Alessandra Angelini Il giardino è aperto, 2015

As part of the events of Expo 2015, the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, together with the association Cento Amici del Libro, presents an exhibition on the history of gardens in Europe, from the 15th century to the present day. The idea of offering this event to the visitors of Expo 2015 came from the artist's book by Alessandra Angelini Il giardino è aperto, which was presented to the public for the first time at the opening of the exhibition.

The book stems from the meeting between the artist Alessandra Angelini and the writer and garden historian Paolo Cottini. Through a dialogue between original prints and unpublished texts, it tells the story of the garden at Vico Morcote in Canton Ticino, which Sir Peter Smithers designed, built and tended during the last twenty years of his long and lively life. The book is completed by the Principi del buon giardiniere written by Sir Peter Smithers, creator of the garden.

The engraving of polymer plates, writes Alessandra Angelini, thanks to its technological and at the same time deeply creative aspects, made it possible to turn into graphic marks the photographs and drawings made en plein air, at times combining photographic image and drawing in an extremely engaging process of hybridisation of the means of expression.

The blind-printed woodcuts, conceived as a memory of the materiality of nature, accompany every page of the book, giving rhythm to images and writings. The colour, the white and green of the pages and texts, lights up with passages that are at times slightly iridescent, perceived as suspended between the imaginary and the real, as a symbol of the transformations that take place in nature, from the birth of a bud to its end; a journey that is not limited to the life of the flower or plant but alludes to the journey of man on Earth.

Technique: 10 polymer plates engraved by UV exposure from the artist's digital reworkings of photographs and Indian-ink drawings made en plein air in the Smithers garden; printed in several colours à la poupée; 11 plank woodcuts, blind-printed

Format: 27.5 x41.5 cm

Paper: Zerkall Bütten 720, 250 g/m (pages) and 600 g/m (cover), Hahnemühle Bugra 130g, dark green (quarter sheets: central and final) and light green (endpapers).Cases made of Cordenons Wild Green 300 g

Edition: edition of 130 copies signed by the author of the text and by the artist.

Arabic numbering from 1 to 100 ad personam, reserved for members.

Roman numbering from I to XXX.

10 sets of all the images numbered and signed by the artist

Printer: Daniela Lorenzi assisted by Lucia Casavola and Giulia Poli on the presses of A14, in collaboration with the artist

Letterpress: Rodolfo Campi

Typeface: Baskerville 14 pt for the texts and 18 pt for the titles

Bindery: CBdA, Cristina Balbiano d’Aramengo

Cover: long-stitch sewn with structural headband and hand-dyed linen thread; double-flap case, creased and edged by hand

Publisher: Cento Amici del Libro

Graphic design: Alessandra Angelini

The Cento Amici del Libro are a non-profit association. A fellowship of lovers of fine books whose aim is to maintain and spread interest in fine publishing. Every year the association publishes an artist's book of high quality in terms of printing, graphics, techniques and the prestige of the artists involved. Since the 1940s, famous Italian and foreign artists have collaborated on the volumes of the Cento Amici del Libro, such as Fausto Melotti, Renato Guttuso, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Mimmo Paladino, Walter Valentini, Pietro Cascella, Emilio Isgrò, Gérard Titus Carmel, Tulio Pericoli, Joe Tilson, Guido Strazza, to name but a few.

The Cento Amici del Libro have published volumes of high literary and artistic content, drawing on the finest professionals among printers and typographers. All the editions include texts by well-known writers and poets, many of them previously unpublished such as the poems of Mario Luzi, Eugenio De Signoribus, Andrea Zanzotto, Maria Luisa Spaziani, or the writings of Carlo Gozzi and of the Nobel Prize winner for Literature Gao Xingjian.

2015 Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense. Expo event

2015 Biblioteca Salita dei Frati, Lugano.