Célio Braga (Netherlands/Brazil), Long-Bin Chen (Taiwan/United States), Nancy Cohen, (United States), Petra Ellert (Germany), Claudie Hunzinger (France), Nikki van Es (Netherlands), Angela Glajcar (Germany), Joan Hall (United States), Winifred Lutz (United States), Richard Mens (Netherlands), Oskar (Netherlands), Stefan Saffer (Germany), Lyndi Sales (South Africa), Ivano Vitali (Italy), Annette Wimmershoff (Germany), Noriko Yamaguchi (Japan/Germany). Showing their work only at Museum Rijswijk were Patricia Hodson (England), Kakuko Ishii (Japan), Yu-Mi Kim (South Korea), Jin-Woo Lee (South Korea), Chris Natrop (United States), and Maya Portner (United States); and solely at CODA Apeldoorn were Ed Pien (Taiwan/ Canada), Georgia Russell (England), Annette Sauermann (Germany), Howard Silverman (England), and Ferry Staverman (Netherlands). The range of work on view at both venues included paper cuttings, sculpted telephone directories, assemblages, and installations. The exhibitions showcased a diversity of sensibilities to this versatile medium and included artists who work both two- and three-dimensionally in paper. There was a striking contrast between the delicate Asian papers with its translucent character and the subtle uses of all kinds of industrial paper. The finesse displayed by artists manipulating telephone directories could not be overlooked. The main exhibition space in the Rijswijk museum showed the works of the Dutch artist Oskar and Taiwan artist Long-Bin Chen, both of whom use telephone directories to create their sculptures, yet with different approaches. Chen creates Buddha heads carved out of piled-up New York tele-phone directories. The use of New York telephone books is intentional: to bridge a gap between East and West. Rather, Oskar works with telephone books for the paper's working properties. In creating her big, three-dimensional figures, she first creates an armature of chicken wire, and covers it with telephone book paper because the paper has the right strength. Oskar often leaves parts of the paper showing through her powerful, human-size figures of Holland Paper Biennial 2008 reviewed by aliza thomas "Holland Paper Biennial 2008" Museum Rijswijk and CODA Apeldoorn, both in the Netherlands June 10–September 14, 2008 Installation view at CODA Apeldoorn with works by artists (far left to right) Nikki van Es, Joan Hall, Stefan Saffer, Nancy Cohen, and Ferry Staverman. Photo: Miriam Londoño. 36 - hand papermaking painted papier-mâché, giving the sculpture more tactility. Lyndi Sales' big yet fragile circle made of South African boarding pass paper, also on view in the main hall, complemented Oskar's large-scale sculptures. Richard Mens and Winifred Lutz exhibited other exciting sculptural forms. Here you can speak about two extremes. Richard Mens uses balled-up newspapers and cellophane tape to create his big figures. The tape adds a sparkle to the work under certain lighting conditions. On the contrary, Winifred Lutz creates quietly intense work with high-shrinkage flax paper. Her forms are closed and solid and have a stone-like character. Another interesting artist showing sculpture was Annette Sauermann. She works mainly with transparent industrial paper to create large-scale light reservoirs. Jin-Woo Lee works sculpturally yet in a two-dimensional process of gluing an endless amount of hanji paper, incorporating paint, pigments, charcoal, and soil. He pounds, rubs, and pushes out the air and scrapes the final surface with an iron brush to create his mysterious landscapelike pieces. In this brief review, I have highlighted only a few artists whose work either appealed to me at first sight or with whom I had a chance to discuss their work in person. No doubt, there were many works by other artists that were equally enjoyable. As a whole, the public received the exhibitions at both venues with great enthusiasm. As with each Biennial, a special publication entitled Pure Paper accompanied this seventh Holland Paper Biennial. Peter Gentenaar compiled the book's contents and Loes Schepens designed the handsome publication which consists of nine different books nicely fitted in a case made of printed honeycombed cardboard. Each section is printed on different kinds of cover and book papers and contains a rich variety of stories and reports about papermaking. Annette Sauermann, Light Reservoir, 2001, 245 x 460 x 460 cm \[96 ½ x 181 x 181 inches\], paper and concrete tiles, installed at CODA Apeldoorn. Photo: Miriam Londoño. Long-Bin Chen, front and back views of Guan Ying (Need a Ride?), 2008, 60 x 30 x 35 cm \[23.6 x 11.8 x 13.8 inches\], telephone directories. Shown at Rijswijk Museum. Courtesy of Frederieke Taylor Gallery, New York. Ivano Vitali and his work made of twisted and knitted newspaper. Courtesy of Rijswijk Museum. One section features the artists who participated in the Biennial. They are represented with a photograph and a personal statement of their work. The section starts with an introduction about order in chaos and chaos in order: "People like to organize their chaos. Their space becomes a house with a roof on it, in the woods around it have a road paved through it and a dike holds water back. We gladly roll up our sleeves to work on all these human efforts. Although the real order only arrives when a piece of paper appears." One of the sections (catalogue no. 3) contains samples of paper used by the exhibiting artists while catalogue no. 4 shows paper artists at work. Rogier Uitenboogaart contributes an article titled "Washi, Mirror of Man and Nature," illustrated with a beautiful series of photographs. Helen Hiebert discusses Peter Gentenaar's sculptures and his working process. \[Editor's note: Hiebert's article originally appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of Hand Papermaking.\] Pat Torley follows this essay with a photoreport on her creative process. In other essays, Elaine Koretsky reports on her extensive research on the subject of Asian papermaking, and Jacob Eyferth complements Koretsky's essay with an article on the paper of the Xia family in China. The book also contains articles about the future of papermaking, touching on the battle for cellulose and the search for alternative papermaking fibers, a discussion in which the early research of Jacob Christian Schäffer plays an important role. Pure Paper (in Dutch and English) presents information in a very accessible format, and contains an incredible number of photographs, making it a pleasure to look at. More information about the book and the exhibition are available online at www.hollandpapierbiennale.nl and at www.museumryswyk.nl/hpb2008.