Artists' Books
Encyclopedia
Work of art
A work of art, artwork, art piece, or art object is an aesthetic item or artistic creation.The term "a work of art" can apply to:*an example of fine art, such as a painting or sculpture*a fine work of architecture or landscape design...
realized in the form of a book. They are often published in small edition
Edition
In printmaking, an edition is a number of prints struck from one plate, usually at the same time. This is the meaning covered by this article...
s, though sometimes they are produced as one-of-a-kind objects referred to as "uniques".
Artists' books have employed a wide range of forms, including scrolls, fold-outs, concertinas or loose items contained in a box as well as bound printed sheet. Artists have been active in printing and book production for centuries, but the artist's book is primarily a late 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
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 KellsBook of Kells
The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was created by Celtic monks ca. 800 or slightly earlier...
and the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry
Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry
The Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry or simply the Très Riches Heures is a richly decorated book of hours commissioned by John, Duke of Berry, around 1410...
), most writers on the subject cite the English visionary artist and poet William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
(1757–1827) as the earliest direct antecedent
Books such as Songs of Innocence and of Experience
Songs of Innocence and of Experience
Songs of Innocence and of Experience is an illustrated collection of poems by William Blake. It appeared in two phases. A few first copies were printed and illuminated by William Blake himself in 1789; five years later he bound these poems with a set of new poems in a volume titled Songs of...
were written, illustrated, printed, coloured and bound by Blake and his wife Catherine, and the merging of handwritten texts and images created intensely vivid, hermetic works without any obvious precedents. These works would set the tone for later artists' books, connecting self-publishing
Self-publishing
Self-publishing is the publication of any book or other media by the author of the work, without the involvement of an established third-party publisher. The author is responsible and in control of entire process including design , formats, price, distribution, marketing & PR...
and self-distribution with the integration of text, image and form. All of these factors have remained key concepts in artists' books up to the present day.
Avant-Garde production 1909–1937
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, various groups of avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
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 Italian Futurists
Futurism
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century.Futurism or futurist may refer to:* Afrofuturism, an African-American and African diaspora subculture* Cubo-Futurism* Ego-Futurism...
, and by Filippo Marinetti (1876–1944) in particular. The publication of the "Futurist Manifesto
Futurist Manifesto
The Futurist Manifesto, written by the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, was published in the Italian newspaper Gazzetta dell'Emilia in Bologna on 5 February 1909, then in French as "Manifeste du futurisme" in the newspaper Le Figaro on 20 February 1909...
", 1909, on the front cover of the French daily newspaper Le Figaro
Le Figaro
Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...
was an audacious coup de théâtre that resulted in international notoriety. Marinetti used the ensuing fame to tour Europe, kickstarting movements across the continent that all veered towards book-making and pamphleteering.
In London, for instance, Marinetti's visit directly precipitated Wyndham Lewis
Wyndham Lewis
Percy Wyndham Lewis was an English painter and author . He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art, and edited the literary magazine of the Vorticists, BLAST...
' founding of the Vorticist movement, whose literary magazine
Literary magazine
A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry and essays along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters...
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.
Russian Futurism, 1910–1917
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, around the Gileia Group of Transrational poets David
David Burliuk
David Davidovich Burliuk was a Russian avant-garde artist of Ukrainian origin , book illustrator, publicist, and author associated with Russian Futurism...
and Nikolai Burliuk, Elena Guro, Vasilii Kamenskii and Velimir Khlebnikov
Velimir Khlebnikov
Velimir Khlebnikov , pseudonym of Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov , was a central part of the Russian Futurist movement, but his work and influence stretch far beyond it.Khlebnikov belonged to Hylaea,...
, the Russian futurists created a sustained series of artists' books that challenged every assumption of orthodox book production. 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, Natalia Goncharova
Natalia Goncharova
Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova was a Russian avant-garde artist , painter, costume designer, writer, illustrator, and set designer. Her great-aunt was Natalia Pushkina, wife of the poet Alexander Pushkin.-Life and work:...
, Larionov
Larionov
Larionov , or Larionova , is a common Russian surname which may refer to:* Dmitry Larionov , Russian slalom canoer* Igor Larionov Larionov , or Larionova (feminine; Ларионова), is a common Russian surname which may refer to:* Dmitry Larionov (b. 1985), Russian slalom canoer* Igor Larionov...
Rogovin
Rogovin
Rogovin is a surname, and may refer to:*Milton Rogovin, American documentary photographer*Mitchell Rogovin, American civil liberties lawyer and government counsel*Saul Rogovin, American professional baseball player...
and Tatlin, Transrational Boog (1915) by Aliagrov and Kruchenykh & Olga Rozanova
Olga Rozanova
Olga Vladimirovna Rozanova Olga Vladimirovna Rozanova Olga Vladimirovna Rozanova (also spelled Rosanova, Russian: (Ольга Владимировна Розанова) (1886-7 November 1918, Moscow) was a Russian avant-garde artist in the styles of Suprematist, Neo-Primitivist, and Cubo-Futurist.-Biography:...
and Universal War
Universal War
Universal War is an artist's book by Aleksei Kruchenykh published in Petrograd at the beginning of 1916. Despite being produced in an edition of 100 of which only 12 are known to survive, the book has become one of the most famous examples of Russian Futurist book production, and is considered a...
(1916) by Kruchenykh used hand-written text, integrated with expressive lithographs and collage elements, creating 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 would have the same contextual meaning.
Russian futurism gradually evolved into Constructivism
Constructivism (art)
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...
after the Russian Revolution, centred around the key figures of Malevich and Tatlin. Attempting to create a new proletarian art for a new communist epoch, constructivist books would also have a huge impact on other European avant-gardes, with design and text-based works such as El Lissitsky's For The Voice (1922) having a direct impact on groups inspired or directly linked to communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
. Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
in Zurich and Berlin, the Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
in Weimar and De Stijl
De Stijl
De Stijl , propagating the group's theories. Next to van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters Piet Mondrian , Vilmos Huszár , and Bart van der Leck , and the architects Gerrit Rietveld , Robert van 't Hoff , and J.J.P. Oud...
in Holland all printed numerous books, periodicals and theoretical tracts within the newly emerging International Modernist style. Artist's books from this era include Kurt Schwitter's
Kurt Schwitters
Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters was a German painter who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dada, Constructivism, Surrealism, poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography and what came to be known as...
and Kate Steinitz's book The Scarecrow (1925), and Theo van Doesburg's
Theo van Doesburg
Theo van Doesburg was a Dutch artist, practicing in painting, writing, poetry and architecture. He is best known as the founder and leader of De Stijl.-Biography:-Early life:...
periodical De Stijl
De Stijl
De Stijl , propagating the group's theories. Next to van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters Piet Mondrian , Vilmos Huszár , and Bart van der Leck , and the architects Gerrit Rietveld , Robert van 't Hoff , and J.J.P. Oud...
.
Dada & Surrealism
DadaDada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
was initially started at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zürich)
Cabaret Voltaire (Zürich)
Cabaret Voltaire was the name of a nightclub in Zurich, Switzerland. It was founded by Hugo Ball, with his companion Emmy Hennings on February 5, 1916 as a cabaret for artistic and political purposes. Other founding members were Marcel Janco, Richard Huelsenbeck, Tristan Tzara, and Jean Arp...
, by a group of exiled artists in neutral Switzerland during World War I. Originally influenced by the sound poetry of Wassily Kandinsky, and the Blaue Reiter Almanac that Kandinsky had edited with Marc
Franz Marc
Franz Marc was a German painter and printmaker, one of the key figures of the German Expressionist movement...
, artists' books, periodicals, manifestoes and absurdist theatre were central to each of Dada's main incarnations. Berlin Dada in particular, started by Richard Huelsenbeck
Richard Huelsenbeck
Richard Huelsenbeck was a poet, writer and drummer born in Frankenau, Hessen-Nassau.Carl Wilhelm Richard Hülsenbeck was a medical student on the eve of World War I. He was invalided out of the army and emigrated to Zürich, Switzerland in February 1916, where he fell in with the Cabaret Voltaire...
after leaving Zurich in 1917, would publish a number of incendiary artists' books, such as George Grosz
George Grosz
Georg Ehrenfried Groß was a German artist known especially for his savagely caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s...
's The Face Of The Dominant Class (1921), a series of politically motivated satirical lithographs about the German Bourgeoisie.
Whilst concerned mainly with poetry and theory, Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
created a number of works that continued in the French tradition of the Livre d'Artiste, whilst simultaneously subverting it. Max Ernst
Max Ernst
Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...
's Une Semaine de Bonté
Une Semaine de Bonte
Une semaine de bonté is a graphic novel and artist's book by Max Ernst, first published in 1934. It comprises 182 images created by cutting up and re-organizing illustrations from Victorian encyclopedias and novels.-History:...
(1934), collaging found images from Victorian books, is a famous example, as is Marcel Duchamp's
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
cover for Le Surréalisme (1947) featuring a tactile three-dimensional pink breast made of rubber.
One important Russian writer/artist who created artist books was Alexei Remizov. Drawing on medieval Russian literature, he creatively combined dreams, reality, and pure whimsy in his artist books.
After World War II; post-modernism and pop art
Regrouping the avant-garde
After World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, 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
After the war, a number of leading artists and poets started to explore the functions and forms of the book 'in a serious way' Concrete poets
Concrete poetry
Concrete poetry or shape poetry is poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on....
in Brazil such as Augusto and Haroldo De Campos, Cobra
Cobra
Cobra is a venomous snake belonging to the family Elapidae. However, not all snakes commonly referred to as cobras are of the same genus, or even of the same family. The name is short for cobra capo or capa Snake, which is Portuguese for "snake with hood", or "hood-snake"...
artists in Holland and Denmark and the French Lettrists
Lettrism
Lettrism is a French avant-garde movement, established in Paris in the mid-1940s by Romanian immigrant Isidore Isou. In a body of work totaling hundreds of volumes, Isou and the Lettrists have applied their theories to all areas of art and culture, most notably in poetry, film, painting and...
all began to systematically deconstruct the book. A fine example of the latter is Isidore Isou
Isidore Isou
Isidore Isou , born Ioan-Isidor Goldstein, was a Romanian-born French poet, film critic and visual artist...
'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
Marcel Broodthaers
Marcel Broodthaers was a Belgian poet, filmmaker and artist with a highly literate and often witty approach to creating art works....
and Ian Hamilton Finlay
Ian Hamilton Finlay
Ian Hamilton Finlay, CBE, was a Scottish poet, writer, artist and gardener.-Biography:Finlay was born in Nassau, Bahamas of Scottish parents. He was educated in Scotland at Dollar Academy. At the age of 13, with the outbreak of World War II, he was evacuated to family in the countryside...
.
Yves Klein in France was similarly challenging Modernist integrity with a series of works such as Yves: Peintures
Yves: Peintures
Yves Peintures is an artist's book by the French artist Yves Klein, originally published in Madrid, 18 November 1954 ....
(1954) and Dimanche
Dimanche
Dimanche , also known as Dimanche - Le Journal d'un Seul Jour is an artist's book by the French artist Yves Klein...
(1960) which turned on issues of identity and duplicity. Other examples from this era include Guy Debord
Guy Debord
Guy Ernest Debord was a French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker, member of the Letterist International, founder of a Letterist faction, and founding member of the Situationist International . He was also briefly a member of Socialisme ou Barbarie.-Early Life:Guy Debord was born in Paris in 1931...
and Asger Jorn's
Asger Jorn
Asger Oluf Jorn was a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and author. He was a founding member of the avant-garde movement COBRA and the Situationist International...
two collaborations, Fin de Copenhague (1957) and Mémoires (1959), two works of Psychogeography
Psychogeography
Psychogeography was defined in 1955 by Guy Debord as "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals." Another definition is "a whole toy box full of playful, inventive strategies for...
created from found magazines of Copenhagen and Paris respectively, collaged and then printed over in unrelated colours.
Dieter Roth and Ed Ruscha
Dieter Roth
Dieter Roth was an Icelandic artist of Swiss German origin best known for his artist's books and for his sculptures and pictures made with rotting food stuffs. He was also known as Dieter Rot and Diter Rot....
(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; (Picture Book, 1957, for instance) 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 and AC, 1964) 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 USA, Ed Ruscha (1937–present) printed his first book, Twentysix Gasoline Stations
Twentysix Gasoline Stations
Twentysix Gasoline Stations is the first artist's book by the American pop artist Ed Ruscha. Published in April 1963 on his own imprint National Excelsior Press, it is often considered to be the first modern Artist's book, and has become famous as a precursor and a major influence on the emerging...
, in 1963 in an edition of 400, but had printed almost 4000 copies by the end of the decade. The book is directly related to American photographic travelogues, such as Robert Frank
Robert Frank
Robert Frank , born in Zürich, Switzerland, is an important figure in American photography and film. His most notable work, the 1958 photobook titled The Americans, was influential, and earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his fresh and skeptical outsider's view of American...
’s The Americans (1965), but deals with a banal journey on route 66 between Ruscha's home in LA and his parents' in Oklahoma. In one of the defining innovations of the genre, Ruscha chose to distribute the original edition in the gasoline stations that he'd photographed, thereby completely bypassing traditional means of dissemination within the artworld. Like Roth, Ruscha created a series of homogenous books throughout the sixties, including Every Building on the Sunset Strip, 1966 and Royal Road Test, 1967.
Fluxus and the Multiple
Growing out of John CageJohn Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
's Experimental Composition classes from 1957 to 1959 at the New School for Social Research, Fluxus
Fluxus
Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
was a loose collective of artists from North America and Europe that centred around George Maciunas
George Maciunas
George Maciunas was a Lithuanian-born American artist. He was a founding member of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers, and designers...
(1931–78), who was born in Lithuania. Maciunas set up the AG Gallery in New York, 1961, with the intention of putting on events and selling books and multiples by artists he liked; the gallery closed within a year, apparently having failed to sell a single item. The collective survived, and featured an ever-changing roster of like-minded artists including George Brecht
George Brecht
George Brecht , born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Mobil Oil...
, Joseph Beuys
Joseph Beuys
Joseph Beuys was a German performance artist, sculptor, installation artist, graphic artist, art theorist and pedagogue of art.His extensive work is grounded in concepts of humanism, social philosophy and anthroposophy; it culminates in his "extended definition of art" and the idea of social...
, Daniel Spoerri
Daniel Spoerri
Daniel Spoerri is a Swiss artist and writer born in Romania, who has been called "the central figure of European post-war art" and "one of the most renown[ed] [artists] of the 20th century." Spoerri is best known for his "snare-pictures," a type of assemblage or object art, in which he captures...
, Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
, Emmett Williams
Emmett Williams
Emmett Williams was an American poet and visual artist.Williams was born in Greenville, South Carolina, and grew up in Virginia, and lived in Europe from 1949 to 1966...
and Nam June Paik
Nam June Paik
Nam June Paik was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the first video artist....
.
Artists' books and multiples
(as well as happenings), were central to Fluxus' ethos disdaining galleries and institutions, replacing them with 'art in the community', and the definition of what was and wasn't a book became increasingly elastic throughout the decade as the two forms collided. Many of the Fluxus editions share characteristics with both; George Brecht's Water Yam
Water Yam (artist's multiple)
Water Yam is an artist's book by the American artist George Brecht. Originally published in Germany, June 1963 in a box designed by George Maciunas and typeset by Tomas Schmit, it has been re-published in various countries several times since...
(1963), for instance, involves a series of scores collected in a box, whilst similar scores are collected together in a bound book in Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
's Grapefruit
Grapefruit (book)
Grapefruit is an artist's book written by Yoko Ono, originally published in 1964. It has become famous as an early example of conceptual art, containing a series of "event scores" that replace the physical work of art – the traditional stock-in-trade of artists – with instructions that an...
(1964). Another famous example is Literature Sausage
Literaturwurst
Literaturwurst is an Artist's book, made by the Swiss-German artist Dieter Roth between 1961 and 1974. Each book was made using traditional sausage recipes, but replacing the sausage meat with a book or magazine. The cover of the edition was then pasted onto the skin of the sausage and signed and...
by Dieter Roth, one of many artists to be affiliated to fluxus at one or other point in its history; each one was made from a pulped book mixed with onions and spices and stuffed into sausage skin. Literally a book, but utterly unreadable.
"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.
Conceptual art
The artist's book proved central to the development of conceptual artConceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
. Lawrence Weiner
Lawrence Weiner
Lawrence Weiner was a central figure in the formation of conceptual art in the 1960s His work often takes the form of typographic texts.- Life and career :...
, Bruce Nauman
Bruce Nauman
Bruce Nauman is a contemporary American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives in Galisteo, New Mexico....
and Sol LeWitt
Sol LeWitt
Solomon "Sol" LeWitt was an American artist linked to various movements, including Conceptual art and Minimalism....
in North America, Art & Language
Art & Language
Art & Language is a shifting collaboration among conceptual artists that has undergone many changes since its inception in the late 1960s. Their early work, as well as their journal Art-Language, first published in 1969, is regarded as an important influence on much conceptual art both in the...
in the United Kingdom 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
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
by Seth Siegelaub
Seth Siegelaub
Seth Siegelaub is an American-born art dealer, curator, author and researcher. He is best known for his innovative promotion of conceptual art in New York in the 1960s and 70s., but has also been a political researcher and publisher, textile history bibliographer and collector, and a researcher...
, featured nothing except a stack of artists' books, also called January 5–31, 1969 and featuring predominantly text-based work by Lawrence Weiner
Lawrence Weiner
Lawrence Weiner was a central figure in the formation of conceptual art in the 1960s His work often takes the form of typographic texts.- Life and career :...
, Douglas Huebler
Douglas Huebler
Douglas Huebler was an American conceptual artist.-Life and career:Douglas Huebler grew up in rural Michigan during the Depression and served in the Marines in World War II...
Joseph Kosuth
Joseph Kosuth
Joseph Kosuth , is an American conceptual artist. Kosuth lives in New York and Rome.-Early life and career:Kosuth was born in Toledo, Ohio. He attended the Toledo Museum School of Design from 1955 to 1962 and studied privately under the Belgian painter Line Bloom Draper. In 1963, Kosuth enrolled at...
and Robert Barry
Robert Barry (artist)
Robert Barry is an American artist. Since 1967, Barry has produced non-material works of art, installations, and performance art using a variety of otherwise invisible media...
. Sol LeWitt
Sol LeWitt
Solomon "Sol" LeWitt was an American artist linked to various movements, including Conceptual art and Minimalism....
's Brick Wall, (1977), for instance, simply chronicled shadows as they passed across a brick wall, whilst Kozlowski's Reality (1972) took a section of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
Critique of Pure Reason
The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant, first published in 1781, second edition 1787, is considered one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy. Also referred to as Kant's "first critique," it was followed by the Critique of Practical Reason and the Critique of Judgement...
, removing all of the text, leaving only the punctuation behind.
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 TwomblyCy Twombly
Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly, Jr. was an American artist well known for his large-scale, freely scribbled, calligraphic-style graffiti paintings, on solid fields of mostly gray, tan, or off-white colors...
and Anselm Kiefer
Anselm Kiefer
Anselm Kiefer is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Joseph Beuys and Peter Dreher during the 1970s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac...
routinely make unique, hand crafted books in a deliberate reaction to the small mass produced editions of previous generations; Albert Oehlen
Albert Oehlen
Albert Oehlen is a contemporary German artist. He graduated from the Hochschule für Bildende Kunst, Hamburg, in 1978. Closely associated with the Cologne art scene, he was a member of the Lord Jim Lodge, along with Martin Kippenberger among others...
, 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 (book pictured at right) and Karen Reimer making cheap mass production central to their practice.
Contemporary and post-conceptual artists also made artist's books an important aspect of their practice, notably William Wegman
William Wegman (photographer)
William Wegman is an artist best known for creating series of compositions involving dogs, primarily his own Weimaraners in various costumes and poses.-Life and career:...
, Bob Cobbing
Bob Cobbing
Bob Cobbing was a British sound, visual, concrete and performance poet who was a central figure in the British Poetry Revival.-Early life:...
, Martin Kippenberger
Martin Kippenberger
Martin Kippenberger was a German artist known for his extremely prolific output in a wide range of styles and media as well as his provocative, jocular and hard-drinking public persona....
, Raymond Pettibon
Raymond Pettibon
Raymond Pettibon is an American artist who currently lives and works in Venice Beach, California.-Early life:...
, and Suze Rotolo
Suze Rotolo
Susan Elizabeth Rotolo , known as Suze Rotolo , was an American artist, but is perhaps best known as Bob Dylan's girlfriend between 1961 and 1964 and a strong influence on his music...
.
Critical reception
Art Metropole
Art Metropole was founded in 1974 by the Canadian artists' group General Idea as a not-for-profit corporation incorporated under the laws of the province of Ontario. It is located in Toronto, Canada....
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
Art Monthly
Art Monthly is a magazine of contemporary art founded in 1976 by Jack Wendler and Peter Townsend. It is based in London and has an international scope, although its main focus is on British art...
(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 1980s and 1990s, BA, MA and MFA programs in Book Art were founded, some notable examples of which are the BA at Mills College
Mills College
Mills College is an independent liberal arts women's college founded in 1852 that offers bachelor's degrees to women and graduate degrees and certificates to women and men. Located in Oakland, California, Mills was the first women's college west of the Rockies. The institution was initially founded...
in California, the MFA at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, the MA at Camberwell College of Art in London, and the BA at the College of Creative Studies
College of Creative Studies
The College of Creative Studies is one of the three undergraduate colleges at the University of California, Santa Barbara, unique within the University of California system in terms of structure and philosophy...
at the University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...
. 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
New media
New media is a broad term in media studies that emerged in the latter part of the 20th century. For example, new media holds out a possibility of on-demand access to content any time, anywhere, on any digital device, as well as interactive user feedback, creative participation and community...
forms including the artist's CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
and the artist's DVD-ROM.
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.
See also
- Altered bookAltered bookAn altered book is a form of mixed media artwork that changes a book from its original form into a different form, altering its appearance and/or meaning....
- Artists books: centers of activityArtists books: centers of activity- Alabama :In 1985, University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama began to offer an MFA Program in the in the School of Library and Informational Studies. This program offers printing/publishing, bookbinding, papermaking, and the history of the book and "emphasizes the art and craft of making books...
- Asemic writingAsemic writingAsemic writing is a wordless open semantic form of writing. The word asemic means "having no specific semantic content". With the nonspecificity of asemic writing there comes a vacuum of meaning which is left for the reader to fill in and interpret. All of this is similar to the way one would...
- BookbindingBookbindingBookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book from a number of folded or unfolded sheets of paper or other material. It usually involves attaching covers to the resulting text-block.-Origins of the book:...
- Illuminated manuscriptIlluminated manuscriptAn illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...
- Letterpress printingLetterpress printingLetterpress printing is relief printing of text and image using a press with a "type-high bed" printing press and movable type, in which a reversed, raised surface is inked and then pressed into a sheet of paper to obtain a positive right-reading image...
- List of Centers of book arts activityArtists books: centers of activity- Alabama :In 1985, University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama began to offer an MFA Program in the in the School of Library and Informational Studies. This program offers printing/publishing, bookbinding, papermaking, and the history of the book and "emphasizes the art and craft of making books...
- Miniature bookMiniature bookA miniature book is a very small book, sized from .5 inches square to roughly 2 by 3 inches—no larger than 3 inches in height, width or thickness. These books became more popular in the last few decades of the 19th century because they were portable and easy to conceal. One could carry a vast...
- ZineZineA zine is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published work of minority interest usually reproduced via photocopier....
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
- Bleus, Guy (1990) Art is Books
- 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
- Johanna DruckerJohanna DruckerJohanna Drucker is an author, book artist, visual theorist, and cultural critic. Her scholarly writing documents and critiques visual language: letterforms, typography, visual poetry, art, and lately, digital aesthetics...
,(1995) The Century of Artists' Books - Johanna DruckerJohanna DruckerJohanna Drucker is an author, book artist, visual theorist, and cultural critic. Her scholarly writing documents and critiques visual language: letterforms, typography, visual poetry, art, and lately, digital aesthetics...
, (1998) Figuring the Word: Essays on Books, Writing, and Visual Poetics - Friedman, Julia. Beyond Symbolism and Surrealism: Alexei Remizov's Synthetic Art, Northwestern University Press, 2010. ISBN 0-8101-2617-6 (Trade Cloth)
- 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
- Khalfa, Jean (2001) The Dialogue between Painting and Poetry: Livres d'Artistes 1874-1999, Black Apollo PressBlack Apollo PressBlack Apollo Press is an independent publisher based in Cambridge, England. It was founded in 1995 by American writer Bob Biderman and British Baudelarian scholar, David Kelley...
- 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
- Moeglin-Delcroix, Anne. (1997) Esthétique du livre d’artiste, 1960-1980. Paris: Jean-Michel Place; Biliothèque nationale de France.
- Perrée, Rob (2002) Cover to Cover: The Artist's Book in Perspective
- Smith, Keith (1989) Structure of the Visual Book
Journals and on-line media covering the field
- Book Arts Website at the CFPR UWE, is a major exponent of all things concerning the Art of the Book, featuring downloadable Newsletters, online exhibitions from the last decade, research projects, events, publications and a comprehensive listing of other sites world wide that feature Artist's books. Edited by Sarah Bodman designed by Jan Mescir.
- Umbrella, founded and edited by Judith HoffbergJudith HoffbergJudith Hoffberg was a librarian, archivist, lecturer, a curator and art writer, and editor and publisher of Umbrella, a newsletter on artists' books, mail art, and Fluxus art. She received a B.A. in Political Science from UCLA in 1956. She went on to get an M.A. in Italian Language and Literature...
, 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.
- Sign of the Owl A blog with short articles about artists' books and the artists' book field.
- Artistbook.lt, The Artist's Book Triennial in Vilnius, Lithuania.
- http://www.zyarts.com/zybooks, Zybooks artists books online - a free gallery space showcasing artists books from around the world (Gandha Key, site curator and owner)
Collections of artists' books
- Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, Erika and Fred Torri Artists' Books Collection
- Virginia Commonwealth University Book Art Collection
- The Victoria and Albert Museum Book Artists' Books Collection
- State Library of Queensland's Artists' Books Collection
- Chelsea College of Art & Design Library Artists' Books Collection
- Tate Britain's Collection of Artists' Books
- Otis College of Art and Design Online Collection
- Women's Studio Workshop Artists' Books Residencies
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Art Library Collection
- Hand Bookbindings from Princeton University Library
- Oberlin College, Clarence Ward Art Library, Artist Book Imagebase
- Digital Collection of Selections from the Kohler Art Library, The University of Wisconsin–Madison
- Cleveland Institute of Art Gund Library Artists' Books Collection
- Damp Flat Books, UK
- Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
- The Ministry of Books, University of Portsmouth, UK
- George Mason University (Fairfax, VA)