Better Books: Art, Anarchy and Apostasy

Better Books: Art, Anarchy and Apostasy
Flat Time House

flattimeho.org.uk

in Bellenden Road SE15

Approaching Flat Time House on Bellenden Road the first thing I saw was a massive book sticking through the window.

This was the workshop and house of John Latham and it now stores and exhibits his archive.

This Better Books exhibition gives a glimpse into the world of the unique second hand book shop in the 1960s. I got a copy of the text that accompanies the exhibition the day before at 'Bookmare' exhibition Camberwell Space and so was able to read it before coming and gem up on the history and context.

I entered the small front room with white walls and white wooden floorboards. It  was light and airy as the whole frontage is glass with the sculpture book breaking through on both sides.

The exhibition starts with a plan of the Better Books basement where all the radical events took place. This was red ink on brown paper. Then I looked up and at the top of the wall was Bob Cobbing's  'A Judith Poem. In Any Language'. The printed black letters has a stark intensity. Then there was a photograph of the Better Books  shop in 1966 taken by Jennifer Pike and a paper bag designed by John Sewell. But as I continued looking I seemed to hone in on Bob Cobbing's work. His 'Poem in Three Stanzas' is the impressions and traces of something leaving black and grey marks. And that is what a poem is? Its an impression in sound that is perhaps not understood at least not on the first hearing but you are left thinking about it ...it makes an impression on you.

Walking in through the office into a corridor I went straight to the end and watched film footage of Bob Cobbing reading his sound poems building up texture (Pip Benvensite, Poet UK 1965 16mm). Then moving back down the corridor I saw Bob Cobbing's 'Reel 2 Reel' poster cira 1960. It was a black graphic stylised film reel sliced in half and the two portions at an angle  with bold black text above it - very effective.

By reading the text (booklet that unfolds into a massive poster with images of key works) first and then going to see the actual printed materials, watch film and listen to audio I got  a real sense of how radical Better Books was.