The book is called “Detour. This is the first book of drawings created by Jan Voss, a German artist based in Amsterdam. Known for his style in which pictograph-like images emerge from tangled scribble-like lines, Voss pursues a unique style of expression that is neither abstract nor figurative.

At first glance, one might think it was an ordinary white book, but it is anything but. I want you to look at each photograph as if you were licking it. A single line runs from the front cover, across the front cover, and down to the back cover. This book was made by Jan Voss, who drew pictures on 70 meters of paper, folded them in sequence, and printed them out.

The 70 meters of paper were transformed into a 360-page book, and the 70-meter long story became a short story of only 4 cm when bound together. After encountering a book, Janfoss says he became aware of “sequence” when drawing pictures and making books. He believes that the universe exists in a single “...” or moment in time.

Jan Foss was influenced by the German artist Kristján Gudmundsson's Once Around the Sun (1975), a set of two books, both of which are very thick. These dots represent the time it takes one second for the earth to go around the sun. The second volume also has so many parallel lines that you will want to blink again and again, and the length of all the lines together represents the actual distance it takes the earth to go around the sun.

Wanting to support book artists himself, Jan Voss, together with his friends, has had a bookstore called BOEKIWOEKIE in Amsterdam since 1986. Inspired by all kinds of artists, he continues to be at the forefront of the field today, while influencing many artists himself.