After Wels in Austria two years ago, Switzerland – another Alpine republic – offered to arrange the recent international FISAE congress, and it was admirable, indeed, to see how a small bookplate club in a small country mastered this task. Thanks to Benoît Junod’s charm and persuasiveness and both his and his assistants’ inexhaustible commitment, a programme for the meeting was organised which made the near 300 participants from many countries all over the world travel back home with the awareness that not only did they satisfy their desires as collectors, but that they experienced and enjoyed such an abundance of bookplate culture and history that they will be able to feed on it for years.
Abundance within a small space could have been the motto of the congress. There were the rich congress gifts in cloth bags from Egypt: opulently illustrated catalogues accompanying the numerous exhibitions, a monography Traumgestalten, on the life and work of the Russian-Swiss artist Gregor Rabinovitch, edited by Stefan Hausherr, as well as many gifts of ex-libris and publications by individual societies or persons.
Exhibitions are a hallmark of each FISAE congress. The Swiss organisers came up with a special concept for their exhibitions and numerous creative ideas for their presentation. The first experience was the visit to the recently completed subterranean “cathedral” for bibliophiles of the Fondation Martin Bodmer at Cologny by the world-famous Ticino star architect Mario Botta. In its spiritual atmosphere, evoked by the rightly praised esthetics of light, in the womb of the earth as in the old burial chambers of the pharaohs, the incunables and rarest bibliophile treasures, evidence of the history of mankind, came to light and with them, in the Historical room above, the first marks of the ownership of books. Benoît Junod has set a new standard with the exhibits of early book ownership iconography and opened new interesting approaches, defining assignments for further research in early library marks.
Another attractive concept for exhibiting bookplates was carried out in the Musée national suisse at the Château de Prangins where another excursion took the participants: Among the chronologically arranged historical exhibits, which illustrate the historical development of culture in Switzerland, Swiss bookplates that fitted into each period had been integrated, thus enabling mutual interaction to take place and to better define cultural characteristics. The motto on one of the first plates shown, the ex-libris for the Swiss scholar and writer Albrecht von Haller, Non tota perit (not everything perishes), holds true for bookplates, too, as they not only preserve the name of the owner but also carry it on.
The impressive show of the graphic art of Japanese ex-libris artists with biographies and an introduction into traditional, specifically Japanese techniques – above all woodblock printing – in this form surely has not been seen in Europe before. Here, too, the presentation in the bright rooms of the recently renovated castle of Nyon was a feast for the eyes. The ambience, with the magnificent view of the lake, was excellently suited for the opening ceremony with welcome addresses by Mme. Boss, the Municipal Councillor responsible for cultural affairs and by FISAE President Josef Burch. In the basement of the castle one could see the impressive bookplate production of the last two years, both in traditional techniques and computer generated (the result of the 2nd FISAE CGD contest): unearthly art presented subterraneously. This time the organisers did not present somebody else’s show, but had selected the plates themselves and alternated panels of traditional prints and computer prints.
To illustrate the discrepancy between the contemporary collector’s bookplate interests, close to free graphics, and the bookplate that is still suitable for use in one’s library, but also as a plea to observe and take seriously the comparability of both trends in their thematic and stilistic approaches, Benoît Junod, in a showroom opposite the castle, had contrasted intaglio prints by Vladimir Zuev on the the walls and woodcut plates by the important wood engravers Simon Brett (GB), Evgenji Bortnikov (Rus) and Costante Costantini (I), in albums to point out interrelations between the different techniques and provoke a dialogue.
The Winterthur librarian StefanHausherr succeeded in compiling all known bookplates by the important copper engraver Gregor Rabinovitch. The few showcases in the small showroom, however, obliged him to place the plates so tightly that they were not always shown to their best effect. He and the visitors were compensated, though, by his pretty book about the artist, with an essay by the writer and music critic Charles Linsmayer, and the excellent quality of all Rabinovitch’s ex-libris shown.
Even though eroticism can profit from proximity, the World Triathlon in Lausanne was responsible for the prelude to the erotic show, the lustful approach, being somewhat cooled down by closed streets and rain - which somewhat quelled the heat of the adepts of ex-eroticis. A lunch, however, which surpassed the banquet dinner in quality, jollied the participants along so that the Charge! into the den of erotic phantasy – allowed a staircase in the Galerie Humus to be climbed blithely. What was special about this exhibition was that the erotic bookplates presented were all made by women artists. To be straightforward, the exhibition combined without much selectivity a presentation of nudes, of erotica and of pornography. What the plates had in common was that the viewers’ organs subjected to sensuous impressions were stimulated. Beside both technically and thematically superb plates, one could however also see some crude examples where their creators flouted themselves as submissive servants of their masters rather than self-consciously creative women. Still some of the women presented appeared like Beate Uhse dolls. But among these “Bohrversuche” (“attempts at drilling” – Title of an article on erotic bookplates by Claudia Karolyi) there were also quite a few that in a subtle or humourous way, or by an certain distance expressed towards the “subject”, warded off male dominance.
For participants who were interested in new information and learning a number of lectures had been arranged: The President of AFCEL, Jean-François Chassaing, talked about Bookplates from a French Viewpoint, Anthony Pincott spoke on Creating an ex-libris database – shown from the example of the Frank Collection in the British Museum, new printing techniques were presented by Martin Baeyens. Even though the power-point presentation at the highly interesting talk of the Columbian artist and author Mauricio Cruz on the topic of Eros and Thanatos, Ex-libris images as cultural wallpaper had to be abandoned because of technical problems, he succeeded by his sheer verbal power and emotional engagement to convey his concepts and evoke some of what he actually wanted to illustrate through picture. In this field as well, a wealth of offers which those who were able to free themselves from the fetters of exchanging gratefully made use of.
Between the excursions, the visits to exhibitions and the lectures, there naturally also was the exchanging. The narrowness of the relatively small hall astonishingly offered enough room for the large crowd and never seemed to be claustrophobic. Those who were not busy exchanging could buy from the rich stores in the pavillion opposite, and even the sellers were buying from the stock of the SELC, which was on offer at reasonable prices. As the localities for the various activities and most of the hotels were very close to one another, even the President of the Austrian Ex-libris Society, Heinrich Scheffer, who had come from Vienna on a bicycle, could leave his steel horse in its stable and use his feet. Surely his way of travelling – worthy of an entry in the Guinness book of records – is unique. He left the congress on his bike as new vice president of FISAE, pedalling towards Compostella.
There was also a banquet dinner, which was not held in a hall but in a tent by the lakeside. Participants had to sit on hard wooden benches which made it not only difficult for the FISAE President to keep an upright position but caused bruises when two ladies found themselves on the hard ground of reality. Bad acoustics and loudspeakers that operated more as a sound deforming system were responsiblefor practically nobody understanding what was said in the official part. Thus nobody seemed to notice the laudation the president of the German Society when awarding the Walter von Zur Westen Medal to the Swiss Ex Libris Club. Maybe for the first time in his life, what he had to say went unheard.
The dinner – juggled through the tent by speedy gastronomic assistants – except for the starters, was by Swiss standards rather unimaginative. Some people thought the music of a French duo annoying, because of the deficient loudspeakers, but others danced to it. The wine, upgraded by a charming Nozdrin label, was resorted to avidly... the red was soon finished and some of the guests pickled as well. Benoît Junod’s charm countered all deficiencies and the assembled crowd showed solidarity, not allowing their good mood to be spoiled. Whoever stepped out of the tent to the lake shore and watched the lights reflected in the mirror of the lake, breathing the warm air of the late summer night, understood what Josef Burch had in mind when in one of his addresses he spoke of the beautiful days of Nyon. Some guests for whom a raffle seemed to be a book with seven seals only hesitantly bought lots, but later were all the more excited when they received their prizes. The Chinese, who were absent – obviously they didn’t understand about the dinner, because of their lack of knowledge of foreign languages – could have learned what they can do better in two years.
FISAE called and many came. In two years Beijing will play the role of host and in 2010 it will be Ankara, which at the delegates’ meeting, efficiently conducted by Prof. William Butler, was chosen by more than 30 national associations by acclamation. Friends of ex-libris can thus plan further journeys, and collectors of ex-eroticis can imagine or or have made bookplates of Chinese and Turkish nights.
We have to thank the SELC and above all Benoît Junod, Michel Froidevaux and their assistants for an extremely successful and substantial congress that provided cultural wealth on a small space, and where the bookplate in all its nuances was in focus both as an object of cultural history as well as an object of our desires.