S T A C Y * W A K E F I E L D * B O O K * D E S I G N

CONSTRUCTED COMFORT
Photographs by Ellen Brooks / Book design by Stacy Wakefield
Published by KNUST in Nijmegen, The Netherlands in an edition of 200 numbered copies
Risograph printing in full color. 26 pages. 5.325 x 7.5 inches. Sewn saddle-stitch binding.

Published in a limited edition by KNUST in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, Constructed Comfort showcases two series of work by New York-based artist Ellen Brooks; photographs of constructed forts; and drawings from people mapping their childhood forts. The work explores the act of fort-making as an assertion of spatial dominance and self definition.

The book was selected by riso-printing collective KNUST to be produced this summer in residency by Stacy Wakefield at The Valkhof Museum in Nijmegen, The Netherlands as part of their programming for 35 Years of Knust.

KNUST has been producing stencil printed art books, now more commonly called risograph printing, for over 30 years. Growing out of the dutch squatting movement and the activitist-artist culture of the 1980s, they have continued to develop their craft through collaborations with book aritsts from all over the world. Once outsiders, they are now part of the Dutch art world with retrospective museum shows. As interest in artist books has grown, and art book fairs pop up and draw crowds all over the world, KNUST has become recognzied as an important forerunner in this field.

Photographer Ellen Brooks began her career on the West Coast, receiving her BA and MFA from UCLA, and is associated with the Los Angeles-based art community of the late 1960s and '70s. In 1982 she moved to New York, where her practice has since been based. Her work is known for its boundary-pushing forays into sculpture, and for her use of screens and image altering pro-filmic photographic processes. She has shown at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Centre Pompidou. Her work is in permanent museum collections around the world. Brooks spent many years on the photography faculty at NYU and has taught at The Cooper Union and Rhode Island School of Design.