Small Publishers Fair 2015 saw the launch of Construction Storage Despatch by Coracle Press. The book celebrated the life and work of Martin Rogers, founder and director of RGAP and Small Publishers Fair.

Texts are by John Bevis and Simon Cutts, with a survey of the Research Group for Artists Publications by Jill Mustchin, assistance from Rodger Brown, and a bibliography by John Janssen.

Simon Cutts writes:

“Martin Rogers, printer, sculptor and publisher, was the exemplar of a condition that had become prevalent after the nineteen sixties. He had moved the physical materials of his work to the production of multiple objects in printed form, to books and publication, eventually embracing the idea of publishing as the platform for the work. At the same time, in the way he avoided the side-track, even the cul-de-sac, of the so-called artists book, he becomes emblematic of that repositioning.

With this book we attempted to site this as a different model. The work moves from its Construction through Storage to its Despatch into the world as Publication. The book becomes a homage to Martin within the context of the Small Publishers Fair, which he established in 2002 and continued to organise until 2012.

Martin was one of the quiet workers in the field. The course of his work from film to print, from constructed object to be photographed or as a stand-alone piece, to the finished book, is an exemplary development. At the same time there is a real attachment to the detail of a personal life. That he moved from the individual work to the whole platform of publishing is its achievement.”

Simon Cutts, October 2015

www.coracle.ie | @thecoracler

Martin Rogers at the exhibition opening of
Printed in Norfolk in 2012. Photo Caspar Evans
Construction Storage Despatch, Coracle Press 2015