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Contents

[edit] Literaturwurst

Bob Cobbing's Processual: collected poems volume ten (New River Project, 1987)
Bob Cobbing's Processual: collected poems volume ten (New River Project, 1987)
Artists' Book by Cheri Gaulke and Sue Maberry called Offerings at the Crossroads, 2006.
Artists' Book by Cheri Gaulke and Sue Maberry called Offerings at the Crossroads, 2006.

Artists' books are works of art realized in the form of a book. They are usually published in small editions, though sometimes they are one-of-a-kind objects. Artists' books have employed a wide range of forms, including scrolls, fold-outs or loose items contained in a box. Although artists have been active in printing and book production for centuries, the artist's book is primarily a 20th century form.

"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[1]

[edit] History

[edit] Radicalism and Dissent; William Blake and William Morris

Although 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][3]

Books such as Songs of Innocence and of Experience were written, illustrated, printed, coloured and bound by Blake and his wife Catherine, and the integration of text and image created intensely vivid, hermetic works without any obvious precedents. These books would set the tone for self-publishing, self-distribution and the integration of text, image and form that remain key concepts in artists' books to the present day.

William Morris (1834-1896), has also been cited as a key influence, in particular the Kelmscott Chaucer. This book, an edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales illustrated by Edward Burne-Jones took four years to print. It was luxuriously produced using the finest materials and hand printed in keeping with Morris' espousal of pre-industrial manufacturing techniques.[4]

[edit] New Methods of Distribution; The Livre d'Artiste

With the advent of Japonism, artists in Western Europe became increasingly influenced by the cheap Ukiyo-e prints by artists such as Hokusai and Hiroshige. Both of these men created famous printed books, often embedded with poetry. Collected assiduously by artists such as Van Gogh and Monet, books like Hokusai's 100 Views Of Mount Fuji would exert an increasing influence on Art Nouveau. In London, Aubrey Beardsley would create works such as Le Morte d'Arthur (1893-94), a lavishly illustrated edition of the Arthurian legends by Thomas Mallory. In Vienna Oskar Kokoschka would produce Das Segelschiff (The Sailboat) 1906-08.

It was in France, however, where the most important developments took place. Around the turn of the century, the Parisian dealer Ambroise Vollard started to produce lavishly illustrated books, designed to exploit the widening market for modern art and poetry amongst the Parisan middle classes. Usually featuring famous texts by poets such as Mallarmé and Balzac, the images would be commissioned frm a single artist who would work directly onto the printer's plates. A famous early example is Parallèlement (1900), a book of Paul Verlaine's poetry illustrated by Pierre Bonnard.

Many other dealers, such as Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, would take up Vollard's ideas. Other famous Livres d'Artiste from the next few years include Max Ernst's Une Semaine de Bonté, Pablo Picasso's illustrations for Balzac's Le Chef-d'Oeuvre Inconnu and Henri Matisse's work on Poesies by Mallarmé.[5]

"While many livres d'artiste are interesting on their own terms, they are productions rather than creations, products, rather than visions, examples of a form, not interrogations of its conceptual or formal or metaphysical potential." Johanna Drucker[6]

[edit] Laboratories of the Apocalypse; Avant-Garde Production, 1910-23

As Europe plunged headlong towards World War One, various groups of avant-garde artists across the continent started to focus on pamphlets, posters, manifestos and books. Partially as a way to gain publicity, 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 kick started by the Italian Futurists, and by Filippo Marinetti (1876-1944) in particular. The publication of the Futurist Manifesto, 1909, on the front cover of the french daily newspaper Le Figaro was an audacious coup de théâtre that resulted in international notoriety. [7] Marinetti used the ensuing fame to tour Europe, kickstarting movements accross the continent that all veered towards book-making and pamphleteering.

In London, for instance, Marinetti's visit directly precipitated Wyndhan Lewis' creation of the Vorticist movement, whose magazine Blast is an early example of a modernist periodical. With regards to the creation of Artists' books, the most influential off-shoot of futurist principles, however, occurred in Russia. Marinetti visited in 1914, proselytizing on behalf of Futurist principles of speed, danger and cacophony.[8]

[edit] Russian Futurism, 1910-1917

Centred in Moscow, around the Gileia Group of Transrational poets David and Nikolai Burliuk, Elena Guro, Vasilii Kamenskii and Velimir Khlebnikov. Whilst some of the books created by this group would be relatively straightforward typeset editions of poetry, many others played with form, structure, materials and content that still seems contemporary.

Key works such as Worldbackwards, 1912, by Khlebnikov and Kruchenykh,[9] , and Transrational Boog (1915) by Aliagrov and Kruchenykh,[10] used hand-written text, integrated with expressive lithographs and collage elements created mass produced, small editions with dramatic differences between individual copies. Other titles experimented with materials such as wallpaper, printing methods including carbon copying and hectographs, and binding methods including the random sequencing of pages, ensuring no two books have the same contextual meaning.




Inexpensive artists' books were an important part of several avant-garde practices that attempted to democratize access to art. The Dada and surrealist movements in the early decades of the 20th century produced an explosion of experimental publications by artists, as did Futurism and Russian Constructivism. Examples include 3-dimensional book-objects by Marcel Duchamp and the collage novels of Max Ernst, as well as typographical experiments by F.T. Marinetti. Books were produced by members of the loosely affiliated Fluxus group beginning in the early 1960s, including artists such as George Maciunas, whose shared values included an emphasis on ephemeral forms. Artists associated with the Pop Art movement of the mid-1960s, such as Andy Warhol and Ed Ruscha, produced well-known artist's books. Seth Siegelaub helped propel conceptual art into the world of artists books in the late 60s, publishing artists works as books that were exhibited in place of artworks. These included artists such as Sol Lewitt, Robert Barry, Douglas Huebler, Lawrence Weiner and many more. Conceptual artists in particular went on to make a small industry out of artists' books. Contemporary and post-conceptual artists also made artist's books an important aspect of their practice, notably William Wegman, Bob Cobbing, Gilbert & George, Martin Kippenberger and Raymond Pettibon.

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 (The Center for Book Arts in New York, for example); library and art museum collections began to create new rubrics with which to classify and cataloged artists' books and also began to actively expand their fledgling collections; new collections were founded (such as Franklin Furnace in New York); and numerous group exhibitions of artist's books were organized in Europe and America (notably one at Moore College of Art in Philadelphia in 1973, the catalog of which, according to Stefan Klima's Artists Books: A Critical Survey of the Literature, is the first place the term "Artist's Book" was used). Bookstores specializing in artists' books were founded, usually by artists, including Ecart in 1968 (Geneva), Other Books and So in 1970 (Amsterdam), Art Metropole in 1974 (Toronto) and Printed Matter in New York (1976). All of these also had publishing programmes over the years, and the latter two are still active today.

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.

In the 1990s, BA, MA and MFA programs in Book Art were founded, some notable examples of which are the BA at Mills College in California, the MFA at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and the MA at Camberwell College of Art in London. The Journal of Artists' Books (JAB) was founded in 1994 to "raise the level of critical inquiry about artists' books."

In recent decades the artist's book has been developed, by way of the Artists' record album concept pioneered by Laurie Anderson into new media forms including the artist's CD-ROM and the artist's DVD-ROM.

[edit] 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:

  1. Definition of the artist's book: distinguishing between the terms 'artist's book', 'book art', 'bookworks', 'livre d'artiste'
  2. Where the artist's book "should" be situated in relation to Craft and Fine Art traditions.
  3. Where to put the apostrophe.


[edit] 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
  • Bright, Betty (2005) No Longer Innocent: Book Art in America, 1960-1980
  • Bury, Stephen (1995) Artists' Books: The Book As a Work of Art, 1963-1995
  • Castleman, Riva (1994) A Century of Artists Books
  • Celant, Germano and Tim Guest (1981) Books by Artists
  • Celant, Germano, translated from the Italian by Corine Lotz (1972) Book as Artwork, 1960-72
  • Drucker, Johanna (1995) The Century of Artists' Books
  • Drucker, Johanna (1998) Figuring the Word: Essays on Books, Writing, and Visual Poetics
  • Fusco, Maria and Ian Hunt (2006) Put About: A Critical Anthology on Independent Publishing
  • Hubert, Rennée Riese, and Judd D. Hubert (1999) The Cutting Edge of Reading: Artists' Books
  • Klima, Stefan (1998) Artists Books: A Critical Survey of the Literature
  • Lauf, Cornelia and Clive Phillpot (1998) Artist/Author: Contemporary Artists' Books
  • 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
  • Perrée, Rob (2002) Cover to Cover: The Artist's Book in Perspective
  • Smith, Keith (1989) Structure of the Visual Book

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Journals and on-line media covering the field

  • 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.
  • JAB: The Journal of Artists' Books was created by Brad Freeman in 1994 to develop a critical forum for the discussion of artists' books. JAB publishes articles about artists' books and related fields as well as publishing artists pages and art inserts. The covers of each issue are also commissioned works of art. JAB suspended publication from 2004 to 2006 and then resumed publication in 2007 in association with the Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper. That same year, the JAB archive for issues 1-20 (1994-2003) was sold to Yale University. Many of the back issues are available in PDF form on the JAB website.
  • Bonefolder, an e-journal on book arts published since 2004 and part of the Book Arts Web, a collection of links and information about book arts, bookbinding, and book artists.
  • Colophon Page is a revue of modern and contemporary illustrated books and related works on paper.
  • Ex Libris is a website for artist's CD-ROMs, Director projectors, and Hypercard stacks written and designed by artists. Ex Libris also has an area dedicated to Artists Book Dealers which lists dealers from around the world.
  • Book Arts at the Open Directory Project
  • Yale Arts Library's Book Arts link directory

[edit] Collections of artists' books