John Bently
Liver & Lights
A Potted Resume……
1957. September. Born Hexham, Northumberland.
1960 - 1973 Travelling the world with my Director of
Music Dad, going to eleven schools in five countries,
including Cyprus, Germany, Singapore and Hong Kong
.
1964-66 Building dens, rafts and rudimentary
weaponry in Germany.
1968 Poaching trout from the River Otter in Devon.
Falling in love with Mandy Sampson.
First appearance for school football team.
Break arm falling out of tree.
!971. Illydre. First band, formed with Ian and Andrea Mckean
and Paul ‘Troggs’ Trew.
Play first gig at Church of Scotland new year's
eve party, Aldershot and thrown out after two songs for
‘lewd behaviour and incitement to riot’.
1973. Wordz. Create poetry fanzine with friend Sherlock Reid.
First live poetry/music performances, sometimes
with the band ‘Plumrose’.
1974. Windsor Free Festival. Accompanied Ian and Troggs’s
band White as White and Twice as Dirty, who played through an
ice cream van generator. Arrested for nothing and lived on scrounged lentils and pure love for ten days. Returned home to discover I had failed all My GCE’s except English.
1976-1980. Art School. Don’t remember, usually drunk.
1980. Moved to London. Rent derelict factory in Dalston with Stephen Jaques and James Blundun. On the dole in Thatcher’s
‘No Such Thing As Society”.
1982. Bridget Riley. Employed as a studio assistant, sacked
within three months due to my inability to draw, think or walk
in a straight line.
1983. Deptfordia. Discover the lost kingdom of Deptfordia,
a mythical ’inner city’ invisible to politicians.
1984. Liver & Lights. No. 1 is published, a lifelong exploration of
the possibilities of the book, 67 volumes in forty years follow…
1986. Andi McGarry/Stephanie Brown. Meet fellow book-traveller Andi McGarry in the pages of AN mag, jointly reviewed by Stephanie Brown, who champions both our work and the art of the book in particular.
1988: Concrete Verse and Rubber Stamps. Included in major survey of contemporary Artists Books, Arnolfini, Bristol, curated by Rebecca Coggins
1991. Harvey Eagles. Start performing the books in poetry clubs,
pubs and exhibitions with cellist Harvey Eagles.
1991: Scarlet Letters. Books Against Censorship.
Kleinert Art Centre, New York.
1993. Artist Book Yearbook, Founding editor alongside Stephanie
Brown, Tania Peixoto and Stefan Szczelkun. Published initially
with the help of an Arts Council award, after three issues we
bequeathed it to Sarah Bodman at UWE, who continues to publish it biannually to this very day.
1993: Contemporary Artists Books. (Curated by Ian Tyson).
Crescent Arts, Scarborough .
1993. Camberwell College of Art. Started teaching here-
still do, somehow!
1994: Mapping Knowledge. Contemporary Artist Book survey,
Curated by Les Bicknell. Minories Gallery, Colchester.
1995. The Afternoon Shift. BBC Radio 4. Writer and performer of
an irregular column from 1995-98.
1995. Arthur (son) born.
1995: Beyond Reading. Again curated by Les Bicknell,
this time commissioning me to provide an editioned book work
(L&L no.19) and whole room installation. Glynn Vivian Art
Gallery, Swansea. (UK Festival of Literature).
1995: Contemporary British Artists Books. Tate Gallery, London.
Survey of the burgeoning british book art ’scene’ and including
two of my books. Curated by Meg Duff and Beth Houghton.
1996: Brought to Book. Collins Gallery, Glasgow (and touring…).
About five or six of my books in this touring show to ten venues
in the UK.
1996: Northern Rock Art. Contemporary Artists and Prehistoric
Rock Art. Durham Art Gallery. Curated by Dr Stephanie Brown.
The show contained examples of prehistoric cup and ring carvings
and work by contemporary artists that somehow compounded
their mystery, including work by Hamish Fulton, Richard Long
and Andy Goldsworthy. Commissioned to make a book
(L&L no. 22 The Naming).I was also resident artist in the show,
with cellist Harvey Eagles at the opening.
1997 - 2016. 100 Books. Customs House, North Shields.
Touring to Croydon Art College. 100 separate books made to
house a 100 word poem changed each time by one word in
order to mutate out of the grip of tyrants seeking to supress
its message, which somehow remains untouched although
the words change. On learning the political nature of the work,
three of the venues cancelled the show. A paperback containing
all 100 texts accompanied the show and in 2016 the inimitable
Chiara Ambrosio organised a performance of the piece for the
first time, 30 years after its creation, somehow gathering 100
individual readers into the Horse Hospital in London for a
memorable evening.
1998. Fife Council. Major Scottish Arts Council Award.
Resident artist in Borough for one Year, culminating in the
publication of Liver & Lights no., 25. A Book of Fife Heroes.
A whole year collecting stories from the community at large,
including ex-miners, the unemployed, current linoleum workers,
farmers, fast food operatives and lots and lots of children,
in schools, community centres, hospitals and cafe’s.
1999. Harrow Borough. Year of the Artist. Arts Council Award.
Resident artist in borough for one year, creating Liver & Lights
no. 27 Concerning the poetry of lost things, Harrow.
A book constructed from dropped handwriting picked up in the borough. The council didn’t like what I’d found and banned it.
1999. Freya (daughter) born
2002. The After Rabbit/Bonesandtheaft. First live After Rabbit
gigs, with Phil and Alan Outram, and Ollie’s Cherer and Briggs.
Later morphing into bonesandtheaft with Ian Mckean, Admiral
Lord Biscuit, Arthur Bently and Bird Radio. Stage sets, props,
costumes and music all combining to bring the books to life.
2007 Winchester School of Art. 23 years of Liver & Lights.
(Book Art Symposium.. Guest of Honour).
The symposium contained a special one day exhibition of the
complete run of Liver and lights publications, which the Library
and its enlightened librarians, Linda Newington and
Catherine Polley, had purchased some years before.
It was a busy day, as I also spoke at the conference and did a make
-your-own-musical-instrument-out-of-rubbish workshop.
These instruments were later used to accompany
The Afterrabbit at our conference closing performance,
wherein we distributed Liver & Lights no 38 Manifestozine,
free to the audience.
2008. Liver & Lights 25 years. House Gallery, London
2010. Liver & Lights No 43 The People. The Garage Gallery,
Herne Hill. 137 portraits of everyone I know….including a song
for each portrait, performed by bonesandtheaft at the exhibition
and issued as a set of cards in a smart green box as L&L no. 43
2012. Killkenny Arts Festival, Grennan Mill Craft School,
Thomastown, Ireland. Major retrospective exhibition (with fellow
book artist Andi McGarry) of Liver & Lights publications and
related costumes, and illustrations and including a two week
residency with public book art workshops.
2015 Brixton East. Retrospective of 30 years of books, paintings,
props, carvings, stage sets costumes and music, incorporating
the launch of L&L No.53. Railton Rd, Herne Hill Ends,
a box of 11 pamphlets. I started writing a poem a day about stuff
going on in my street, under my nose so to speak…
this is an illustrated selection.
2019 Tate Britain. Liver & Lights no. 56 & 57. One Shoe Mickey
is launched with a performance by bonesandtheaft at Tate Britain
in the library during Late at the Tate June 2020…
This was preceded in the day by a Show and Tell public lecture on
the history of Liver & Lights and a subsequent vitrine exhibition
for three months featuring highlights from the series.
2022. Free the Gallery. Crystal Palace. Major survey of all the
costumes and props and backdrops made for performances
from 1991- 2022
2023. Save Cressingham Gardens. Numerous fundraising
bonesandtheaft gigs in support of various causes, but in
particular the Save Cressingham Gdns fund, (A local estate
threatened with demolition by Lambeth council) incorporating the launch of Liver & Lights No 65. Clearance: The view from Cressingham Gdns, with all sales going to the fund.