Like a BookCrossing novel sharing scheme, The Exhibition Centre for the Life and Use of Books is migrating from its previous exhibition at Islington Mill. When its covers are next opened, it will be positioned in the downstairs exhibition space at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation venue on Cambridge Street.
The Exhibition Centre is collaborating with the science fiction author Michael Butterworth to produce a short run of events and a display of work. Butterworth co-founded the Savoy Books independent publishing house in 1976 with fellow author David Britton.
The setting of the IABF is a fitting choice given Savoy’s brushes with controversy for, in the words of Judge Gerrard Humphries, its ‘glorification of racism and violence’, for example in 1989’s
Lord Horror, which was soon
seized by Greater Manchester Police’s Obscene Publications Squad just as many of its other output had been across a series of raids. Such sentiment was familiar to Burgess’s most famous novel,
A Clockwork Orange, albeit mostly following the release of Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation in 1971 and not with the same force. Overall, Butterworth’s Savoy has flown far further below the radar and into the crosshairs of the law than Burgess’s writing.
But the Savoy exhibition hasn’t been compiled as a form contrast to Burgess in any case. Instead, it intends to display text, art work and graphic novel panels from its publications – including the recent
Reverbstorm series – in the exhibition area at the Burgess Foundation venue, as well as staging screening events featuring short films by local artists relating to Butterworth’s Corridor series of zines.
Words: Ian Pennington
Image: Courtesy of IABF
The exhibition previews on Thursday 14 August, then remains viewable until Friday 5 September from 10am to 4pm on weekdays and in evenings on event days. You can find out more about the film screenings via the Life and Use of Books or IABF websites.
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