Rare Book School
Preliminary Reading List

Artists' Books: Strategies for Collecting


Johanna Drucker
 


Preliminary Advices

1. Primary References and Sourcebooks: these four are all useful enough to buy and keep as references.
(NB: the use of the apostrophe is an issue of contestation, thus the variants seen here, all "sic".)

Stefan Klima, Joan Lyons, ed., Artists Books: A Critical Anthology and Sourcebook (Rochester, NY: Visual Studies Workshop Press, 1985); the essays in this volume contain valuable information about the works produced in the 1960s and 70s; much of the sourcebook aspect of the work has gone out of date, and thus has historical, rather than practical value.

Johanna Drucker, Riva Castleman, 2. Journals

JAB: The Journal of Artists Books, published by Brad Freeman, founded in 1994, the only publication devoted exclusively to criticism in the field of artists' books. Contains artists' pages, interviews, critical and historical articles, and reviews of books.

Umbrella, edited and published by Judith Hoffberg, a newsletter with remarkable longevity and stamina, a useful way to map artists' book publications and their appearance in the field.

Other journals that have or had regular articles on artists' books: Fine Print (from the 1970s), Print Collector's Newsletter – now On Paper, Ampersand, Art Monthly, and Northwest Review.


3. Other useful works in the field

Germano Celant, Book as Artwork 1960/72, exhibition catalogue (London: Nigel Greenwood, 1972). If you can get hold of a copy of this, do so. It is invaluable and one of the smartest things written on conceptual art and books.

Susan Compton, Susan Compton, Cathy Courtney, Facing the Page: British Artists' Books: A Survey 1983-1993 (London: Estampe, 1993).

Cathy Courtney, Brad Freeman, Offset, exhibition catalogue (NY: 1992).

Renée and Judd Hubert, Renée Riese Hubert, Julie Melby, editor, Anne Moeglin-Delcroix, L'Esthetique du livre d'artiste (Paris: Jean-Michel Place, 1997); a sophisticated discussion of conceptual art and the books produced within its purview; limited in scope but with considerable intellectual depth, provides some of the most thoughtful discussions and arguments about books within the field to date. Expensive, and well-illustrated, and not likely to ever appear in translation.

Robert Morgan, Commentaries on the New Media Arts: Fluxus and Conceptual Art, Artists' Books, Correspondence Art, Audio and Video Art (Pasadena: Umbrella Associates, 1992).

W. J. (Walter John) Strachan, The Artist and the Book in France (NY: Wittenborn, 1969); though focused primarily on the livre d'artiste and its fine press and printmaking traditions, this work is a useful introduction to the emergence of that uniquely c20 form.

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