Ral Veroni ~ ArgentinaSpain

Sophie
By Ral Veroni
Bristol, England: 1998. Edition of 15.

22 x 21 cm with 120 pages laser printed on Transmarque paper of 110 gms. Housed in a portfolio box bound in gold paper with the title embossed in blue on the front. Made at the Centre for Fine Print Research at the University of the West of England, Bristol.

A deliberately disorienting combination of Lynn Ward and Julio Cortázar. This portfolio of Veroni's drawings, printed on transparent paper, chronicles a turbulent time in the artists' life (see his comments below). Textless. The format encourages reader/viewer interaction to construct meaning. The Colophon provides some hints. The comments below help even more.

Veroni: "I like the idea that the viewer can play with the order and combination of the images. The concept of the book was that of playing with a number of multi-layered designs, gaining in depth and changing, in turn, with a series of suggestive-and not quite fixed-meanings. At the same time I wanted to keep a certain track of the original order I gave to the images.

"The book was made in Bristol in 1998 after falling in love with a French girl called Sophie. I was captivated. I found it ironic that a woman with a name meaning wisdom could make me lose my head.... I couldn't sleep for many nights and the drawings I did during those days were my way to achieve some kind of catharsis. I put all together within the book: mixed reading of Greek myths along with the legend of Orpheus plus my own feelings and interpretations. No wonder ambiguity and confusion remains throughout its pages."
$850

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La Zarza Ardiendo
By Marta Sabella
Buenos Aires, Argentina: Ral Veroni, 1995. Edition of 139.

8.5 x 5.75"; 24 pages. Text handwritten by poet and then screenprinted on Conqueror Verge paper of 220 and 130 gsm. Images by Ral Veroni. Bound with colored cotton thread. Made at the studio in Pedro Goyena street in Buenos Aires. Text in Spanish. Numbered and signed by both writer and artist.

Linda Neilson: "La Zarza Ardiendo/ The Burning Bramble was published by Veroni to celebrate 10 years of friendship with Argentine poet Marta Sabella. Despite Sabella's high quality of poetry this is the only publication of her work to date and she is almost unknown to Buenos Aires's literary magazines. Veroni´s intention behind the delicate edition of La Zarza Ardiendo was to assert Sabella's position as a writer."

Marta Sabella, born in Buenos Aires, is a professor of art with a specialty in engraving.
$300

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The Lottery Project
By Ral Veroni
Buenos Aires: 2006. Edition of 49.

6 x 10.25 x 1.25"; 64 pages. Bilingual in Spanish and English. Cover design by Ral Veroni and Cristian Turdera. Paper: Teton Tiara 118 gsm, Cromatico 100 and 200 gsm, and plastic sleeves. Each book in the edition contains 49 inkjet prints onto original, but unsuccessful, lottery tickets. The origin of the tickets differs in each book, making each unique within the edition.

Veroni’s opening proclaims the plight of artists today and announces the subject of this book: the impossibility of making a living as an artist. Hence, the artist might as well play the lottery. At least the unsuccessful tickets can be put to the service of art: for Veroni, the tickets become paper for his sometimes playful, sometimes painfully serious inkjet prints.

The book was begun in Buenos Aires in July of 2006 “thanks to a lucky stipend obtained by the numbers 14, 22, 36 and 40….The edition will be released and distributed gradually, as the artist plays the lottery and gathers enough tickets upon which to print and fill each of the books. In the eventuality that during this time the artist wins the lottery jackpot, he reserves the right to leave the edition uncompleted.”
$800

La Princesa
By Ral Veroni
2002. Edition of 200

10 x 14cm, 40 pages. Inkjet printed on digital paper of 170 gms. Protected by a dust-cover printed on photo paper. English version only. Signed & numbered by Veroni.

This small book, with its structure of symbols, offers a good introduction to Veroni's digital artworks, made from 1999 onwards. It is also his return to producing poetry editions, as he had done in the eighties.
$26

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La Lucha por la Vida (Struggle for Life)
By Ral Veroni.
2000. Edition of 40.

6 x 9.5”; 86 pages. Contains thirty, screen printed images on obsolete paper currency from a host of countries. The pages are comprised of plastic sleeves with actual bills inserted inside. Origins of banknotes differ, thus each book is original in form and content. Introductory and explanatory texts in English and Spanish. Cloth and illustrated paper over board covers with hidden screw and post binding.

This artist's book uses devalued paper currency, bills no longer in circulation, from many countries to illustrate our relationships with money. By drawing directly onto these bills, Veroni explores the role money plays in our lives, the power it exercises over us, and the strange way it dictates our circumstances. He examines a long personal and mytho-historical relationship with money in a text that is honest and insightful, pointed and poetic.

A childhood in Argentina provided economic education in inflation and devaluation. "A bill in the pocket which yesterday bought a dozen eggs, today may buy only five eggs and tomorrow might only be enough to buy one." Although prevailing wisdom taught that "to save is the way to riches," Veroni soon realized that the best way to invest money was to spend it. Practical considerations may have inadvertently led her further on this quest for monetary meaning. When he did not have money to buy painting supplies, bills out of circulation were the cheapest paper to draw on. These drawings on old currency began while he was designing a "Macabre Dance" series of graffitied skeletons. Earlier engravings in the genre by Holbein, Guadalupe Posada, and Alfred Rethel influenced his work. The tension between life and death, the very struggle for life, is inherent in the mythos of money. Veroni writes: "Urban man asks himself about money in the same manner primitive man used to ask himself about lightening, rain, or lions; inexplicable things for him but without a doubt these were intimately related to divinity. Even though we all march to its rhythm, money (and the grief its absence brings to us) is something incomprehensible, far from the divine and only related to God when the person who wins the lottery feels blessed."
$3,000 (Last Copy)

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Struggle for Life (Reduced version)
By Ral Veroni
2001. Edition of 200.

4.5 x 6.5”; 14 pages. One original screenprint onto paper currency removed from circulation. Design and origin of the banknote differs in each book in form and content.

Paper wraps. Reproduced images of the series of 30 banknotes from the original Lucha Por La Vida inkjet printed on Somerset Book 175 gm. paper. One original screen-printed banknote is in a plastic sleeve as the last page. Text is English only with a glossary of terms and introduction to the titles from Spanish.

The original "Lucha por la Vida" used devalued paper currency, bills no longer in circulation, from many countries to illustrate our relationships with money. By drawing directly onto these bills, Veroni explored the role money plays in our lives, the power it exercises. Although prevailing wisdom taught that "to save is the way to riches," Veroni soon realized that the best way to invest money was to spend it.

This edition is a smaller version of the original. Instead of the original 30 banknotes this includes only one original full sized currency piece.
$40

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Itinerario/Itinerary
By Ral Veroni
1998. Edition of 74 in Spanish and 93 in English.

16 x 22 cm, 24 pages. Numbered and signed. Both editions are typeset on Kawanaka and Zerkall Ingres paper with screenprinted covers on Fabriano Roma. Made at the Centre for Fine Print Research at the University of the West of England.

Written in 1997 during a 6 hour trip from Albuquerque to El Paso, Veroni outlines his disappointments and what he feels he has left to expect from art. The artist´s reflections relate to his years as a painter in Buenos Aires and to subsequent projects.
$76

Buenos Aires
By Ral Veroni
2002. Edition of 50.

13.5 x 17 cm, 52 pages. Ink-jet printed on 167 gm. Epson Matte paper. Bound as a postcard portfolio. Pages are held in an envelope which slips into the cover box. Contains a series of 22 digital photographs. Bilingual edition English-Spanish, with brief introduction and a three-part folded index page.

"Buenos Aires" reflects on this city of immigrants and their daily struggle for survival. For this project, made during 2000 and 2001, Ral Veroni resorted to the strategy of the faneur: long walks around town with no predetermined aim, taking photographs and notes about the city, its architecture and its neighborhoods.

The insertion of emblematic figures – representing time, destiny, desire – in the cityscape create a subtle mix of metaphors. These images not only refer to the ups and downs of human existence but also, depending on the landmarks where these symbols are placed, to the complex political and social problems of the country.
$120

Glasgow
By Ral Veroni
2002. Edition of 50.

13.5 x 17 cm, 52 pages. A series of 22 digital photographs, ink-jet printed on Epson Matte 167 gm. paper. As with Buenos Aires -its twin edition- it is bound as a postcard portfolio, the pages are held by an envelope which slips into the cover box. Bilingual edition English Spanish, with a structure of symbols as introduction and a three-part folded page with poems by Ral Veroni. Signed & numbered by the artist.

"Glasgow" is both a photographic compilation and an artist's book. Veroni has for this city a traveler's eye and he leaves the viewer with an open interpretation. One exception may be Monument to Existence. Here, the character stands on the cenotaph to the war dead, holding a two face weight. The rest of the images are wide allusions to the powers that carry us or menace us, such as Day of Bad Luck, or Time Thinks. These are combined with images of cityscapes that within this context, gain a certain kind of animism.
$120