Volume 29, No. 3, Sep 2006
Artist Books - News
News
art on paper for September/October features artists’ books, photo books, and exhibition catalogs. www.artonpaper.com A.A. Bronson writes about artist books and small press at Art Basel in the 1960s and 1970s.
Joshua Heller Rare Books has issued its Catalogue Thirty-Three, Summer 2006, a double issue, 90 pages with 221 entries of fine bindings, books from private presses, artist books, poetry, war, peace, calligraphy and portfolios of Write to P.O. Box 39114, Washington, DC 20016-9114. E-mail: HellerBkDC@aol.com www.broward.org/library/bienes/flartist_book_prize04/welcome.htm
Paule Leon Bisson-Millet has a new Catalog of Artists’ books with Music, part 2. Contact her at Hunt + Gather is a new bookshop in Santa Fe, owned by Suzanne Vilmain. Workshops, exhibitions, meetings and booksignings. Contact Hunt + Gather at 311 Aztec, Santa Fe, NM 87501. www.huntandgather.net Polish book artists. Radoslaw Nowalkowski (formerly of Bookmakery Elephant’s Tail and now, artist books publishing house Liberatory), has launched a new website at www.liberatorium.com. Also, the Polish Artists Union - Warsaw Branch, Book Art Section has a great website at www.bookart.pl and click for the English version option. Turning the Pages is a project that allows online access to digitized versions of rare, fragile illustrated books. As you may guess, you can turn the pages ina realistic way, using touch-screen technology and interactive animation, enlarge the images, listen to an audio commentary or read associated text. There are a lot of other features. Initially developed by and for the British Library, with pages from the Lindisfarne Gospels, the first to go digital in 1998, it is now available as a service for institutions and private collectors around the world. www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html Silver Lining Pass Mine Artists’ Books is a small catalog represents the work of graduate Book Arts students at Boise State University who have been assigned to utilize Pass Mine materials in a bookwork. Pass Mine holdings were previously donated to the university, which has since sold it to a private individual. This catalog and exhibition represents a selection of books inspired by the claims and excavations of lead, silver and zinc, under the tutelage of Tom Trusky, Idaho Center for the Book. For more information, go to www.lili.org/icb Poisonous Plants at Table, featuring Prudence: The Cautionary Tale of a Picky Eater, written and illustrated by Audrey Niffenegger incorporating selections from Poisonous Plants in Field and Garden by the Reverend Professor G. Henslow with Poisonous Plants at Table (selected menus and recommendations) by Dr. E. Coffin. Letterpress printed in two colors in an edition of 75 on Mohawk Superfine and Twinrocker handmade paper, with four color illustrations by Niffenegger giclée printed on specially coated handmade paper developed by Twinrocker. 2006. Order from Sherwin Beach Press, 22 E. Illinois, Chicago, IL 60611. (312)644-6057 www.sherwinbeach.com An Articulate Chicken Recipe was an exhibition at Amos Eno Gallery in New York City during the month of September. The work by artist Steven Travis is a kind of a hybrid for the field of “books” but should be noted. Travis has been inventing his own language called Tapissary since 1977. Over the past 29 years, 8,000 of his hieroglyphs have come to populate the dictionary. He has devised a grammatical system that encodes life into rotating cycles. With a such a mechanism in place, Tapissary latches onto the inherent movement of a story. The main character, however, is not human but rather linguistic. His medium is polymer clay and saturated colors. A kind of illuminated manuscript mingled with Persian miniatures reworked into a modern context and medium is the result. Flanked around each page as if they were place settings, he has sculpted distinctive anthropomorphic cutlery which is poised for the meal. The six longitudes, each one described and demonstrated in the exhibit. The first three are cause-oriented and the last three are effect-oriented. For more information see www.travisstudio.com. The terms “book arts” and “book art” are used interchangeably. I agree with the use of the plural to describe the “industrial arts” or “hand crafts” aspect of our practice. The singular, however, refers either to an art object, a group of art objects, or the field of practice of making art in or about bookforms. When I meet people and they say “What do you do?” I often answer “I’m an artist.” But they almost always ask if I’m a painter or sculptor, and my reply is usually “I’m a book artist,” though sometimes I say “I make books.” I don’t say “I’m an artist’s book maker” or “I make artist’s books.” In my nomenclature, “book art” is parallel to “painting” or “sculpture.” The term “artists’ books” does not work syntactically in that context. An “artist’s book” that relies exclusively on conception, text, images and graphic design might not be a book. Ulises Carrion’s view was that a text is not a book, and some artists’ books are linear works of visual literature, behaving much like a text with images. Some artist’s books are media-independent. Clif’s pdf _The Small Pond works like that. You can view it online, save the file, or print a copy. It works well no matter how you do it. Others are material or structure specific and may include haptic characteristics as part of the message. The marginalization of artists’ books is a real issue, and one that I have been dealing with over three decades. To be explicit, the phrase “artists’ books” in the previous sentence means “books made by artists.” It is consciously written in the plural possessive. I’ve seen lots of artist’s books shown in art museums. This time I am using the singular possessive, because it was singular artists whose books were shown. Lucas Samaras’s Book was on exhibit at MOMA in 1970 or so, for example. But Samaras was an artist whose work they were already promoting. For the most part, the books they showed were by artists whose work their Directors and patrons collected in other media, and with few exceptions were in the Vollard format. It was frustrating going to exhibitions, because often a “famous” artist (who was in the stable of a 57th Street gallery–the term “stable” was used because artists are like horses) would take an idea from a book artist and produce something that had instant market and museum appeal, while the original creator remained in obscurity. But it’s not just book artists that happens to. It happens to painters all the time. The original creative talent may die in poverty and obscurity, while another artist who saw their work and played the game differently got a glitzy reception. You may have seen it, or it may have happened to you. Many artists, particularly painters, are paranoid about their work and hide it from other artists. The seamy underside of the art world can involve sex, drugs, and more. It was a big deal who got to be a chip in the Sonnabend poker game. If you weren’t around then, be aware that the previous sentence is literal and not metaphoric. How an artist got to be a chip could be like an episode of City Confidential. One of the nice things about artists’ books is that because they are not the road to wealth and fame, we have developed an open, sharing community. There is a freedom of expression that is fairly unfettered. Clif’s final page sums that aspect up very well. Whether a safe environment makes better art is another (perhaps Darwinian) discussion. He also talks about the craft object issue. In the early 70’s the curator at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts told me my books were Art, and I should take them to the museum across the street (the Museum of Modern Art). The MOMA curator said they were Craft, and I should take them to the museum across the street (MCC). My books have since been exhibited at prestigious art galleries with reviews in art magazines and newspapers. But it didn’t change the way the “artworld” looked at anything. Artists’ books are too intimate and sophisticated for most collectors. You actually have to look at them, and interact with them using real time. They don’t usually make a big display behind the couch. And there are not a lot of coffee-table books about them that make the one behind the couch seem that much more impressive. Cheap as they may seem, compared to paintings, artists’ books may cost more persquare foot of wall space, particularly if they are in a bookcase that just shows the spines. You may need 200 of them to occupy 4’ x 6’. That’s why I started the Center for Book Arts in 1974. It was an application of Institutional Economics (my academic background) to the development of a book art movement. We needed our own infrastructure in order to penetrate theirs. During the last 30 years the Book Art Movement has grown considerably, and artists’ books are getting more exposure. It would not be untoward to compare our evolution in the cultural vortex to the position of Photography 30 or 40 years ago. In addition to the growing number of book art or artists’ books exhibitions in museums, art centers, and University art galleries, there are the occasional giant book installations, with piles of books arranged into a sculpture or a “library” or whatever. Occasionally we even see an artist’s book included in exhibitions with painting, sculpture, and multimedia work. When the intimate body of our field is too delicate for their space, the curator turns to the larger end and finds a museum scale bookwork. That includes items like conceptual “libraries” and stacks of books made into sculpture. I’d like to see more discussion of the relationship between artists’ books, the politics and institutions of the art world, and the book art movement. Perhaps other subscribers to book_arts-l have had experiences or observations they can share. A new archive of out-of-print artist books is at www.wsworkshop.org/artistsbooks.html. Students scholars, collectors, and others can now view and study the more than 150 unique books published by the Women’s Studio Workshop. The archive will include every page of the out-of-print editions and selected pages of the in-print editions. Bookbinding database: A new bookbinding visual database from the British Library can be viewed at prodigi.bl.uk/bindings/index.asp Book History Online (BHO), designed, managed, maintained, and published by the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, National Library of the Netherlands, in cooperation with national committees in more than 30 countries, is a bibliographical database on the history of the printed book and libraries. The databases include bibliographical information on the history of printing and publishing, papermaking, bookbinding, book illustration, type design, and type founding,. Visit www.kb.nl/bho. The “Research Association Artists’ Publications” was founded by 15 scholars of the University Bremen, the International University Bremen, the University of the Arts, the Research Center for East European Studies and the Research Center for Artists’ Publications / ASPC at the New Museum Weserburg Bremen in January 2005. It is the Research Association’s goal to initiate fundamental research on artist publications and to establish this sector as a new scholarly field. "Artist publications" stands here as a generic term for all forms of published artworks, including artists’ books, records, videotapes, and Net Art. The collection offers a broad basis for Dissertations projects and Masters theses. The Research Association further offers a lecture series under the title Theoretical Tropes, it organizes symposia on special art- and media-theoretical thematic fields, it further issues a book series on Artist publications and it holds a biannual conference. For more information please contact: Spokeswoman: Dr. Anne Thurmann-Jajes (">plbmbooks@t-online.de[mail[ A new archive of out-of-print artist books is at www.wsworkshop.org/artistsbooks.html. Students scholars, collectors, and others can now view and study the more than 150 unique books published by the Women’s Studio Workshop. The archive will include every page of the out-of-print editions and selected pages of the in-print editions. Bookbinding database: A new bookbinding visual database from the British Library can be viewed at prodigi.bl.uk/bindings/index.asp Book History Online (BHO), designed, managed, maintained, and published by the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, National Library of the Netherlands, in cooperation with national committees in more than 30 countries, is a bibliographical database on the history of the printed book and libraries. The databases include bibliographical information on the history of printing and publishing, papermaking, bookbinding, book illustration, type design, and type founding,. Visit www.kb.nl/bho. The “Research Association Artists’ Publications” was founded by 15 scholars of the University Bremen, the International University Bremen, the University of the Arts, the Research Center for East European Studies and the Research Center for Artists’ Publications / ASPC at the New Museum Weserburg Bremen in January 2005. It is the Research Association’s goal to initiate fundamental research on artist publications and to establish this sector as a new scholarly field. “Artist publications” stands here as a generic term for all forms of published artworks, including artists’ books, records, videotapes, and Net Art. The collection offers a broad basis for Dissertations projects and Masters theses. The Research Association further offers a lecture series under the title Theoretical Tropes, it organizes symposia on special art- and media-theoretical thematic fields, it further issues a book series on Artist publications and it holds a biannual conference. For more information please contact: Spokeswoman: Dr. Anne Thurmann-Jajes ( jab-online.net/blog/ www.thisintothat.com is an interesting website. University of Alabama book arts site has 20 new interviews covering how individual artists make books, letterpress printing and bookbinding, career trajectories, starting book arts programs, and special collection librarians talking about what they collect and their advice to makers and educators. British Library’s book arts collections has added pages citing what is held by the Library and providing links to individuals and organizations within the book arts in Britain. www.bl.uk/collections/britirish/modbrifin.html The Blue Notebook is a new journal for artists’ books published by Sarah Bodman, UWE Bristol, School of Art, Media & Design. The first two issues will be in October 2006 and April 2007 at £10 GBP for a one-year subscription with full access to the color version on the website, and a black and white printed copy mailed to subscribers. The newsletter will continue. To order send to Sarah Bodman, CFPR, UWE Bristol, School of Art, media & design, Kennel Lodge Rd., Bristol BS3 2JT, UK. E-mail ">)Head of the Research Center for Artist Publications in the NMWB. A new website on South African artists’ books has just been launched. Please visit it at www.theartistsbook.org. We would welcome your comments (and advice of any errors!) Please advise us if you add our link to your website so that we can reciprocate. Jack M. Ginsberg, e-mail: jackg@cjpetrow.co.za Karen Hammer: Playful Books at UWE Bristol, School of Art, Media and Design, Bristol, UK closes on 15 October. Michael Henninger: Books & Books? At Heller Rare Book room, Olin Library, Mills College, an exhibition from 14 August - 29 September. Books.06 works of imagination 10+beyond celebrating 10 years of artists’ books at Noosa Regional Gallery, Queensland, Australia from 22 September - 29 October 2006. Included is an exhibition of artist books by Adele Outteridge and Wim de Vos. Found in Translation, curated by Marshall Weber and produced by Booklyn, a touring exhibition of multi-lingual artist books, prints, and digital and video documentation exploring the cognitive, literary, and political processes of translation. The Center for Book Arts in New York City from 29 September - 9 December and then to the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. For more information, see: www.booklyn.org/exhibition/000231.php Construct. Arthur & Mata Jaffe Collection of Books as Aesthetic Objects at FAU, Boca Raton, FL, an exhibit of artist books that deal with the topic of construction. On view until the opening of the new expanded Jaffe Collection, slated for later this year. www.library.fau.edu/depts/spc/jaffeconstructionexhibitiondetail.htm. Beyond Words: The Collectable Book. This exciting and engaging exhibition will highlight books and book-related art from a variety of public and private collections. Through a diverse set of works, viewers will learn how to build a book collection, care for and display work, and appreciate the unique communicative strength of artists’ books. Beautiful volumes, photographs, prints, illustrations, sketches, maps, manuscripts and process materials will be on display. In addition to the exhibition, a series of lectures and presentations is scheduled to further explore the concepts presented in the show. 22 July - 21 October 2006. Minnesota Center for Book Arts. www.mnbookarts.org Heart and Hands 2, the second national juried student book art exhibition, sponsored by a consortium of institutions including the University of Nebraska at Lincoln Libraries and the UNL Departments of Art & Art History, the Nebraska Book Arts Center at the Univ. Of Nebraska at Omaha, and the UNO Library. This is open to graduate and undergraduate students in accredited academic institutions. Purchase Awards. Exhibit dates: November and December 2006 at University of Nebraska at Lincoln Love Library; January 2007 at Omaha Public Library, and February 2007 at University of Nebraska at Omaha Library. For full details and entry form: www.nebraskabookartscenter.org The Book as Art: Twenty Years of Artists’ Books from the National Museum of Women in the Arts from 27 October through 4 February, including work by Claire Van Vliet, Audrey Niffennegger, Meret Oppenheim, May Stevens, Sandra Jackman, Carol June Barton, and many more. 1250 New York Ave., NW, Washington, DC. www.nmwa.org Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from 20 October - 21 January 2007 includes the artist books that Kiefer has created in large format. Inventing Kindergarten, curated by Margaret Wertheim and Norman Brosterman, in association with Stephen Nowlin, director of the Williamson Gallery, surveys rare objects and artifacts from the collection of Brosterman, based upon educator Friedrich Froebel’s visionary teaching system. Using the Froebel method, 19th-century children were inspired to reconstruct the world around them via exercises in art, designer, mathematics an nature. Georges Braque, Piet Mondrian, and Frank Lloyd Wright were among the founders of modernism who were exposed to the Froebel method as children. 14 October - 7 January 2007. Williams Gallery, Art Center College of Design, 1700 Lida St., Pasadena, CA 91103. Many concertina albums. Bookmarks IV: Infiltrating the Library System in Australia, USA and Europe is the free distribution of 4000+ bookmarks created by 50 artists from the US, Australia, Brazil and Europe. To view all the bookmarks, with artists’ contact details, please see: www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/bkmks4. The distribution continues in various venues from 15 September - 15 February 2007. There are five UK venues including Arnolfini Bookshop in Bristol, UK; Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT; Rhode Island School of Art & Design, Providence, RI; Tate Library & Archive, London; Bookmark Bookstore, Oakland, CA; Permanent Bookshop, Brighton, UK; Queensland State Library, Brisbane, Australia; bookartbookshop in London; Victorian College of the Arts in Southbank, Australia. This project is run by the Centre for Fine Print Research at the University of the West of England, Bristol,UK. For more information, contact Sarah Bodman at Sarah.Bodman@uwe.ac.uk Reinventing books in Contemporary Chinese Art at China Institute Gallery, New York, from 28 September 2006 through 24 February 2007. Chinese art and literature are uniquely bound together. This small, two-part exhibition, curated by University of Chicago professor Wu Hung., takes a look at artist books and “book-inspired works” created by Chinese artists since the 1930s. It claims to be the first study of the impact of traditional Chinese books on contemporary art. It ranges from Qin Siyuan’s A Self-Portrait book on Chinese calligraphy paper to Yue Minjun’s Garbage Dump, an installation that includes old books. Shmata Nouveau: Textiles Through the Wringer includes work by Miriam Schaer, Carol Hamoy and Debra Olin at the Gotthelf Art Gallery in the Jewish Community Center in La Jolla. www.lfjcc.org/bluehornet/shamata_nuveau.htm Recent Acquisitions: Athenaeum’s Collection of Artists’ Books, North Reading Room, 22 September - 4 November in La Jolla, CA. Includes work by David Wing, Derek Boshier, Scripps College Press, Richard Tuttle, Paul Johnson, Ed Ruscha, Christian Boltanski and Jerome Rothernberg The Neale M. Albert Collection of Miniature Designer Bindings at the Grolier Club in New York.. As part of its mission to promote the book arts, the Grolier Club in its 122-year history has mounted numerous exhibitions on both craft binding, and miniature books, but this is the first show of works which combine the two themes. This remarkable collection includes two hundred and fifty unique bindings for miniature books, each individually commissioned by the collector from binders and book artists such as Tim Ely, Roger Powell, Santiago Brugalla, Jean de Gonet, and many others throughout the world. Mr. Albert provided complete artistic freedom to the binders represented in the collection, setting no restrictions on either materials or theme. Following their inspiration, these binders have crafted diminutive contemporary artworks which stretch the limits of the binder’s art, achieving results at once poetic, whimsical and surprising. The collection, a long-term passion of Mr. Albert, is the world’s largest assemblage of miniature commissioned bindings, including examples from binders in America, Great Britain, and Europe. While many of the designers and craftspeople are well-known to bibliophiles, others were discovered by Mr. Albert as the reputation of his project grew. The exhibition is open free to the public Monday through Saturday, 10-5, in the second floor gallery. It runs through November 4. For more information about the exhibition, please click on grolierclub.org/ExMiniatureBin. Claire Van Vliet & The Janus Press: 50 Years: An exhibition of books and broadsides from the Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts 5 August through 31 October 2006. Bound Visions: Artists’ Books from 15 September - 5 November, co-curated by Ken Botnick & Robert Ebendorf at the Gallery of Craft Alliance. This show takes a fresh look at an art form that is at once commonplace and deeply ingrained in our culture. The Gallery is in the Central West End in St. Louis, MO. Dieter Roth: Unique Editions is a two-gallery exhibition in New York highlighting the originality of Roth’s editions and books, which have, until recently, been known primarily through underground channels. The two-part exhibition on the German-born, Swiss artist, who lived from 1930 -1998, is organized by Carolina Nitsch Contemporary Art and Josée Bienvenu Gallery in collaboration with Matthew Zucker. Roth’s editions of books, graphics and multiples exhibited here are one-of-a-kind works of art. Roth eschewed traditional artistic procedures, for example, by slicing up newspaper pages to make microbooks, including The Daily Mirror Book (1961), a miniscule book made out of pages from the British tabloid, The Daily Mirror. The artist also regularly made use of non-art mediums such as chocolate, cheese, sausage, and banana, to create unique, fugitive works. What distinguishes this exhibition is that at least two examples of each edition are shown together, demonstrating Roth’s exploration of difference within structures of sameness. The exhibition clearly demonstrates the variety of the artist’s editions, challenging commonly held ideas of what constitutes an edition. Like Ed Ruscha, Dieter Roth is a pioneer of the modern artist’s book. His first and most unique books include children’s books and hand-cut slot books dating from the mid-1950s, several years before Ruscha published his first title in 1963. Roth’s books and editions constituted the works to which he was most passionately committed; they were also the ones on which his original reputation was built in Europe during the late1960s and early 1970s; his first major museum shows were all retrospectives of books and editions. As Garry Garrels, Curator of Roth’s 2004 exhibition at MoMA writes, “Roth’s work developed over a fifty-year period with both a diversity and a logical coherence that establish him as one of the most singular and important artists of the second half of the century. Roth shifted from a foundation in classic modernism into the arena of contemporary art, or what has been sometimes called “post-modernism”. Testing fundamental issues of authorship and the notion of the self is fused with equally essential questions of the character and nature of art, the materials from which art may be made, as well as the hierarchies and distinctions between media.” Dieter Roth created the majority of the works in the exhibition in his own studio, seizing control of most aspects of the creative and publishing process. With this hands-on, do-it-yourself approach, Roth created unique books, prints, and editions challenging conventional genres; having influenced many artists over the last four decades, from Richard Hamilton to more recently Martin Kippenberger, Jason Rhoades and others, these works are arguably among his most significant contributions to art history. Coinciding with the two-gallery exhibition is the new publication “Artists’ Books by Dieter Roth” featuring a survey on the books made by Dieter Roth. In particular it lists all books from Roth’s Collected Works series. The book comes with a text by Dirk Dobke, Curator, Dieter Roth Foundation, and has approx. 400 color reproductions on 200 pages. Published by Matthew Zucker/Irving Zucker Art Books, distributed by D.A.P. , ISBN 978-0-9790321-0-3 / 0-9790321-0-5, $50.00. A limited edition of 30 copies with an original, signed drawing by Dieter Roth will be available. For more information, contact Carolina Nitsch at 212-463 0610 or Josée Bienvenu at 212-206 7990. Carolina Nitsch Contemporary Art Josée Bienvenu Gallery Guild of Book Workers 100th Anniversary Exhibition. palimpsest.stanford.edu/byorg/gbw/ This exhibition celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Guild of Book Workers and closes the most active quarter century in the history of the Guild. National traveling exhibitions became a regular occurrence every two to three years. For the retrospective, curated largely by Peter Verheyen, that meant finding representative works by a selection of the leading proponents of the craft, and providing a link to the present. Of the fifty-nine works two of the most significant works for the book arts are Richard Minsky’s Birds of North America and Hedi Kyle’s April Diary. In the end, 120 artists submitted 171 works, and 60 were juried into the show. The fully illustrated catalog brings together both the retrospective and contemporary halves of the Guild’s 100th anniversary exhibition. This is especially important as the two halves will only be on display together at the Grolier Club in New York City (September 20 -November 25), with only the exhibition of contemporary work traveling throughout the country until the end of 2007. You can, however, experience both exhibitions in the catalog which the Guild is pleased to offer at $32 (incl. s/h). The complete catalog, with ordering information, is now available online at the Guild’s website - palimpsest.stanford.edu/byorg/gbw/ For more information about the exhibit and ordering catalogs, contact the Exhibitions Chair, at exhibitions@guildofbookworkers.allmail.net In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000 at the Arthur Sackler Gallery-more than 80 key biblical artifacts, including the oldest known copy of the Book of Numbers and the earliest set of scriptures with full-page illustrations, The Bible created the Codex-which revolutionized the way people accessed information. This is in the Smithsonian for October. Ehon: The Artist and the Book in Japan from 20 October 2006- 4 February 2007. The exhibition is drawn from the Library’s collections and features over 200 Japanese illustrated books from the 8th century to the present day. Further information about the exhibition is available at: www.nypl.org/press/2006/ehonLL.cfm In conjunction with the exhibition, the Library will be hosting a symposium titled “The Japanese Illustrated Book: Continuity and Change,” to be held on October 25. It will feature curators, art historians, and practicing artists of the ehon tradition. The symposium is free; however registration is required and seating will be limited. Booklyn artist and curator Marshall Weber will moderate an artist panel that includes Booklyn artists Veronika Schaepers from Tokyo and Clement Tobias Lange from Hamburg. More information is available at: www.nypl.org/research/chss/ehon/index.html Ehon: the Artist and the Book in Japan, a lecture by Roger Keyes, curator will be presented at the NYPL at 6PM on Wednesday the 25th. Separate registration is required. For further information and an image, go to: www.nypl.org/research/calendar/eventdesc.cfm?id=2236. The Game of War, co-sponsored by the Fontaneda Society: Book Collectors of South Florida, will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. on October 19 at the Broward County Library’s Bienes Center for the Literary Arts. The exhibition is a collaborative effort of New World School of the Arts, University of Florida, Miami Dade College, the Bienes Center, and the Mitchell Wolfson Jr. Study Centre. A small, four-color printed Bienes Center exhibition catalog documenting the exhibition will be for sale for $15.00 on October 19, 2006.The exhibition of wartime propaganda, with about 50 items dating from the Boer War (1899-1902) to World War II (1939-1945) was originally curated by a team of 11 students from Miami Dade College and New World School of the Arts. It features a diverse collection of wartime propaganda, including books, toy, games, paintings, puzzles, puppets, posters, postcards, and advertisements, much of it instructional and aimed at children. The display visually expresses the evolution of societies under pressure from strong leadership in cultures dominated by fear and uncertainty. Showcased are satirical and disturbing objects such as caricatured puppets of Hitler and other high-ranking Nazis, an Italian poster advertising gas masks, and a selection of books from France, Czechoslovakia, the U.S., and Germany highlighting the effort to market war to children and adults. For the Broward Bienes Center event, the exhibit has been enhanced with items from the collection of the Broward County Library’s Bienes Center, Broward County Main Library, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301. jfindlay@browardlibrary.org The Fifth Annual Bright Hill Press North American Juried Book Arts Exhibition at Bright Hill Center’s Word & Image Gallery in New York’s Catskill Mountain Region from 8 - 31 October 2006. Additional information about Bright Hill may be found at www.brighthillpress.org Telling the Story: Artists Books 30 September - 10 December at the Noyes Museum, Lily Lake Road, Oceanville, NJ noyesmuseum.org/exhibitions.htm#current Carola Willbrand: Fadenheftung: Bucher und Objekte is the 60th birthday exhibition at Buchgalerie Mergemeier in Dusseldorf, Germany. Willbrand will be showing books and objects from 28 September - 9 November 2007. 50 Books/ 50 Covers at the San Francisco Center for the Book from 27 October - 1 December. Too Much Bliss: Twenty Years of Granary Books from 25 October - 13 December 2006 at Clark Humanities Museum, Claremont Colleges, Claremont, CA. A Throw of the Dice: Variations on Mallarmé’s Visual Poem at the Clark Humanities Museum, Claremont Colleges, 16 January- 8 March 2007. A Poetic Coup d’Etat: Mallarmé’s Influence on Artists’ Books at Denison Library, Scripps College, Claremont, CA from 16 January - 9 March 2007. Books in Black: A New Page, curated by Ruth E. Edwards, paying tribute to individuals of African ancestry who have made major contributions to society. 10 October - 31 January 2007. Presented by The National Museum of Catholic Art & History, 443 E. 115th St., New York City. Artists include Kamari Allah, Gail Becford, R. Gregory Christie, Valerie Deas, Brenda H. Falus, Ione M. Foote, Cleo Meri Abut Jarvis, Katrina Jeffries, Wanda Jones, Eremnise Landsman, Irene M. Mays, Andrea Ramsey, Sandra Redman, Cheryl Shackelton Hawkins, Shimoda, Dolores Taylor and Harriette Washington-Williams. Creating With Abandon: Process in the Artist’s Books of Angela Lorenz at The Fleet Library at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI from 23 October - 22 December 2006. Also at the John Hay Library at Brown University in Providence. Signed catalogs available for purchase. From My Mind’s Eye: Considerations in the Construction of Artists’ Books. 14 books created in an independent study by Libby Barrett at the University of Worcester, England in 2005, will be shown from October through December in the Albert Brenner Glickman Family Library at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, ME. libbybarrett@verizon.net Under Cover at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts (UICA) National Juried Show of artist books at the Monroe Ave. Gallery, 8 September - 10 November. For more information, www.uica.org. UICA, 41 Sheldon Blvd. SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49503-4227. 25 Years of the Day Moon Press September. Through October 28, 2006 at Wessel & Lieberman Booksellers. In Seatle, WA. Features the work of the Day Moon Press, one of Seattle’s longest operating letterpress enterprises. Day Moon Press was established in 1977 by Maura Shapley and Jack leNoir. Day Moon Press has provided offset and letterpress printing services to designers, artists, book arts groups, business people and community organizations for nearly thirty years. An illustrated catalogue of the exhibit and a limited edition broadside are available for sale. For more information, visit the exhibit at www.wlbooks.com/cgi-bin/wlb455.cgi/DayMoonPress.html Il Libro Come Opera d’Arte/The Book as a Work of Art at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Sala delle Colonne in Rome from 23 September through 19 November 2006. Catalog available (see artist book reviews) G. J. De Rook at Boekie Woekie in Amsterdam from 30 September - 29 October. Bread or Circuses is the first show the artist has done in 30 years. His last show in 1976 was at Other Books & So, which the editor of this journal saw in person. He found a job that took too much energy and stopped making art. Now he is showing some of the old work and some works he conceived in the 70s which he never realized until now. It should be a fascinating exhibition. At Boekie Woekie, Berenstraat 16, Amsterdam. San Francisco Center for the Book An amazing array of courses from theory to practice of all kinds, with stellar faculty members. www.sfcb.org CBA: The Center for Book Arts in New York City has a new catalog for Fall 2006. www.centerforbookarts.org Or e-mail: info@centerforbookats.org 2006 Schedule of Workshops/Garage Annex School www.GarageAnnexSchool.com. You may easily register online using a charge card, or you may download a PDF of the registration form and mail it with your check. Minnesota Center for Book Arts announces its new Fall 2006set of courses. www.mnbookarts.org Columbia College Center for Book & Paper Arts: www.colum.edu/centers/bpa/home.html Los Angeles Book Arts Center has a new schedule for classes and events. www.LABookArts.com Pyramid Atlantic, Silver Spring, MD Classes for Fall: www.pyramidatlanticartcenter.org Studio-on-the-Square, an intimate setting for learning. 32 Union Square East (at 16th St.), #310, New York City. Subway: 4,5,6, L, R to Union Square. Phone: (917)412-4134. www.IntimaPress.com Shakerag Workshops 2006: Hedi Kyle: Book Arts, at St. Andrew’s - Sewanee, 290 Quintard Rd., Sewanee, TN 37375. Classes at Back Space Book Arts, 595 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291. www.backspacebookarts.com Women’s Studio Workshop, Rosendale, NY. Visit our Online Summer Arts Institute catalog. There you will find all of the same information as in our print catalog, and will have an opportunity to view additional instructor images. We are very excited about the 2006 series of workshops. These intimate workshops are designed to offer experiences to support your artistic life through immersion in studio techniques as well as opportunities to develop the content of your work. Fifth Annual BABA Book Arts Jam at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, CA on 14 October from 10 - 4p.m. The Codex Foundation Book Fair and Symposium in Berkeley, CA: “The Fate of the Art. The Hand-Printed Book in the 21st Century.” The Book Fair will be held in the Pauley Ballroom on the campus of the University of California in Berkeley. The price of admission to th fair for the general public for both days is $15. A single-day ticket is $10. A two-day ticket for students (with I.D.) Is $5. The Book Fair will be limited to 100 exhibitors and vendors and will be held in the 10,000-square-foot Pauley Ballroom at the top of Telegraph Avenue on the campus of UC Berkeley. For more information on the Book Fair, www.codexfoundation.org/bookfair/bookfair.html. The Symposium, to be held 13 - 15 February, at the University Art Museum will have five major presenters and break-out sessions. For more information on the Symposium (limited to 200 people; registration is $200), go to www.codexfoudnation.org/bookfair/symposium.html. A publication that will include the Symposium’s papers, proceedings, and a juried selection of the finest books exhibited at the fair, is in planning stages. Peter Koch is the responsible creator of the Foundation and these events. 8th International Book Art Festival in Lodz, Poland, December 2006 The Book Art Group in Poland have done more than 100 exhibitions and published 15 different catalogs and a special booklet (for the 5th anniversary of the project), postcards, posters. More details can be found at www.bookart.pl. The opening will be at the Book Art Museum in Lodz in December 2006. Organizers of the festival: Polish Art Union Main Board, Polish Artist Union Bok Art Section, Book Art Museum in Lodz, Book Art and Paper Art Foundation. Co-organizers are art galleries. Author and curator of the project is: Alicia Slowikowska (phone: 48 502 734030 or e-mail: alicja.slowikowska@wp.pl. The Art Council and Organizing Committee: Jadwiga Tryzno, Janusz Tryzno, Joanna Stokowska, Ewa Latkowska, Danuta Wroblewska, Marek Gajewski, Radoslaw Nowakowski, Grzegorz Borkowski. Any book artist from any country can take part in the Competition. Up to four artist books can be submitted by one author/artist or a team. The books should be completed within the last six years (2000-2006) in any technique and belong to the author/artist, art gallery or press. If you are using texts not written by the artist, please obey general rules of copyright. The name of a writer (and a translator), the title (and the original title), name of a publisher and year of publication should be given. The entry form should be sent no later than 15 October 2006 to: Book Art Museum, Tymienieckiego 24, 90-349 Lodz, Poland. E-mail: bookart@book.art.pl For more details, regulations and entry forms, go to www.bookart.pl, www.zpap.org.pl, or www.owzpap.pl. The participation fee is 50 EU payable to: Alicja Slowikowska, Bank Pekao SA, I O. W Warszawie, Pl. Bankowy 2, 00-950 Warszawa, Poland. Call for Submissions for the 7th Annual Babylon Lexicon. Barrister’s Gallery, Hot Iron Press, and the New Orleans Bookfair are pleased to announce the 7th annual exhibition of Babylon Lexicon, a showcase of artists’ books, opening October 28, 2006, and running through the month of November. Babylon Lexicon celebrates the work of artists who use the bound book or printed narrative as a medium of visual expression. Babylon Lexicon serves as a forum, a visual library, and a source of motivation for participating artists and visitors alike. The exhibition, the sister event to the New Orleans Bookfair, promotes the awareness of the visual arts within the literary community while displaying original modes of bookbinding. Babylon Lexicon gladly accepts works of art tightly or loosely associated with the form of the traditional book. Works in the exhibit may include, but are not limited to: hand-bound constructions or reconfigurations of existing books, book related works that are sculptural in nature, collections of sequential imagery, performances about or that somehow create bookworks, or any variation thereon. All works received will be exhibited. The entry form is now on the web at www.hotironpress.com/bookfairbabylonlexicon.htm Mailed entries must be received no later than October 25th, 2006. Small Publishers Fair in London on 20 and 21 October. Readings and events on the 21st in the Brockway Room, Conway Hall, Red Lion Sq., London WC1. LAB, the London Artist’s Book Fair will be at the ICA, The Mall, London SW1Y 3 - 5 November 2006. Pyramid Atlantic Book Arts Fair and Conference 18 - 10 November 2006, NOAA Auditorium and Science Center, Silver Spring Metro Center, Silver Spring, MD. To registers, e-mail at info@pyramid-atlantic.org for info or call (301)608-9101. This is the ninth biennial Pyramid Atlantic Fair. Speakers are Clifton Meador, Pattie Belle Hastings, Ward Dietz. New York Art Book Fair is the first annual fair of contemporary art books, catalogs, artist books, ’zines, and art periodicals offered for sale by over 35 international publishers, booksellers, and antiquarian dealers from 17 - 19 November at 548 West 22nd St., New York City, the former Dia Foundation bookshop. This is presented by Printed Matter and a benefit preview is being held on Thursday 16 November. For more information, contact www.nyartbookfair.com, or www.printedmatter.org E/AB Fair 06 (editions/artists’ books) will be held at 261 Eleventh Ave. or 222 Twelfth Ave. Between 27th and 28th Streets. Admission is free for the dates: 2-5 November. There will be artonpaper talks featuring art world special guests. info@eabfair.com www.eabfair.comNEW BOOKWORKS
Richard Minsky on Meador’s article in JAB
RESOURCES
Foundation of Research Association Artists’ Publications
RESOURCES
Foundation of Research Association Artists’ Publications
Read Clifton Meador’s article now available.
www.bookarts.ua.edu
It includes:
EXHIBITIONS
New Publication: “Artists’ Books by Dieter Roth”
537 Greenwich Street, 2nd floor
New York, NY 10012
tel 212 463 0610
fax 212 463 0614
acnitsch@aol.com
www.artnet.com/cnitsch.html
529 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10012
tel 212 206 7990
fax 212 206 8494
info@joseebienvenu.com
www.joseebienvenugallery.comCourses
Opportunities
The theme this year is Time, dealing with book objects, book installations one-offs, author’s ooks, artist’s books, writer’s books, experimental and limited editions, fine press books, etc. The core of the project is an exhibition composed of works selected in a competition and made by the artists invited by the organizers. After the premiere (which usually took place in Warsaw), the exhibition is shown in many prestigious venues (art galleries and libraries) throughout Poland and abroad. . Carefully and unconventionally designed catalogs containing color plates, artists’ short biographies and various essays and reviews, useful information both for ordinary book lovers and those professionally dealing with books, help promote the idea of book art.BOOK FAIRS
