Artist's book
Artists' books (or book arts or book objects) are works of art that utilize the form of the book. They are often published in small editions, though they are sometimes produced as one-of-a-kind objects.[1]
Overview
Artists' books have employed a wide range of forms, including the traditional Codex form as well as less common forms like scrolls, fold-outs, concertinas or loose items contained in a box. Artists have been active in printing and book production for centuries, but the artist's book is primarily a late 20th-century form. Book forms were also created within earlier movements, such as Dada, Constructivism, Futurism, and Fluxus.[2]
Artists' books are books or book-like objects over the final appearance of which an artist has had a high degree of control; where the book is intended as a work of art in itself.
— Stephen Bury[3]
Artists' books are made for a variety of reasons. An artist book is generally interactive, portable, movable and easily shared. Some artists books challenge the conventional book format and become sculptural objects. Artists' books may be created in order to make art accessible to people outside of the formal contexts of galleries or museums.[4] Artists' books can be made from a variety of materials, including found objects.[5] The Mexican artist Ulises Carrión understood artists' books as autonomous forms that are not reduced only to text, as in a traditional book.[6]
Early history
Origins of the form: William Blake
Whilst artists have been involved in the production of books in Europe since the early medieval period (such as the Book of Kells and the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry), most writers on the subject cite the English visionary artist and poet William Blake (1757–1827) as the earliest direct antecedent.[2][8]
Books such as
Avant-garde production 1909–1937
As Europe plunged headlong towards World War I, various groups of avant-garde artists across the continent started to focus on pamphlets, posters, manifestos and books. This was partially as a way to gain publicity within an increasing print-dominated world, but also as a strategy to bypass traditional gallery systems, disseminate ideas and to create affordable work that might (theoretically) be seen by people who would not otherwise enter art galleries.
This move toward radicalism was exemplified by the
In London, for instance, Marinetti's visit directly precipitated
Russian Futurism, 1910–1917
Centered in
Key works such as Worldbackwards (1912), by Khlebnikov and
Russian futurism gradually evolved into
Dada and Surrealism
Whilst concerned mainly with poetry and theory,
One important Russian writer/artist who created artist books was
After World War II; post-modernism and pop art
Regrouping the avant-garde
After World War II, many artists in Europe attempted to rebuild links beyond nationalist boundaries, and used the artist's book as a way of experimenting with form, disseminating ideas and forging links with like-minded groups in other countries.
In the fifties artists in Europe developed an interest in the book, under the influence of modernist theory and in the attempt to rebuild positions destroyed by the war.
— Dieter Schwarz[15]
After the war, a number of leading artists and poets started to explore the functions and forms of the book 'in a serious way'[16] Concrete poets in Brazil such as Augusto and Haroldo de Campos, Cobra artists in the Netherlands and Denmark and the French Lettrists all began to systematically deconstruct the book. A fine example of the latter is Isidore Isou's Le Grand Désordre, (1960), a work that challenges the viewer to reassemble the contents of an envelope back into a semblance of narrative. Two other examples of poet-artists whose work provided models for artists' books include Marcel Broodthaers and Ian Hamilton Finlay.[17]
Yves Klein in France was similarly challenging Modernist integrity with a series of works such as
Dieter Roth and Ed Ruscha
Often credited with defining the modern artist's book,[20] Dieter Roth (1930–98) produced a series of works which systematically deconstructed the form of the book throughout the fifties and sixties. These disrupted the codex's authority by creating books with holes in (e.g. Picture Book, 1957), allowing the viewer to see more than one page at the same time. Roth was also the first artist to re-use found books-comic books, printer's end papers and newspapers (such as Daily Mirror, 1961,[21] and AC, 1964).[22] Although originally produced in Iceland in extremely small editions, Roth's books would be produced in increasingly large runs, through numerous publishers in Europe and North America, and would ultimately be reprinted together by the German publisher Hansjörg Mayer in the 1970s, making them more widely available in the last half-century than the work of any other comparable artist.
Almost contemporaneously in the United States,
A Swiss artist worth mentioning is
Fluxus and the Multiple
Growing out of
Artists' books (such as
Artists' books began to proliferate in the sixties and seventies in the prevailing climate of social and political activism. Inexpensive, disposable editions were one manifestation of the dematerialization of the art object and the new emphasis on process.... It was at this time too that a number of artist-controlled alternatives began to develop to provide a forum and venue for many artists denied access to the traditional gallery and museum structure. Independent art publishing was one of these alternatives, and artists' books became part of the ferment of experimental forms.
— Joan Lyons.[30]
Conceptual art
The artist's book proved central to the development of conceptual art. Lawrence Weiner, Bruce Nauman and Sol LeWitt in North America, Art & Language in the United Kingdom, Maurizio Nannucci in Italy, Jochen Gerz and Jean Le Gac in France and Jaroslaw Kozlowski in Poland all used the artist's book as a central part of their art practice. An early example, the exhibition January 5–31, 1969 organised in rented office space in New York City by Seth Siegelaub, featured nothing except a stack of artists' books, also called January 5–31, 1969 and featuring predominantly text-based work by Lawrence Weiner, Douglas Huebler, Joseph Kosuth, and Robert Barry. Sol LeWitt's Brick Wall, (1977), for instance, simply chronicled shadows as they passed across a brick wall, Maurizio Nannucci "M/40" with 92 typesetting pages (1967) and "Definizioni/Definitions" (1970), whilst Kozlowski's Reality (1972) took a section of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, removing all of the text, leaving only the punctuation behind. Another example is the Einbetoniertes Buch,[31] 1971 (book in concrete) by Wolf Vostell.
Louise Odes Neaderland, the founder and Director of the non-profit group International Society of Copier Artists (I.S.C.A.) helped to establish electrostatic art as a legitimate art form, and to offer a means of distribution and exhibition to Xerox book Artists. Volume 1, #1 of The I.S.C.A. Quarterly was issued in April 1982 in a folio of 50 eight by eleven inch unbound prints in black and white or color Xerography. Each contributing artist's work of Xerox art was numbered in the Table of Contents and the corresponding number was stamped on the back of each artist's work. "The format changed over the years and eventually included an Annual Bookworks Edition, which contained a box of small handmade books from the I.S.C.A. contributors." After the advent of home computers and printers made it easier for artists to do what the copy machine formerly did, Volume 21, #4 in June 2003 was the final issue. "The 21 years of The I.S.C.A. Quarterlies represented a visual record of artists’ responses to timely social and political issues," as well as to personal experiences.[32] The complete I.S.C.A quarterly collection is housed and catalogued at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts at the Florida Atlantic University library.[33]
Proliferation and reintegration into the mainstream
As the form has expanded, many of the original distinctive elements of artists' books have been lost, blurred or transgressed. Artists such as Cy Twombly, Anselm Kiefer and PINK de Thierry, with her series Encyclopaedia Arcadia,[34] routinely make unique, hand crafted books in a deliberate reaction to the small mass-produced editions of previous generations; Albert Oehlen, for instance, whilst still keeping artists' books central to his practice, has created a series of works that have more in common with Victorian sketchbooks. A return to the cheap mass-produced aesthetic has been evidenced since the early 90s, with artists such as Mark Pawson and Karen Reimer making cheap mass production central to their practice.
Contemporary and post-conceptual artists also have made artist's books an important aspect of their practice, notably
Many book artists working in traditional, as well as non-traditional, forms have taught and shared their art in workshops at centers such as the Center for Book Arts[35] in New York City, and the Visual Arts Studio (VisArts), the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Studio School, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Statewide Outreach Program, and the no longer extant Richmond Printmaking Workshop, all in Richmond, Virginia. Other institutions devoted to the art form include San Francisco Center for the Book, Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York, and Women's Studio Workshop in Rosendale, New York.
Art book fairs
The recent boom in artists' books production and dissemination is closely linked to art book fairs:
Even if the buzz of interest in publication as an art practice around the turn of the twenty-first century resembles the hype around the “artist’s book” in the 1970s, the phenomenon of art book fairs in this quantity and intensity is something new. (...) Art book fairs today are not only a venue for representing a separate, prior publishing scene, they are also a central forum for constituting and nurturing a community around publishing as artistic practice.
— Michalis Pichler[36]
Critical reception
In the early 1970s the artist's book began to be recognized as a distinct genre, and with this recognition came the beginnings of critical appreciation of and debate on the subject. Institutions devoted to the study and teaching of the form were founded (
In the 1980s this consolidation of the field intensified, with an increasing number of practitioners, greater commercialization, and also the appearance of a number of critical publications devoted to the form. In 1983, for example, Cathy Courtney began a regular column for the London-based Art Monthly (Courtney contributed articles for 17 years, and this feature continues today with different contributors). The Library of Congress adopted the term artists books in 1980 in its list of established subjects, and maintains an active collection in its Rare Book and Special Collections Division.
In the 1980s and 1990s, BA, MA and MFA programs in Book Art were founded, some notable examples of which are the MFA at
In 1994, a National Book Art Exhibition,[38] Art ex libris,[39][40] was held at Artspace Gallery in Richmond, Virginia, and the Virginia Commission for the Arts awarded a technical assistance grant for videotaping the exhibition.[41]
In 1995, excerpts from Art ex Libris: The National Book Art Invitational at Artspace video documentary were shown in the Frances and Armand Hammer Auditorium at the 4th Biannual Book Arts Fair sponsored by Pyramid Atlantic Art Center at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. In 1996, the Art ex Libris documentary was included in an auction at Swann Galleries to benefit the Center for Book Arts in New York City. Many of the books exhibited in Art ex Libris at Artspace Gallery and Art ex Machina at 1708 Gallery are now in the Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry in Miami, Florida.
In recent decades the artist's book has been developed, by way of the
Critical issues and debate
A number of issues around the artist's book have been vigorously debated. Some of the major themes under examination have been:
- Definition of the artist's book: distinguishing between the terms "artist's book", "book art", "bookworks", "livre d'artiste", fine press books, etc.
- Where the artist's book "should" be situated in relation to Craft and Fine Art traditions.
- Where to put the apostrophe.
- When is a magazine a book? Some examples of "artists' books" provided on this page (such as Theo van Doesburg's De Stijl) are magazines and not books at all.
- Publishing as an explicitly political act and the desire to challenge an art establishment.
- Publishing as an implicitly political act and its challenge to imagine a new kind of reading.
Practitioners have asserted that the term artist's book is problematic and sound outdated:
“Artist’s book” as a term is problematic because it ghettoizes, enforces the separation from broader everyday practices and limits the subversive potential of books by putting an art tag on them. (…) While extended discussions have taken place around the term, including heated debate over whether and where to put the apostrophe in artist’s book, Lawrence Weiner once cut through the Gordian knot by concluding: “Don’t call it an artist’s book, just call it a book.”
— Michalis Pichler[43]
Photo gallery
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Exhibition of Artist's books at Ystad's Art museum 2024.
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Contemporary artist's book by Cheri Gaulke
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Sculptural artist book
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Title page spread / Alexey Parygin "Eclipse"
See also
References
- ISBN 978-1-884718-41-0.
- ^ a b Drucker, Johanna (2004). The Century of Artists' Books. Granary Books. p. 8.
- ^ Artists' Books: The Book As a Work of Art, 1963–1995, Bury, Scolar Press, 1995.
- ^ "Books – Book Art – Research Guides at Virginia Commonwealth University". Guides.library.vcu.edu. 2010-05-28. Archived from the original on 2015-07-16. Retrieved 2015-07-15.
- ^ Martinez, Alejandro (24 January 2021). "Ten Theses on the Artist's Book". Artishock Revista. Archived from the original on 2021-01-24.
- ^ Carrion, Ulises. "The New Art of Making Book". Kontexts. 6-7 (Amsterdam).
- ^ Morris Eaves; Robert N. Essick; Joseph Viscomi (eds.). "Songs of Innocence and of Experience, copy Z, object 1 (Bentley 1, Erdman 1, Keynes 1) "General Title Page"". William Blake Archive. Retrieved September 26, 2013.
- ^ Miller, Gwendolyn Jan. Discovering Artists' Books. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-04-03. Retrieved 2014-04-03. Cached copy retrieved April 2014.
- ^ For an English translation Marinetti, F. T. (1909). "The Futurist Manifesto". cscs.umich.edu. Archived from the original on 26 November 2010. Retrieved 23 November 2010.
- ^ Although his visit didn't go particularly well, with key members of Cubo-Futurism feeling distinctly patronized by his pronouncements. See Collaborating on the Paradigm of the Future by Margarita Tupitsyn "?". Archived from the original on 2004-10-26.
- ^ The Russian Avant-Garde Book, Rowell & Wye, MOMA, 2002, p11
- ^ The Russian Avant-Garde Book, Rowell & Wye, MOMA, 2002
- ^ Marcel Duchamp Studies Online,"Duchamp's Window Display for André Breton's Le Surréalisme et la Peinture (1945) by Thomas Girst". toutfait.com. Retrieved 24 November 2010.
- Julia Friedman, Beyond Symbolism and Surrealism: Alexei Remizov's Synthetic Art, Northwestern University Press, 2010.
- ^ Lawrence Weiner : books, 1968–1989 : catalogue raisonné, Dieter Schwarz. p120
- ^ The Century of Artists' Books, Drucker, Granary Books, p12
- ^ The question of the relation between avant-garde poetry and artists' books is dealt with very well in the chapter entitled "Poètes ou artistes?" in Anne Moeglin-Delcroix, Esthétique du livre d’artiste, 1960–1980 (Paris: Jean Michel Place; Biliothèque nationale de France, 1997), 60–95.
- ^ Yves Klein, Sidra Stich, Hayward Gallery, 1994
- ^ Nolle, Christian. "The Collaboration between Guy Debord & Asger Jorn from 1957–1959". Virose.pt. Retrieved 2015-07-15.
- ^ The Century of Artists' Books, Drucker, Granary Books, p73
- ^ Dieter Roth, Books + Multiples, Dobke, Hansjorg Mayer 2004
- ^ "Collection of Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY". Moma.org. Retrieved 2015-07-15.
- ^ Ekdahl, Ekdahl. Artists Books and Beyond (PDF). Ifla.org. Retrieved 2015-07-15.
- ^ Hickey, Dave (January 1997). "Edward Ruscha: Twentysix Gasoline Stations, 1962 – photographer". Artforum. Retrieved 24 November 2010.
- ^ Mr Fluxus, Williams, Noel, Thames and Hudson, 1997
- ^ "Fluxus Archive". Artnotart.com. Archived from the original on 2013-09-02. Retrieved 2015-07-15.
- ^ Humphrey, Jr., Thomas MacGillivray. "The Fluxus File" (PDF). BroadStrokes. II (6). Retrieved 21 August 2014.
- ^ The term Multiple had first been used by Daniel Spoerri to describe his Edition MAT mass-produced sculptures in 1959
- ^ "Fluxus Heidelberg Center – Overview Publications". Fluxusheidelberg.org. Archived from the original on 2012-08-03. Retrieved 2015-07-15.
- ^ quoted in The Century of Artists' Books, Drucker, Granary Books, p72
- ^ Hubert Kretschmer. "Archive Artist Publications – KatalogSuche-Ergebnisse". Artistbooks.de. Archived from the original on 2015-07-16. Retrieved 2015-07-15.
- ^ Ashley Miller; Seth Thompson. "The International Society of Copier Artists (I.S.C.A) Quarterly". Archived from the original on 22 August 2014. Retrieved 20 August 2014.
- ^ "Jaffe Center for Book Arts". Library.fau.edu. Archived from the original on 2017-08-02. Retrieved 2015-07-15.
- ^ Perrée, Rob Cover to Cover – The Artist's Book in Perspective - N.A.I. Publishers, Rotterdam 2002
- ^ "About". Center for Book Arts. Retrieved 2015-07-15.
- ^ Pichler, Michalis (25 March 2019). "Art Book Fairs as Public Spheres". mitpress.mit.edu. Retrieved 7 July 2021.
- ^ Allen, Mike (5 January 2018). "Artist's books open feminist themes". Arts & Extras. Roanoke Times. Retrieved 27 March 2018.
- ^ Connor, Sibella (March 11, 1994). "By the Book: This art goes beyond words to touch the reverent reader". Richmond, Virginia: Richmond Times-Dispatch. p. C1.
- ^ Roberts-Pullen, Paulette (March 1994). "Pagination Imagination: Artspace explores the form and function of books". Style Weekly.
- ^ Bullard, CeCe (February 17, 1994). "Getting a good read on books as fine art". Richmond, Virginia: Richmond Times-Dispatch. p. D24.
The essence of a book is communication, but that is by no means the end of a book's possibilities. A book is sculpture. A book is a mixed-media assemblage. A book is a concept. A book may be a symbol. A book can become an icon. In "Art Ex Libris: The National Book Art Exhibition now at Artspace, more than a hundred artists explore and extend the possibilities of a book as something more than words on paper.
- ^ "Davi Det Hompson". Richmond, Virginia: Style Weekly. December 17, 1996. p. 35.
- ^ "The Foundation – About". Codex Foundation. Retrieved 2015-07-15.
- ^ Pichler, Michalis (9 December 2019). "artist's book as a term is problematic". 3:AM Magazine. Retrieved 7 July 2021.
Further reading
- Abt, Jeffrey (1986) The Book Made Art: A Selection of Contemporary Artists' Books
- Alexander, Charles, ed. (1995) Talking the Boundless Book: Art, Language, and the Book Arts
- Bernhard Cella(2012) Collecting Books: A selection of recent Art and Artists' Books produced in Austria [1] [2], a YouTube Video that is part of the project.
- Bleus, Guy (1990) Art is Books
- Borsuk, Amaranth (2018). The Book. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press
- Bright, Betty (2005) No Longer Innocent: Book Art in America, 1960–1980
- ISBN 978-0-911221-46-6
- Brown, Kathryn, ed. (2013), The Art Book Tradition in Twentieth-Century Europe: Picturing Language.
- Bury, Stephen (1995) Artists' Books: The Book As a Work of Art, 1963–1995
- Castleman, Riva (1994) A Century of Artists Books
- Celant, Germano, translated from the Italian by Corine Lotz (1972) Book as Artwork, 1960–72
- Celant, Germano and Tim Guest (1981) Books by Artists
- Firshing Brown, Ellen. "Beyond words – Artists' Books in Modernism Magazine (2008)". publishing.yudu.com. Retrieved 24 November 2010.
- ISBN 0-8101-2617-6(Trade Cloth)
- Fusco, Maria and Ian Hunt (2006) Put About: A Critical Anthology on Independent Publishing
- Hildebrand-Schat, Viola and Stefan Soltek: Art by the Book (German), ed. by Klingspor Museum Offenbach, Lindlar 2013. Die Neue Sachlichkeit, ISBN 978-3-942139-32-8
- Hubert, Rennée Riese, and Judd D. Hubert (1999) The Cutting Edge of Reading: Artists' Books
- Lauf, Cornelia and Clive Phillpot (1998) Artist/Author: Contemporary Artists' Books
- Leszek Brogowski, Éditer l’art. Le livre d’artiste et l’histoire du livre, nouvelle édition revue et augmentée, Rennes, Éditions Incertain Sens, coll. "Grise" (ISBN 978-2-914291-77-4)
- ISBN 9781887123693.
- Johanna Drucker, (1998) Figuring the Word: Essays on Books, Writing, and Visual Poetics
- Jury, David, ed. (2007) Book Art Object Berkeley: Codex Foundation, ISBN 978-0-9817914-0-1
- Jones, Shirley (2019). Mezzotint and the Artist's Book: a forty year journey (The Red Hen Press)
- Jury, David, ISBN 978-0-911221-50-3
- Khalfa, Jean (2001) The Dialogue between Painting and Poetry: Livres d'Artistes 1874–1999, Black Apollo Press
- Klima, Stefan (1998) Artists Books: A Critical Survey of the Literature
- Lippard, Lucy (1973) Six years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972
- Lyons, Joan, ed. (1985) Artists' Books: A Critical Anthology and Sourcebook
- Martinez, Alejandro (2021). "Ten Theses on the Artist's Book". Artishock.
- Moeglin-Delcroix, Anne. (1997) Esthétique du livre d’artiste, 1960-1980. Paris: Jean-Michel Place; Biliothèque nationale de France.
- Maurizio Nannucci, "Artists' Books", Palazzo Strozzi, Florence 1978
- Perrée, Rob (2002) Cover to Cover: The Artist's Book in Perspective
- Pichler, Michalis (2019), Publishing Manifestos MIT Press, Cambridge, MA [3]
- Phillpot, Clive (2013). Booktrek: Selected Essays on Artists' Books (1972–2010). Switzerland: JRP/Ringier, ISBN 978-3-03764-207-8
- Phillpot, Clive (1982). "Real Lush". ArtForum.
- Smith, Keith (1989) Structure of the Visual Book
- Umbrella, founded and edited by Judith Hoffberg, is one of the oldest online periodicals covering artists’ books and other multiple editions. Available online for the years 1978–2005 through the Digital Collections of the IUPUI University Library.