Artists' Books

Visual and cultural analysis of Meiji shōnen kaiko 明治少年懐古 (Reminiscences of a Meiji youth, 1944), an illustrated book that nostalgically recalls Japan's late nineteenth and early twentieth century period of modernization. The book is in the Pulverer Collection of Japanese illustrated books of the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC and is featured on The World of the Japanese Illustrated Book website. My commentary, along with a complete set of readable images of the book, may be found here: http://pulverer.si.edu/node/440/title/1.

This essay addresses the systems explored in Sol LeWitt's photobooks as well as the (social) networks threaded through them. It treats all such publications by LeWitt--with the notable exception of Autobiography (1980), which has been analyzed by other authors (DiBenedetto and Weinberg).

This is an idiosyncratic guide to self-publishing. We think that self-publishers should craft their own hybrid publishing and distribution solutions. This booklet, we hope, is an aide for those curious about the process and who may want to start doing their own publishing.

Temporary Services has been actively thinking about, making, talking about, selling, and giving away publications for over 16 years. We have written or said things in interviews and lectures about our publishing, but we have never sat down to craft a long-form essay about our efforts and where they fit in the larger world of artist books, artist publishing and book making. This booklet is an attempt to articulate our ideas about publishing, particularly in light of the current post-digital environment. It was published to be given away during the life of our temporary print shop called Publishing Clearing House.

Here is a description of that initiative:

Strangely, in our 16 years of working together, we had never done a project that was just focused on making publications. When people find out that we run Half Letter Press, they often ask us where our press is located—we have to tell them that we actually work with other printers to make everything. While we probably won’t be making offset printed and perfect bound books in our own facility any time soon, we have purchased our own Risograph duplicator (a.k.a RISO) and a booklet stapling and folding machine—both of which were used to make parts of this booklet.

Publishing Clearing House is an initiative that will be a temporary, fully functioning print shop. Temporary Services—with Kione Kochi, Kristian Johansson, and Leah Mackin—will work with invited collaborators to produce new booklets and printed works during the run of the show, sharing and launching publications.

In banking and finance, clearing denotes all activities from the time a commitment is made for a transaction until it is settled. In Publishing Clearing House, clearing denotes all activities from the time a commitment to an author is made, until the publication is designed, printed, stapled, folded and distributed. Making a clearing is also about creating a space for meeting and making processes visible, open and transparent.

For this effort, we have invited a diverse range of individuals, groups, and organizations with an emphasis on Chicago, the Midwest, and artists, activists and authors not always included in the 0conversations of the dominant culture. This includes juveniles and the incarcerated, as well as those who represent or articulate narratives counter to dominant cultural norms. Visitors will be able to meet members of Temporary Services and some collaborating authors on many days of the exhibition, and watch the mechanics of the print shop as works are developed and produced. We will make the entire process of making a book, which is always socially engaged in some manner, more visible than it usually is.

O Livro dos Seres Imaginários
Impressão tipográfica, papel Canson Edition 250g
17 folhas, 21,5 x 28 cm cada.
Edição de 100. Numerado e assinado.
Andante, 2011. R$ 150,00

Após uma expedição a bibliotecas na cidade de Santos (SP), em busca de maravilhas descritas pelo cônsul britânico sir Richard Burton que ali viveu, foram encontradas quinze criaturas desconhecidas nas páginas de uma enciclopédia, em um artigo sobre máscaras. Disfarçadas de letras capitulares, agora fazem parte de uma continuação do manual de zoologia de Jorge Luis Borges.

This volume presents contributions from a broad range of authors who address the social and political dimensions of art and art writing in the contemporary context, and the ways in which new writing and publishing practices promote critical engagement among readerships as never before.

Balam Bartolomé ha escrito Batalla de ciervos a manera de una fuga renacentista. Edición depurada en un tiraje limitado de trescientas copias, esta ópera prima de Bartolomé es la reunión eficaz de imagen, ensayo, relato y prosa poética alrededor de los universos del arte y el artista moderno y contemporáneo. Pero no es este libro un compendio de quinientas hojas sino una bitácora de tránsitos y mudanzas entre días y siglos por el azar y sus accidentes, por la creación y sus encuentros inesperados.
Es precisamente un viaje al Museo de Orsay, en París, el centro y título de este diario de batallas. Su autor pretendía conocer el pequeño y amenazante cuadro de Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) El origen del mundo (1866), pero en su lugar halló una pintura monumental y sombría: "El celo en primavera. Combate de ciervos", pintada cinco años antes, en 1861. La descripción que hace Bartolomé de este encuentro es rotunda: ‘(la obra) encarna la contradicción que conlleva el enfrentamiento con aquello otro que también es uno’. Un combate en espejo, siniestro y simétrico consigo mismo.

–Christian Barragán

Digital technology, indie DIY and print-on-demand photobooks have transformed contemporary photography book publishing, however the creative and innovative influence that graphic designers have brought to the artists’ book is now extending into the photobook artform.

O artigo trata do catálogo como espaço expositivo, como obra autônoma e não mera documentação. Em 2008, os artistas Ana Luiza Dias Batista, Laura Huzak e João Loureiro elaboraram uma publicação que atua como catálogo, mas não é um registro das obras expostas, e sim um desdobramento da exposição no espaço impresso.

Unhinged:Book Art on the Cutting Edge surveys recent directions in book art through the work of 60 prominent artists from Australia, Canada, Great Britain, and across the United States. It explores the limitless potential of the book as an independent medium, including both intimately scaled pieces and large installations. Book artists present lyrical odes to beauty as well as messages about identity, social justice issues, and environmental concerns. After perusing this publication, viewers will never "read" a book in the same way again.

What follows here is not a definition of art by decree. Nor is this some kind of art manifesto. We are not saying this is how art should be, or could be, but how it is, if you let go of the prison of aesthetics, and follow an infinitely more interesting conceptual trail. This is about uncovering and identifying an approach to art which avoids the triviality of sensory-based aesthetic theory and moves instead towards exploring the experiential worlds that art presents us with. And this approach is not about diminishing the sensory enjoyment of artworks, but about placing them in a much richer context, where they can work a far greater magic.

Lifelong stories and poetry about finding an art form, romance, struggles, friendships, failure, success, discovery, inspiration, courage, adventure, peak experiences and personal growth, from the age of 6 to 66. The stories cover high school, learning, college, divorce, travel, hitchhiking, writing, photography, painting, music, theater, film, book authoring and marriage. Quotes from Robert Frost, Albert Einstein, William Faulkner, Jack Kerouac, Vincent van Gogh, Robert Graves, Baudelaire, Dostoevsky, Wilfred Owen, Thoreau, Jackson Pollock, Pablo Neruda, e.e. cummings, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker and Claude Monet. Doble, author of 6 books by major publishers, e.g. Random House, commented, "I believe this is one of the first times an artist has told a complete story from childhood to old age about his artistic and emotional development."

In the late 1950s, artists' books came into existence as an independent historical movement. Book artists arose in response to the ever-increasing commodification of art and presented challenging, diverse, and multidisciplinary works which communicated intimately with a spectator. Artists' books offered a wide variety of visual, textual, and textural information in alternative literary formats. This study proposes that artist's books practice shares a community of concept and purpose with that of contemporary internet art. Web based digital art can fruitfully be considered as exploring similar structures and themes as the traditional medium of artists' books. As internet art advances further away from its roots in 1980s hypertext and hypertext's accompanying literary theory, few new media theories have emerged that would allow us to 'read' internet art and evaluate its textual aesthetics. Artists' books, however, have been examining the porous borders between reader and artist, text and image, and presentation and participation for over fifty years, building art theories that are fully translatable across media. One particularly compelling aspect of artist's book theory is the way that it examines the specific character of a books' physicality, the effect its structure has on textual meaning. I suggest that internet art actively continues in this tradition of interrogating the material interface of presentation. Like internet art, artists' books are interactive artworks which experiment with nonlinear narrative, elaborate linking mechanisms, and complex interplays between narrative and visual structure. Our understanding of internet art, therefore, can be deepened through comparison with artist's books while, in turn, internet artwork provides new ways to reflect on older artist book practices. The first section of this thesis outlines parallels in the history and development of the two mediums as well as engaging issues of exhibition, dissemination, commodification, and classification that are particular to both art forms. The text goes on to examine the literary theories of N. Katherine Hayles, an advocate of textual materiality, and the intersections between her concepts and those of critical theorist Jacques Derrida, gaming theorist Espen Aarseth, and artist's book theorist Johanna Drucker. In a final section, I apply Hayles' theory of Media Specific Analysis to a number of internet art and artists' book pairings, finding apt comparisons within the specific play of content and materiality.

Thesis (M.A. in Modern Art History, Theory and Criticism) -- School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2008.

Desde 1996  me dedico a transcribir la memoria de mis sueños en una serie de diarios que articulan mi práctica artística como un modo de vida. Los organizo por fecha y lugar donde despierto, evitando en todo momento la autocensura.

Esta publicación reúne mis sueños de 2008 a 2010 y anexa la lista de los nombres de los personajes soñados: personas que forman parte de mi vida, gente que conozco directa o indirectamente, o personajes imaginarios.
Hay alrededor de 2 mil relatos que describen exclusivamente el vestigio de mi subconsciente.
–
Depuis 1996, je me dédie à la transcription de la mémoire de mes rêves, en une série de journaux qui s'articulent dans ma pratique artistique comme un mode de vie. Fuyant à chaque instant l’autocensure, je les organise par date et lieu, où je m’éveille.
Cette publication réunit mes rêves de 2008 à 2010 et annexe la liste des noms des personnages rêvés: de gens qui font partie de ma vie, que je connais directe ou indirectement, ou qui peuvent être aussi imaginaires.
Il y a enviros 2 milliers de récits qui à leurs tour en espagnol, français et anglais, décrivent exclusivement le vestige de mon inconscient.
–
Since 1996 I have dedicated myself to transcribing recollections of my dreams in a series of diaries that articulate my artistic practice as a way of life. I organize them by date and place where I wake up, avoiding self-censorship at all times.

This publication reunites my dreams from 2008 to 2010. It includes a list of the names of the dreamed characters: people who are part of my life, people I know directly or indirectly, and imagined characters.

There are about 2 thousand stories in turn described in Spanish, in French and in English are exclusively the vestiges of my subconscious.
                      N.R.
              nathalieregard.net

Visual and cultural analysis of Nihon no hana 日本の花(1946), a book pairing pictures and poetry by diverse artists and poets on the theme of flowers. The book is part of the Pulverer Collection of Japanese illustrated books of the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC and is featured on The World of the Japanese Illustrated Book website. My commentary, along with a complete set of readable images of the book, may be found here: http://pulverer.si.edu/node/462/title/1.

Eκπαιδευτικό πρόγραμμα για σχολεία της Πρωτοβάθμιας και Δευτεροβάθμιας Εκπαίδευσης, που πραγματοποιήθηκε στο πλαίσιο του εορτασμού των Ευρωπαϊκών Ημερών Πολιτιστικής Κληρονομιάς, με θέμα «Τα Πρόσωπα του Χρόνου». Μέσα από το πρόγραμμα οι μαθητές είχαν τη δυνατότητα να ταξιδέψουν στον χρόνο και να γνωρίσουν τους αρχαίους καλλιτέχνες της Βέροιας (αρχιτέκτονες, γλύπτες, ρήτορες, ποιητές, μουσικούς, φωνασκούς και ηθοποιούς) και να συμμετάσχουν σε σχετικές εκπαιδευτικές δραστηριότητες.

Σύλληψη-Σχεδιασμός: Δρ. Νικόλαος Β. Παππάς, Αρχαιολόγος
Υλοποίηση: Νικόλαος. Β. Παππάς, Αρχαιολόγος, Τερψιχόρη Ξανθοπούλου, Εικαστικός
_______________________________________________________________________________________

Educational program for schools of Primary and Secondary Education, held in the context of the celebration of the European Days of Cultural Heritage, with the theme "The Faces of Time". Through the program, students had the opportunity to travel back in time and meet the ancient artists of Veria (architects, sculptors, orators, poets, musicians, vocalists and actors) and to participate in related educational activities.

Conception-Design: Dr. Nikolaos V. Pappas, Archaeologist
Implementation: Nikolaos. V. Pappas, Archaeologist, Terpsichore Xanthopoulou, Visual Artist

RESUMO
 
O presente estudo estabelece uma evolução detalhada dos suportes de informação, assim como a historiografia do objeto livro, seus materiais e métodos de confecção através das diferentes culturas até a atualidade. Descreve brevemente a respeito das técnicas de encadernação ao longo da história, enfatiza a importância da arte moderna, contemporânea e conceitual para a instauração do livro como objeto de arte. Discute sobre o tratamento atribuído as coleções especiais de livros de artista na ciência da informação e por fim, propõe uma discussão a respeito da ampliação, superação e equivalência de valores e funções do suporte da informação em contraposição ao conteúdo que carrega.

Palavras-chave: História do livro. Encadernação. Arte Contemporânea. Livro
de Artista. Coleções Especiais. Informação Artística.



ABSTRACT


This study establishes a detailed evolution of information support, as well as the historiography of the book, its materials and methods of manufacture through different cultures to the present. Briefly describes about the binding techniques throughout history, emphasizes the importance of modern, contemporary and conceptual art, for establishment of the book as an art object. Discusses the treatment assigned  to special collections of artist books in information science and finally, proposes a discussion about the magnification, overcoming and equivalency values and functions of the information support in opposition to the content it carries.

Keywords: History of the book. Binding. Contemporary Art. Artist’s Book.
Special Collections.  Artistic Information.

https://app.publicacoes.even3.com.br/tcc/de-suporte-de-informacao-a-objeto-de-arte-o-livro-e-suas-perspectivas-123154#!#nav-resumo

https://doi.org/10.29327/4112315

O trabalho concentra-se na investigação de fenômenos de intermidialidade em fotolivros contemporâneos brasileiros. O estudo contempla a descrição e análise dos aspectos formais e semântico-pragmáticos das obras Sí por cuba (2005), de Tatiana Altberg, Silent Book (2012) de Miguel Rio Branco e Nossos dias
parecem noite (2014), editado por Cícely Salamunes.

The Florentine audience’s proclivity towards a merciless criticism of local artworks was a well-established commonplace in the art-historical discourse of sixteenth-century Florence. Besides, the contested reception of major artistic enterprises in that scene resonates with the topos of a city possessing, as Don Vincenzio Borghini put it, “a good eye” and “a malevolent tongue”. A case in point is the public’s response to the ambitious Last Judgement in Brunelleschi’s cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore. Begun by Giorgio Vasari in 1572 and completed seven years later by Federico Zuccari, the pictorial cycle notoriously attracted scathing attacks from contemporary spectators, and exposed the Marchigian painter to a critical massacre that would deeply affect his career and reputation. To date, however, no known source preserved the voice of the most vitriolic detractors of Zuccari’s main Florentine commission. By examining a newly discovered poem on the Last Judgement, the article sets out to illuminate key aspects of the work’s early reception, while also investigating how the visual analysis skills of a contemporary Florentine beholder could translate into a comic and perceptive art criticism in verse.

Giorgio Vasari racchiude entro la cornice dell’«introduzzione» alle «Vite» una solida e documentata trattazione tecnica, in cui l’attività dei rappresentanti delle tre arti viene descritta in una prosa caratterizzata dall’andamento ordinato e conciso, nonché dal lessico specialistico e univoco, ripartito fra le denominazioni di materiali, strumenti e singoli procedimenti adottati per «lavorare» e «condurre a perfezzione» un’opera d’arte. L’autore della storia degli artefici munisce così il lettore di strumenti per recepire e giudicare la complessità e la difficoltà del lavoro condotto nelle officine e nei cantieri, determinando i «verba» e le «res» su cui poggerà l’impianto dell’opera di storico e di «pratico»: dalla pittura alla scultura al «lavoro di quadro» degli architetti.

Francis Picabia, Man Ray, and Erik Satie each contributed to a page of Picabia’s Dadaist magazine 391, of 1924. Picabia contributed a drawing, Satie a polemical writing, and Man Ray a seemingly abstract poem. Metamorphosis and interpretative simultaneity are both subjects and devices of this three-part collaborative effort. The page involves multiple levels of deliberate codification involving interrelated references to the Arensberg Circle, Satie’s ballet Mercure, Renaissance art of Raphael and Albrecht Dürer, the Morse code, as well as Dadaist and Futurist poetics. The mutative quality of possible interpretations suggests that the page is meant to be understood through multiple, even divergent and simultaneous readings. The resulting interpretative flux recalls Picabia’s own multi-layered approach to painting, which may serve as a model for understanding the operations of this 391 page.

Visual and cultural analysis of Maekawa Senpan's Shitōchō  偲糖帖 (Remembered Sweets, 1945), a woodblock-printed compendium of sweets that was conceived of and executed during a period of severe wartime food shortage. The book is in the Pulverer Collection of Japanese illustrated books of the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC and is featured on The World of the Japanese Illustrated Book website. My commentary, along with a complete set of readable images of the book,  may be found here: http://pulverer.si.edu/node/455/title/1.

“Come spiegare a mia madre che ciò che faccio serve a qualcosa?” era il titolo degli incontri organizzati al Link di Bologna nell’autunno del 1997, dopo il primo programma di residenza estiva che diede avvio al Progetto Oreste. 
Salvatore Falci, Eva Marisaldi, Giancarlo Norese, Cesare Pietroiusti, Anteo Radovan, Cesare Viel e Luca Vitone organizzarono tre giornate di dibattiti dedicate alle nuove ricerche artistiche italiane, invitando decine di altri artisti come relatori e attirando numerosi partecipanti provenienti da ogni parte d’Italia. L’omonima pubblicazione raccoglie le registrazioni degli interventi al convegno e le relative discussioni. 
“Progetto Oreste 0 (zero)”, sul retro del volume, è un diario a voci multiple della residenza a Paliano dello stesso anno.

Giancarlo Norese, curatore dell’edizione originale – ormai introvabile – pubblicata nel 1998 dalle Edizioni Charta nella collana “I libri di Zerynthia”, ha realizzato nel 2021 questo libro d’artista che consiste nella riproduzione dichiaratamente imperfetta dell’ultima copia del volume in suo possesso. — — — Testi di Cesare Pietroiusti, Federico Pagliarini, Federico Tanzi-Mira, Stefano Arienti, Eugenio Giliberti, Fabrizio Basso, Marco Vaglieri, Giancarlo Norese, Luca Vitone, Emilio Fantin, Sabrina Mezzaqui, Anteo Radovan, Zerometriquadri, Salvatore Falci, Roberto Cascone, Laura Ruggeri, Luca Bertolo, Stalker, Mauro Maffezzoni, Eugenio Mastrorocco, Eva Marisaldi, Bruna Esposito, Brigata Es, Francesco Arena, Gianluca Cosci, Pino Boresta, Marco Cordero, Giovanni Bai, Cesare Viel, Liliana Moro, Grazia Toderi, Boris Bakal, Manuela Cirino, Pietro Fortuna e Arianna Vennarucci, Luca Scarabelli, Andrea Sperni, Alessandra Spranzi, Alessandra Tesi. 
Interventi di Alessandra Borgogelli, Gianni Caravaggio, Pier Luigi Sacco, Lisa Parola, Antonella Mazzoni, Paola Ferraris, Renato Barilli, Anna Valeria Borsari, Ernesto Jannini, Emanuela De Cecco, Guglielmo Aschieri, Carolyn Christov Bakargiev, Zefferina Castoldi, Mario Gorni, Mauro Marino, Luisa Protti, Claudio Angione, Arianna Giorgi, Paolo De Cesare. — — — Italiano, Brossura, 260 pagine, b/n, ISBN 979-8747739024 – disponibile su https://amzn.eu/d/g61HPVK