On his return from that year’s Milan Fair, Jasper designed a bookshelf, stirred up by the Memphis exhibition he had just seen.
The Bookshelf had a kind of terrazzo base which was wedge shaped, with a piece of wood that came up slightly leaning to one side of it, with a horizontal roof and shelves which stepped down, and two poles which came back down. I only made a prototype. It was shown at Kingston. A screenprint I made of it was published in a German book, Design als Gegenstand.
I made the Bookshelf deliberately to be a Memphis piece. It was very helpful to have done that, to kind of clear myself. I saw its mistakes pretty soon. At some point I became embarrassed by it. I didn’t want it seen. That was probably helpful too. In general, Memphis was very liberating.
Jasper photographed for a magazine in mid 1983 on a Slatted Stool, with the Bookshelf and a Handlebar Table.
Jasper made a gouache of the Bookshelf.