Samson Young

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Samson Young's Art Journey is the first book in this series to document the projects of BMW Art Journey recipients. The book chronicles Young's two-month journey to visit the world's iconic bells, often ideological, political, or religious emblems with rich histories. The book ably documents the bells, making inspired use of the very cool Ricoh CP Clicker (Clickable Paper) phone app, which allows the reader to tap/capture specially designated pages and bring up audio clips of recordings of the bells. (Included with the book is a punch-and-fold cardboard amplification device in which to place the phone!)This transforms the book into an immersive multimedia experience.

While the idea of visiting storied bells across the continents seems like an intriguing prospect in line with the concept of the BMW Art Journey project, I never got a sense of "journey" or adventure from Young's travels. Each stop is unto itself, with no sense of movement from place to place. The text and descriptions are scant, a large font filling the void. The book's foreword touts Young's personality, his exuberance, and sense of humor, but that rarely is evidenced in his writing.

But the crux of this book is of course the resulting art itself, and that is a bit of a disappointment. Young notes that the bells inspired him to compose a musical piece, but that seemed to be a work-in-progress, and therefore not provided via the aforementioned app. The art consists of the Landschaft Series (watercolor, ink, crayon, stamp on paper), created on the road, representing the sound of the bells. The cover art representing the Mingun bell in Myanmar is the most "polished" and attractive; the others included in the book are decidedly cruder, far less pleasing to this eye. The book is also illustrated with some historical photos, and some taken by the author which are largely documentary, and only occasionally artistic in nature.… (mehr)