Books On Books Collection – Sarah Maker

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Within Every Room There is an Echo of the First (2018)

A stack of triangular pyramids made of textured cards, displaying different colors and patterns, set against a dark background.
A small, folded piece of paper or booklet with a textured surface, resting on a dark background.
A geometric sculpture made of stacked square pages in varying shades of brown and gray, forming a pyramidal shape with a solid base.
A top view of a paper object resembling a miniature pyramid, made from folded paper with a glossy texture on one side, resting on a dark surface.

Within Every Room There is an Echo of the First (2018)
Sarah Maker
Diagonally halved box, painted-paper over millboard, paste paper. H65 x W65 x D65 (closed) mm, W730 (extended diagonally) mm. [45] panels Unique. Acquired from Ink and Awl, Seattle, US, 10 December 2025.
Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with permission of the artist.

This small sculptural artist’s book that enacts its title is an engineered accordion with architectural pencil drawings on paste paper. Every aspect is remarkable. The millboard “cover” is a diagonally halved cube that forms the “corner” of the room from which its echoes will unfold. The accordion spine consists of folded tabs into which the pages are pasted. The pages have been shaped so that as the book is opened (the top page being pulled by its tab), they curve against each other like artichoke leaves and then spread as the angled spine pleats push them outwards.

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Books On Books Collection – Emory Douglas

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Reparations (2010)

Close-up of a small, handmade book with the name 'Emory Douglas' printed in red and a decorative black pattern at the bottom. The book is tied with a piece of string.

Reparations (2010)
Emory Douglas
Cover enclosing leporello. Cover: H102 x W105 mm. Leporello: H89 x W95 mm (closed); W380 mm (open). [4] panels.Edition of 100, of which this is #45. Acquired from the San Francisco Center for the Book, 30 June 2025.
Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with permission of the publisher.

Open book with a textured cover displaying the title 'REPARATIONS' by Emory Douglas, detailing its publication and production information.

“Emory Douglas is renowned for his iconic representations of the Black Panther Party through his work as the Party’s Minister of Culture. For decades, he communicated the power and charisma of the movement through his compelling straightforward graphic style. … The imagery for this edition was initially a painting by Mr. Douglas’ which was then translated into a 2 color, letterpress graphic. The pages of the book are a one-sided, accordion fold piece. The folded cover is made of Amate bark with hand-spun hemp and silk thread and letterpress printed in 2 colors with interior colophon page attached””–San Francisco Center for the Book

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Bookmarking Book Art – Dave Dyment

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An artistic installation by Xu Bing titled 'Book from the Sky,' featuring an open book with text and two wooden boxes beside it. The background is plain white.

Its curatorial element makes Dave Dyment’s Artists’ Books and Multiples site an excellent resource for lovers of book art. Its existence also slyly highlights the recursive nature of his own bookwork. Book art is inherently self-referential. Be it the newspaper, a Kubrick film, a Ruscha work, a Beatles album, pop singles, TV series, photos or crossovers among media — all media constitute Dyment’s palette, brush, canvas, armature, chisel, pen, pencil, camera, sound recorder, surface and raw material for his own book art.

Books On Books Collection – Kara Walker

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Freedom: A fable: A curious interpretation of the wit of a negress in troubled times: with illustrations (1997)

Solid maroon hardcover book lying flat on a wooden surface.
A close-up view of the spine of a thick, red-covered book with embossed lettering.
An open book page featuring the title 'Freedom' by Kara Elizabeth Walker, with the subtitle 'A Curious Interpretation of the Wit of a Negress in Troubled Times' and presented by The Peter Norton Family. The design includes elegant typography with borders.

Freedom: A fable: A curious interpretation of the wit of a negress in troubled times: with illustrations (1997)
Kara Walker
Casebound, leather over boards, with plain doublures. H238 x W210 x D20 mm. [28] pages. Edition of 4000, published by the Peter Norton Christmas Project. Acquired from Los Angeles Modern Auction, 3 September 2025.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

The book as medium has played a minor adjunct role in Kara Walker’s art. Freedom: A fable … (1997) is one of the few exceptions. Its paper engineering lifts Walker’s signature silhouettes off the page physically, and the pop-up’s association with children’s books fits well with Walker’s uneasy blend of humor, horror, the individual and the stereotype. It is also the first of her three-dimensional works, which emerged more frequently around 2007-09 and rose to the monuments of Fons Americanus (2019) and Unmanned Drone (2025).

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Books On Books Collection – Ryuta Iida

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Silent Book, vol. 11

Artistic wooden sculpture resembling a geometrically abstract book, featuring angular planes and a smooth finish.

Silent Book, vol. 11 (2023)
Ryuta Iida
Altered book, camphor tree stump, and glue. H210 × W170 × D190 mm. Unique. Acquired from Fragile Books (Tokyo), 20 August 2024.
Photos: Above, courtesy of Fragile Books; below, Books On Books Collection.

The cover, door, table of contents, numbering, text, and endnotes are all filled with a series of information. I thought to stop and crystallize all the functions of the “book,” … I decided to crystallize it. It took the time to go through the hands of people, the old book that finally reached me, sealed on a pedestal, it is now ripe for its next role. (Artist’s statement)

“Crystallized” is not the first word that comes to mind when viewing and handling this eleventh in Ryuta Iida’s series Silent Book. Perhaps it does for the angled planes of the cut block of camphor wood, but for the coverless codex, folded, draped, moulded, carved, and sculpted come closer. Two names that might not spring to mind (but should) are Giambologna (Jean Boulogne) and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Like them, Iida offers us more than a single or primary vantage point from which to appreciate his work. Like Giambologna’s Abduction of a Sabine Woman (Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence) or Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne (Galleria Borghese, Rome) Silent Book must be circled and viewed in the round. The nine images below show the work turned right to left in stages.

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Books On Books Collection – Sunkyung Cho

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This is not a stone (2017)

This is not a stone (2017)
Sunkyung Cho
Exposed spine binding with cross weave filament tape, board-covered. 170 x 170 mm. Acquired from SpazioB**K, 6 April 2025.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Just as you think this will be another two-dimensional riff on René Magritte’s The Treachery of Images (aka Ceci n’est pas une pipe), the Chinese fold title page turns to reveal a cutout well with a stone at the bottom.

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Books On Books Collection – Anne Covell

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Anne Covell bridges the domains of book art and the book arts. The Record offers a skillfully constructed artist’s book that documents one of the first Trump Regime’s acts of depredation against history and truth. Historical Binding embodies her respect for the history of one of the book arts’ loveliest of crafts: stitching.

The Record (2017)

The Record (2017)
Anne Covell
Letterpress printed accordion on Masa paper with sumi wash and hand brayering. Housed in a 4-flap French paper enclosure with button and string ties. Enclosure: H165 x W110 x D6 mm. Book: H164 x W108 x D3 mm (closed); H327 x W1080 mm (open). 6.5 x 4.25 x .25 inches (closed), 13 x 42.5 x .25 inches (open) [36] panels. Edition of 60, of which this is #1. Acquired from the artist, 10 September 2025.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

On January 20th, 2017, Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States. That same day, the official White House website (whitehouse.gov) began the digital transition to archive and replace Obama’s policies with those of the new administration. Immediately, people began to notice that key issues such as health care, education, and immigration were nowhere to be found. Keyword searches for terms such as “climate change,” “LGBT,” and “civil rights” all returned 404 errors. Even more conspicuously, the Spanish-language version and the disabled-accessible version of the site were no longer available. Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library that has been archiving webpages since 1996, captured 167 snapshots of whitehouse.gov that day. This book records the last snapshots taken of Obama’s policies before they came down, the 404 errors that followed, as well as the Internet Archive timestamps for when the information was last available and when it disappeared. (Anne Covell).

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Books On Books Collection – Ivon Illmer

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Untitled (2015)
Ivon Illmer
Book-shaped wood sculpture. Top: Almond wood, H100 x W65 x D27 mm.Bottom: Poplar wood, H123 x W78 x D27 mm. Unique. Acquired from the artist, 10 October 2014.
Photos: Books On Books.

From Ivon Illmer’s website: Books preserve history and stories. Each book has its own individual story. This ranges from loving treatment to neglect to ostracism and even burning. The arc almost inevitably stretches from the fate of the book to the fate of man. Everyone should let their imagination run wild when touching the book sculptures and invent their own story for each book. Touching is important, the haptic experience flatters the sense of touch. You “grasp” the beauty of the wood. Imagining the book sculptures in the raw piece of wood is the art. Each piece is unique in shape, structure and grain. Accessed 14 October 2024.

Illmer categorizes his work as “book sculpture / book art”. The carvings from various woods primarily celebrate the shape and tactility of the closed codex. The similitude of the exterior, right down to the fore, top and bottom edges, belies the inaccessibility of the interior.

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Books On Books Collection – Werner Pfeiffer

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Drawn, Cut & Layered
Werner Pfeiffer
Plastic box containing illustrated pop-ups.Acquired from Toledo Museum of Art, 5 Jun 2017.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Werner Pfeiffer’s playfulness finds its way into viewers’ hands with this offering from his Toledo Museum of Art exhibition in 2015. His archives are housed at Vassar College.

With its structures and photographic representation of Pfeiffer’s other works of paper engineering, Drawn, Cut & Layered demonstrates his breadth in that sub-domain of book art. Not detectable in the box, though, are Pfeiffer’s white altered book objects, which formed the 2010 exhibition at Cornell University, entitled censor, villain, provocateur, experimenter, and demonstrates his scope in the sub-domain of altered books.

In kind, they were preceded by Barton Lidicé Beneš‘ The Life of Gandhi and Beauty Book (both 1973), M.L. Van Nice‘s Swiss Army Book (1990) Irwin Susskind‘s Book Faced Down – Embedded in Plaster (1999). In kind and whiteness, they were followed by Jonathan Callan‘s Zurbarán’s Color Plates (2011), Michael Mandiberg‘s Print Wikipedia (2015), and Lorenzo Perrone‘s Kintsugi(2018).

Further Reading and Viewing

“Hedi Kyle’s The Art of the Fold: How to Make Innovative Books and Paper Structures (2018)“. 24 September 2018. Bookmarking Book Art.

“Movables Now and Then“. 31 August 2024. Bookmarking Book Art.

“Lorenzo Perrone“. 8 September 2019. Books On Books Collection.

“Werner Pfeiffer and Anselm Kiefer“. 17 January 2015. Bookmarking Book Art.

“Kevin M. Steele“. 18 July 2023. Books On Books Collection.

“A ‘white book report’ on ‘The White Heat’ at MARC STRAUS“. 5 June 2017. Bookmarking Book Art.

“drawn, cut & layered: The Art of Werner Pfeiffer”
6 February to 3 May 2015
Toledo Museum of Art

Books On Books Collection – Barton Lidice Beneš

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Beauty Book; The Life of Gandhi; Untitled (1973)
Barton Lidice Beneš
Mixed media book constructions. Acquired from Rago Arts and Auction Center, 23 March 2021; Allan Stone Gallery, New York; artist.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Beauty Book (1973)
Barton Lidice Beneš
Altered book with human hair. H220 × W140 × D50 mm. Unique. Acquired from Rago Arts and Auction Center, 23 March 2021; Allan Stone Gallery, New York; artist.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Beauty Book consists of human hair wedged between anonymized painted book covers. The use of human hair in artists’ books is unsurprisingly common since it has appeared widely in art in general. Akiko Sakaizumi’s Female Sampler (2001), Diane Jacob’s The Black Hole (2003), Jenine Shereos’ Archive series (2006) and Leaf series (2011-17), Lucy May Schofield’s All the News That’s Fit to Print (20212), Karen Hardy’s Vellicate (2015) and Pull (2018), Sun Young Kang’s Hair (2018), Kellee Morgado’s Don’t Cut Your Hair It’s Beautiful (2020), Alisa Banks’ Afrocentric (????) and History of a People (2023), and Masoumeh Mohtadi’s The Sleep of Reason (2023).

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