COMME des GARÇONS Melbourne and Perimeter Books have paired together to present BOOK STAND, a site-specific design piece that will transform the COMME des GARÇONS in-store space.

BOOK STAND will house a specially curated selection of published works available for public viewing and discussion. Among these titles will be the recently published COMME des GARÇONS PARFUMS 1994-2025, A Book By Dino Simonett. All published works will be available for viewing and purchase in-store and online.

Join us in conversation with featured BOOK STAND artist Zoë Croggon, publisher Dan Rule of Perimeter Editions, and editor and curator Amelia Winata of Memo Review. This panel will discuss the intersection of printed matter, design, and art as both a medium and an extension of practice, with a specific focus on the process of developing Croggon’s 2024 artist book How to Cut an Orange (published by Perimeter Editions).

Much reveals itself in the work of Melbourne-based artist Zoë Croggon, though some cues speak louder than others. Piecing together a selection of works made over the last eight years, Croggon’s striking artist’s book How to Cut an Orange embraces the written word more wholeheartedly than ever before. Featuring an incisive abstracted essay by the celebrated young poet Samantha Abdy, and a selection of poems by Croggon’s mother – the renowned cultural critic, author and poet, Alison Croggon – How to Cut an Orange puts the artist’s sensuous, visceral photographic collages in direct conversation with the words and worlds that bracket and surround them. As much as Croggon’s practice is one of deep research and introspection, it also gazes outward. ‘It is perhaps about being a spectator in the world,’ writes Abdy in her essay. ‘It is about having a body in the world. It’s about being in the world.’

PARTICIPANTS

PERIMETER BOOKS

Perimeter is a specialised bookstore, award-winning publisher, distribution house and platform for various art publishing endeavours in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 2011, Perimeter Books stocks a selective range of independently published books, editions and zines spanning photography, art, theory, text and the more lateral ends of design and architecture. The store also curates an active program of exhibitions, talks, launches, workshops and consultations, and co-presents Same Page Art Book Fair with Gertrude Contemporary (Melbourne), and Volume: Another Art Book Fair with Printed Matter Inc. (NY) and Artspace (Sydney).

AMELIA WINATA

Amelia Winata is a writer and curator based in Melbourne (Naarm/Birrarung-ga). She has written for various publications and galleries including Art Monthly Australasia, Art Guide, Australian Art Collector, un, Shepparton Art Gallery, CCP and MUMA. She is also a founding member of the arts criticism platform Memo Review. Winata is currently a co-editor of EMAJ. She was previously sub-editor of un Magazine vol. 11 (2017), a member of the un Editorial Advisory Committee (2015-2018), and a recipient of the Gertrude Contemporary Emerging Writers Program (2015). Recent curatorial projects include Wayfind as part of the West Space x Next Wave Co-commission (2018). Winata is a PhD candidate in Art History at the University of Melbourne. Her research topic is the German artist Charlotte Posenenske (1930-1945).

ZOË CROGGON

Zoë Croggon is an Australian photographic artist holding a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours from the Victorian College of the Arts. She has held solo exhibitions at the National Gallery of Victoria, Gertrude Contemporary, Centre for Contemporary Photography, and Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, and has participated in group exhibitions at Heide Museum of Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Samstag Museum of Art, and the Museum of Australian Photography. She is the recipient of the Maddocks Prize (2019), Art Gallery of New South Wales Studio Scholarship (2018), Asia-Pacific Photobook Prize (2015), and the ARTAND Australia Contemporary Art Award (2014). Zoë is represented by Daine Singer, Melbourne.

Image: Zoë Croggon – How to Cut an Orange, published by Perimeter Editions. Copyright Perimeter Editions.