Book Art

Books On Books Collection – Inscription: The Journal of Material Text, Issue 4 on Touch

Books On BooksLeave a comment

Inscription: The Journal of Material Text, Issue 4 on Touch
Simon Morris, Gill Partington and Adam Smyth (eds.)
Cased perfect bound paperback, printed paper cover. 313 x 313 mm. 120 pages. ISSN: 2634-7210. Acquired from Information as Material, 29 November 2023.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Different readers will come to different conclusions on whether Inscription #4 dedicated to the subject of touch evokes the level of tactility in Melville’s famous Chapter 94 “A Squeeze of the Hand”. But all can agree that they share a certain seminality. Like Herman Melville with his preliminaries to Moby Dick, the editors of Inscription lead their fourth issue with definitions and choice quotations on the subject of “touch”, as much a Leviathan subject as that of Melville’s novel. Where Melville merged scholarly apparatus with narrative fiction to create a novel literary work, Simon Morris, Gill Partington and Adam Smyth have merged photography, poetry, augmented reality and audio with academic and critical essays to create a novel form of scholarship.

Continue reading →

Books On Books Collection – Inscription: The Journal of Material Text, Issue 3 on Folds

Books On BooksLeave a comment

Now here’s a rare thing — a journal issue that requires a video to show the reader h0w to open it.

Continue reading →

Books On Books Collection – Megan N. Liberty

Books On BooksLeave a comment

Craft & Conceptual Art : Reshaping the Legacy of Artists’ Books (2023)

Craft and Conceptual Art: Reshaping the Legacy of Artists’ Books (2023)
Megan N. Liberty, ed.
Perfect bound, embossed and ink printed cover. H302 x W229 mm. 118 pages. Acquired from San Francisco Center for the Book (CODEX), 5 February 2024.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Megan Liberty’s traveling exhibition and catalogue serve two related purposes.

Continue reading →

Books On Books Collection – Emmy van Eijk

Books On BooksLeave a comment

Breaking Waves (2023)

Breaking Waves (2023)
Emmy van Eijk
Sculptural book. 140 x 140 x 40 mm (closed). Unique work. Acquired from Papertrail Handmade Books, 22 January 2024.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Breaking Waves spills over at least three categories of bookmaking: the bound blank book, designer bookbinding and sculpture. It would take a bold owner, however, to use the work in its first category. Fortunately that invitation quickly yields to another.

Continue reading →

Books On Books Collection – Camden Richards & Deborah Sibony

Books On BooksLeave a comment

Water, Calling (2021)

Water, Calling (2021)
Camden Richards & Deborah Sibony
Felt-covered, modified dragon-scale bound artists’ book, accompanied by audio equipment in custom box. Box: 262 x 262 x D170 mm. Book: H155 x W775 mm (closed). 110 pages. Edition of 15, of which this is #1. Acquired from the artists, 5 October 2022. Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with artists’ permission.

Colophon
“Water, Calling is a collaborative artist book which explores the cyclical and omnipresent relationship of water and the self, inviting the reader to reflect upon water as more than a commodity, but rather as life giving: spirit, flesh and soul. Because water is evidence of all who came before us, it is a foretelling of all who will be; through it we are in conversation with our ancestors, our descendants, and with earth herself. Water, Calling traces these existential threads through waterscapes of text, image and sound, extending an invitation to enter more fully into a dialogue composed of acts requiring active listening, contemplative reading and deep seeing with the hope of inspiring sacred reciprocity.”

Continue reading →

Books On Books Collection – Anne Moeglin-Delcroix

Books On BooksLeave a comment

Ambulo Ergo Sum: Nature As Experience in Artists’ Books (2015) 

Ambulo Ergo Sum: Nature As Experience in Artists’ Books (2015) 
Anne Moeglin-Delcroix and Richard Sadleir, trans.
Case bound, printed paper over board, with green endbands and matching doublures. H225 x W155 mm. 96 pages. Acquired from Book Depository, 21 August 2019.
Photo: Books On Books Collection.

Continue reading →

Books On Books Collection – Clotilde Olyff

Books On Books1 Comment

Lettered Typefaces and Alphabets by Clotilde Olyff (2000)

Lettered Typefaces and Alphabets by Clotilde Olyff (2000)
Jan Middendorp and Clotilde Olyff
Spiral-bound softcover of 78 pages and measuring H235 x W215 mm with a 28-page booklet measuring H165 x W115 mm bound in. Acquired from Klondyke Books, Almere, NL, 28 November 2023.
Photos: Books On Books Collection

This is the rare first edition as published by the late Jan Middendorp through his Druk Editions. It bears all the hallmarks of his eye for design — the black coated wired binding, the heavy embossed card cover, the use of color to underscore the text’s theme, the embedded booklet — all nevertheless centering and providing a platform for the art and design of Clotilde Olyff.

Continue reading →

Books On Books Collection – Klaus Peter Dencker

Books On BooksLeave a comment

Dero Abecedarius! (2001)

Dero Abecedarius! (2001)
Klaus Peter Dencker
Loose folios in heavy card box, title on card pasted on front box cover. H298 x W210 mm. 34 folios. Inkjet on BFK Rives 210 gram. Edition of 50, of which this is #30. Acquired from Red Fox Press, 3 January 2023.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Visual poems in an ABC sequence and inspired by the Statue of Liberty. Klaus Peter Dencker belongs in the vast company of notable visual poets and “alphabet-etishists”, too many to list here, but within the Books On Books Collection, there are Jim Avignon & Anja Lutz, Jim Clinefelter, Martín Gubbins, Bernard Heidsieck, Karl Kempton and Sam Winston, all of whom offer fruitful comparisons.

Continue reading →

Books On Books Collection – Margaret (Molly) Coy & Claire Bolton

Books On Books1 Comment

Handscapes (2016)

Handscapes (2016)
Margaret (Molly) Coy & Claire Bolton
Casebound, hand sewn and bound with doublures and two ribbon bookmarks. H260 x W310 x D30. 80 folios. Edition of 12, of which this is #9. Acquired from the artists, 19 October 2023.
Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with artists’ permission.

Continue reading →

Books On Books Collection – Claire Bolton

Books On BooksLeave a comment

Co-founder of The Alembic Press with David Bolton, Claire Bolton is an independent historian of printing and type as well as an aficionado of handmade paper. She recently donated works in shifu (a spun and woven paper textile) to the Bodleian. Although she disclaims classification as a book artist, her works in the Books On Books Collection — especially her collaboration with Molly Coy called Handscapes (2016) — argue with her persuasively.

A Little Black Book (1995)

A Little Black Book (1995)
Claire Bolton
Miniature, exposed-spine, stab-bound with red cotton thread to hard boards. H73 x W60 mm. 64 pages. Edition of 100, of which this is #4. Acquired from Oak Knoll Books, 11 October 2023.
Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with artist’s permission.

Continue reading →