In her article “The Artist’s Book as Idea and Form”, Johanna Drucker notes the existence of artists’ books throughout twentieth century art: “Artist’s books appear in every major movement in art and literature.” (p. 1) However, she notes that in order for this to be true, the definition of artists’ books must be extended to include journals and other forms of written publications (p. 8). Given the history of the development of artists’ books, this is important. After William Blake (see last week’s post), several avant-garde movements of the early twentieth-century utilized the book (or pamphlet, or poster) format to get across their ideas in a world increasingly reliant on print. These movements included (but are not limited to) Cubism, Futurism, Dada, and Surrealism. An example of an artist’s book from this time is Universal War by Aleksei Kruchenykh, an illustrated book with collage pages that is considered one of the more famous examples of Russian Futurist book production.
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| Aleksei Kruchenykh, Destruction Of Gardens, Collage #6 of Universal War, 1916 |
Drucker notes that although the production of artists books continued throughout the twentieth century, it is particularly marked after 1945, or, after World War Two. This is when the artist’s book began to have “its own practitioners, theorists, critics, innovators, and visionaries.” (Drucker, p. 1) Postmodernism, Pop art and Fluxus are further art movements that utilise the book form. (Drucker, p. 8)
There are many reasons that artists are attracted to the book form as a means of artistic expression. From a purely practical viewpoint, they can be relatively low-cost to produce and to circulate, thanks to technologies such as printing. Drucker notes that this factor is especially important for “Artists with a social or political motivation for their work” who wish to gain a wider audience and are not as concerned with financial return (p. 8). Of course, this is not always true. As we have seen, some artists’ books, such as livres d’ artiste can be costly for the publisher and consumer. Another appeal that the book form holds for artists is that artists can use many different mediums in creating a work of art, and therefore “express aspects of mainstream art which not able to find expression in the form of wall pieces, performances, or sculpture” (Drucker, p. 9). In addition, the book itself represents possibilities not present in other mediums – the documentary nature of the book, for example, or the physical structure of the book, which can be modified, questioned, subverted, etc. The book form is highly versatile.
During this posting I have been attempting to flesh out some answers to the questions in our study guide relating to Drucker’s article. The final question I wanted to address did raise some issues for me: “Why is the form popular with some galleries?” Drucker notes that “...books are often produced on the strength of an artist’s capacity to generate sales, and books are a cheap sideline for many galleries.” (p. 9) I assume that this relates to facsimile editions of artist’s books that the gallery may have for sale in their shop, or even limited and multiple editions they may be able to market. However, in terms of an exhibition, what is the attraction of artist’s books? For one thing, I would have thought that in order to gain a true sense of what the work is about, how it ‘feels’, you would need to hold the work it your hands, physically use it, turn the pages etc. However, I can’t imagine this happening very often in an exhibition context, especially with rarer or more ‘famous’ works. I know that when we looked at illuminated manuscripts in a gallery context, they were shielded behind a pane of glass, opened at a particular page for people to gaze at. Of course, illuminated manuscripts are much older and (I would suspect) more valuable than artists’ books. I know that some library collections allow readers to ‘read’ artists books – hold them, turn pages etc. Perhaps some exhibitions do allow viewers to do this? In search of an answer to this frustrating question of which I have little personal knowledge, I went web searching and found this video on YouTube of the 2009 Florida Artists Book Prize Exhibition, and lo and behold, the viewers (or at least the assistants guiding the viewers) were handling the books, turning the pages, and using them as books are meant to be used. Mystery solved! In sum I would suggest that perhaps the appeal of artists’ books for galleries is much the same as a large proportion of contemporary art – it relies on participation and engagement with the viewer.
Sources:
Drucker, J., “The Artist’s Book as Idea and Form”, The Century of Artists’ Books, New York: Granary, 1995, pp. 1-19.
"2009 Florida Artists Book Prize Exhibition" [Video], Accessed May, 2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv7d4wrxxtY
