New Stationary Department

New Stationery Department is a 2013 artist’s book by Sara MacKillop, laid out like a stationery catalogue and published by Motto in an edition of 500 copies.

The softcover book came with a show of the same name at Motto in Berlin. In his text for the exhibition, Gregorio Magnani writes that the book copies the form of a cheap stationery catalogue. The ink seems to show through the paper, so that unrelated items overlap on one page. An eraser erases itself out of its page, and colored pencils sit on backgrounds that match them so closely that only the bare wood before the point stays visible. MacKillop’s website shows the installation, which included posters and tape, a fence of pens, record sleeves, a clock, tags and stationery catalogue drawings.

Magnani notes that stationery and the afterlife of library books are long-standing interests of hers. Her CV lists Renewals and Returns at Shoreditch Library and PEER in London (2019–20), and her other artist’s books include a 2014 reprint of the 1976 Argos catalogue and a run of IKEA-themed prints.