This summer the book designer Alexey Murashko has won the second silver in the European Design Awards for Latvia with the publication Paddy Hartley at the Pharmaceutical Museum of the University of Basel. The book documents the ceramic works of the British artist Paddy Hartley, who created an intervention in the Pharmaceutical Museum in honour of the 125th anniversary of the Roche company.
We already wrote about the book Cost of Life designed by Alexey Murashko, which was dedicated to Paddy Hartley’s exhibitions at the Tinguely Museum in Basel and the Art Academy of Latvia. While Cost of Life was a modernist, sharp publication, this book is softer and more naive both in content and presentation. The Pharmaceutical Museum of the University of Basel is located in a 14th-century building and houses one of the largest and most important collections of the history of pharmacy, which includes medical books, pharmacology ceramics, historical first aid kits, and an alchemy laboratory.
Paddy Hartley creates his artworks inspired by the location where his ceramic figurines are exhibited and creates a communication with the objects in the museum. His interventions are not abstract interactions but interfere and conquer the museum space with passion and a sense of humour. The book dedicated to this intervention is designed as a walk through the museum from the main entrance to the last room, reflecting both the objects of the intervention and serving as a representative catalogue for the museum. To enhance the sense of presence, the book uses tinted paper that matches the colours of the museum space or the exterior of the building.
The spatiality of the museum is also revealed in the different perspectives of the photographs. ― Photography allows some of the objects of the intervention to be hidden in order to reveal them under the gatefolds and sewed-in vertical folds, simulating the change of the museum visitor’s point of view. Alexey Murashko himself took photos of Hartley’s ceramic objects and the interior of the museum. Taking into account the narrow spaces, uneven lighting, and the fact that many of the exhibits are in glass cases, photography has been one of the biggest challenges of compiling the book. Part of the exhibition was photographed in darkness to avoid reflections in the glass. By illuminating only Hartley’s artwork, their secret nightlife is on display.
The book is bound in leather covers made from recycled scraps of leather products. Through the publication’s materiality, structure, and borrowing from the techniques of documentary photography of crime scenes, a playful and artistic book is created. It tells not only the story of the Pharmacy Museum but also of the interaction of the medical industry with humanity and corporeality.
The publication Paddy Hartley at the Pharmaceutical Museum of the University of Basel received a silver award in the Artistic Catalogue category at the European Design Awards. Alexey Murashko is currently working on the next publication, a book about Paddy Hartley’s intervention in the Museum of Anatomy in Riga, which will be published this winter. The work on this book was affected by the global health crisis, and in the shadow of the pandemic, another work by Alexey Murashko was published last year, the book Two Cities of Czesław Miłosz, which is a heartfelt tribute to Vilnius and Krakow ― the cities of the poet’s youth and old age , that are depicted in the publication in black and white photographs by Arūnas Baltens. This book is ranked among the 21 most beautiful books in Lithuania this year according to the results of the national book competition.
Viedokļi