Leporello N 09

In his contribution to the Leporello Series, Pieter Laurens Mol challenges the viewer with a paradox; an artist’s book demanding tactile interaction, articulating a prohibition against such engagement. Traces of the artist’s own touch are evident on the front and back of the leporello, further prompting an impulse to experience the book by allowing one’s hand to traverse the paper’s surface. The blind embossed message “DO NOT TOUCH” appeals to our inherent mischievous nature, seemingly suggesting that established norms are subject to defiance.

For The Leporello Series, LL’Editions has invited a select group of international artists to contribute. Each artist is given carte blanche, restricted only by the accordion format and its ten panels (recto). To date, participating artists include (in order of appearance) Heimo Zobernig, Micah Lexier, Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press, Ryan Gander, Shannon Ebner, Maurizio Nannucci, Karl Holmqvist, Jonathan Monk and Pieter Laurens Mol.

Inhabiting a space between book and paper sculpture, the Leporellos are printed on delicate Mohawk Superfine Eggshell paper. Each volume in the series is limited to 250 numbered copies which come in a bespoke rigid box, with the title hot foiled both on its front and on its spine, allowing it to sit comfortably in a bookshelf when not on display.

Pieter Laurens Mol’s (Breda, NL, 1946) work manifests great conceptual complexity and holds multiple layers of perception, interpretation and meaning. Mol does not favour a single style or medium. The artist often compares himself to an alchemist whose mysterious practices evolve into emotionally charged and visually stimulating experiments. In fact, his diverse oeuvre encompasses and frequently combines photography, film, painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation. Mol’s creative universe is characterized by his fascination with the relativity of time, exploration of manipulating space and scale, intense interest in the past, sensitivity to the importance of chance and accident in the artistic process, and inventiveness within limited visual parameters. A special emphasis on Dutch heritage is another dominant feature. Mol’s work is characterized by a sense of poetry and a fair measure of melancholy. While the artist never forgets to put things into perspective, Mol also engages in an intense battle against pride and failure, often addressing these themes with humor.

Mol’s works are often the product of unorthodox combinations of materials, but the use of the photographic medium has remained a constant over the years. In 1981, the Kunsthalle Basel organized his first solo exhibition to consist exclusively of photographic pieces, which then travelled to Stuttgart and Birmingham.
In 1993, the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, organized a retrospective and supervised a traveling exhibition to Valencia and several museums in the USA. The monograph Grand Promptness was published on the occasion of his 1996 exhibition at MoMA, New York. Mol was a tutor at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, the fine arts academy in Amsterdam, from 1989 until 1994. The artist has lived and worked in Brussels since 2005.