. release of her book at her book launch and signing held at Climax Bookstore located at 56 East 4th Street in the East Village. Book lovers stopped by to meet Dillion in person and explore the new bookstore on May 2nd, with her new book U.S. release “An Alterable Terrain Exhibition Book.”
“Isabella has been a long-time supporter of my artistic practice.” said Dillon, on why she decided to do her book launch at Climax Bookstore.
Isabella Burley, is the founder of Climax Bookstore. She is the former Editor-in-Residence of Helmet Lang, former Chief Marketing Officer of Acne Studios, and former Editor-in-Chief of Dazed Magazine. Originally from London, she opened Climax Bookstore in the East Village in September 2024. This is the second location for the bookstore, with another location in London, England, at 5 Wardour Mews.
When visiting the store, shoppers are wrapped in pink vinyl windows as they enter the small, minimalist style store with floor to ceilingmirrored wall and covered in stainless steel.
The store is an unconventional bookstore with one stainless steel bookshelf next to the cash register, and every week the selection of books changes.
According to Isabella, “the one bookshelf gives a tight and impactful edit,” she said. There are two stainless steel display shelves on each side of the store to display more books and Climax Bookstore merchandise. The wearable Climax Bookstore Merchandise is shown on one stainless steel clothing rack.
The book launch started at 6 PM, where shoppers had a chance to grab a drink and speak to Dillon, who is a second generation British-Jamaican, about her new book and signing copies in-store.
She not only discussed achieving publishing her fourth book, but she also chatted about her plans this summer in New York. “I am visiting New York as an Independent Study Program (ISP) fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art. It is a nine-week program that will end in May.” said Dillon.
In June, after her fellowship Dillon will be heading back to Europe. “I’m going to Switzerland, at an upcoming art show in Art Basel called Statements. The show is nominated for the Baloise Art Prize. I also have a solo show at the Heidelberger Kunstverein” she said.
She took a moment to go in-depth about her book. The book, in the form of a manuscript, was edited by Dillon, The book features published poems from poetry archives in Jamaica and illustrations of her works. The book was published by Tate Publishing. It is a conceptual fragmentation of a Black woman’s six body parts-including eyes, hands, feet, mouth, soul, reproductive organs, and lungs. In a poetic sense, it is a response to the foundational role of Black women’s physical role in history in the British Empire.
The book features other poets such as Barbara Ferland, from Spanish Town, Jamaica, and a contributor to BBC’s Caribbean Voices of Jamaica, Daniella Rose King, adjunct and curator of the Caribbean Diasporic Art, and Katherine McKittrick, Professor of Gender Studies and Canada Research Chair in Black Studies.
“It is nice to have a U.S. launch, because most of the writers that contributed are from the U.S.,” said Dillon. “The design of the book was to look like a manuscript and was designed by a book designer at OK-RM. They come up with this brilliant idea on how the reality of institutional books has such a large printing rate. This book had over 4,000 copies printed, and not that much money for production for the heavy design level that I was interested in,” she said.
Dillon had an exhibit by the same name as the book at the Tate Britain’s “Art Now” series, which ended on January 1st, 2024.
“There are also 200 copies of the special edition, only available online,” she said. The special edition of Dillon’s “An Alterable Terrain”, was hand-finished by artist OK-RM. These 200 copies are signed and numbered by the artist and include several hand-bound publications collected together within a specially produced folder with a limited-edition poster. The special edition can be purchased at the Tate Publishing website at the Tate Shop.
“The section is the titles,” she said. She is referring to the colored sections in stock paper that get bigger as you go through the book. “The titles are for each writer who contributes to the book. I want the special edition to represent the difficulty of making books on a mass scale.”
In both versions of the book, include handwritten notes. “In each chapter, I ask each contributor to give something for the chapter. The notes with the word written “MOUF” were written by friend and artist, Martine Syms from L.A., California.
In 2022, when she was directing her movie “The African Desperate”. She was taking speech and acting classes, and these notes were from her diaphragm and breathing exercises she was doing for her own practice,” she said.
She also discussed her first book, that also available for purchase during the book launch, which was “CatGut: The Opera” published in 2023. This book was a way to capture the performance of Catgut: The Opera at the Serpentine Gallery’s Park Nights Series in Summer 2021 that Dillon performed in.
The book was a visual diary of the performance Dillon was part of, with photographic documentation by Jessica Lang and a poem by New York-based poet Simone White, and an extensive conversation between Dillon and Artist Elaine White discussing the trials of the performance.
“During that time, I got my first grant through the Arts Council, and invited them to the performance, and we discussed how to archive the opera performance,” she said
The book launch continued until 8 PM, where Dillon continues to sign posters and speak to attendees about her books and life in New York City. She brought a personal copy of the Special Edition of her book, and took readers through each section explaining the detail in the artwork of the book, which mimics a diary held together by a white ribbon.
She explains that she wants her books to be publicly available and put an end to making books at a mass scale, which is archaic, because. “Books are some of the best archives,” she said.
Photo Credit: Sherica Daley
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