Full of Emptiness, Machteld Rullens
( details )
Book
21 × 29 cm, 192 pages
2021

Machteld Rullens (b. 1988, The Hague, Netherlands) gathers cardboard boxes, gently rubs them with color and resin, and stacks them, their flaps agape like unshut mouths or closed, hiding their interiors just so. Full of Emptiness, Rullens’ debut artist book, presents over sixty of her humdrum wall-works alongside photographs of friends, family, curious objects, and far-off travels. Art and everyday life are documented with the same analogue camera, smudging the line therebetween—if there ever was one. Essay by Andrew Berardini.

Published by Zolo Press, ISBN: 978-1-7345275-6-8

A photograph of the book's front cover. It too features a photograph, taken by the artist, of one of her sculptures made from found cardboard boxes. This sculpture hangs on a white wall and features three boxes: at back a rectangular black box, in front of it a fluorescent yellow box, and below them a box each flap of which is painted a different color.
The book's inside cover. On the left flap reads
A contraposition. On the left is a photo of a flat royal blue lounge chair decorated with the outline of white seagulls. At right is a tall box of a deeper blue leaning from the concrete floor to the top of the panelled ceiling in the artist's studio. '
Two full pages of text featuring Andrew Berardini's essay Unboxing Machteld Rullens. The type reaches to all edges of the paper.'
Another full-bleed image pair. On the left is a photograph of a white cow in the midst of licking something. Its eyes are black and its face ornamented with curls of white fur. On the right is one of Machteld's wall-mounted boxes, with its left fold agape just so.
Two photographs from the artist's studio, with seven rectangular boxes between them in yellow, blue, red, green, and silver.
Another spread. At left: two-squarish boxes, one slightly smaller than the other but otherwise identical in its proportions and painting. At right: a floral cloth screen is attached the a wooden doorway, dampening the light from outside.
The book's final two pages with information about its publication and a photo collaged with various colors of packing tape.
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