Descriptions of Literature by Gertrude Stein: Handwrittenby Erica Van Horn (2019)
Descriptions of Literature by Gertrude Stein: Handwrittenby Erica Van Horn (2019) Erica Van Horn Limited edition (unknown quantity). H157 x W146 mm. [144] pages. Acquired from Books about Art, 2 July 2025. Photos: Books On Books Collection.
Appropriation has its reasons. Gertrude Stein’s description of literature with which Erica Van Horn begins her scribal appropriation of sixty-six of Stein’s exacting and elusive apothegms is particularly appropriate. In the brief afterword, Van Horn explains that she has always been proud of her handwriting and loves writing by hand. So, this book “shows that the next and best is to be found out when there is pleasure in the reason” as its next folio shows: Van Horn’s pleasure in the reason is her pleasure in the reason.
Altered books as artists’ books present a seemingly endless variety.
Some may be the conversion of old books into just-legible new ones as in A Humument redacted with ink, paint, excision, and collage by Tom Phillips, Tree of Codes mechanically excised by Jonathan Safran Foer, or The Eaten Heart scalpeled into existence by Carolyn Thompson. They give us a new work to read page by page extracted page by page from the earlier work, which remains more or less (mainly less) present in our hands.
Others like Marcel Broodthaers’ page-by-page redactions of Mallarmé’s Un Coup de Dés by ink in one case and excision in another or Michalis Pichler’s similar reformatting and excision of the same poem in clear acrylic or Jérémie Bennequin’s page-by-page erasures of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past give us artists’ books that make the altered books illegible but still accessible page by page.
Other altered books as artists’ books are mainly one-off spatial objects that can be taken in in one go — not necessarily in just a glance but in the look or gaze given to a sculpture or painting. The ground up and encased works in Literaturwurst by Dieter Roth. The sealed, painted, nailed, and “hairied” works of Barton Lidice Beneš. The torn works of Buzz Spector. The sandblasted works of Guy Laramée. The glued and carved works of Brian Dettmer. The bullet-hole-ridden Point Blank by Kendell Geers. The pun-packed moebius-sculpted Red Infinity #4 by Doug Beube. They give us artists’ books that make the altered books illegible and inaccessible as books.
A Long Piece of String (2010 [1963]) William Wondriska Casebound, illustrated paper over boards, illustrated pasteboards. H185 x W290 mm. [44] pages. Acquired from Thrift Books, 25 May 2025. Photos: Books On Books Collection.
Books On Books 