Bookmarking Book Art – An Online Annotation of Germano Celant’s “Book as Artwork 1960/1972”

Where to go to compare and contrast the book art in Germano Celant’s pioneering “catalogue” of the Nigel Greenwood Gallery exhibition in London (1972) with that of the last half century?

Being a sort of small and portable catalogue and curator’s explanation for the gallery’s exhibition of ca. 300 works, Celant’s Book as Artwork is arranged chronologically and then alphabetically by artist. Presumably it was organized to match the exhibition’s organization (note the year 1967 in upper left of the photograph below and the distinctive Hidalgo cover, fifth from the left). With no photographs of the works, Book as Artwork gives no easily accessible visual sense of the 300 works in that exhibition. If we had that starting visual touchpoint, it would be easier to “place” the period or individual works in relation to book art from the 80’s onward.

Book as Artwork 1960 – 1972 – Exhibition Nigel Greenwood Gallery B, 1972.

Stephen Bury’s Artists’ Books: The Book as a Work of Art, 1963 – 2000 (2015) includes, by design, only a handful of the artists and works selected for the Celano/Greenwood exhibition.

Lucy Lippard’s Six Years: The dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to 1972 (1973, 1997) — a “bibliography into which are inserted a fragmented text, art works, documents, interviews, and symposia, arranged chronologically” — comes as close as one might hope in black-and-white print for a starting visual touchpoint. Lippard’s scope, however, ranges beyond book art, so the number illustrated limits systematic visual comparison and contrast with the book art of the ensuing decades.

Phaidon’s Artists Who Make Books (2017) provides good coverage and bridges the 1960s to the 21st century. The essays and descriptions bring the book art off the page and into the mind’s hands.

Best of all is Lynda Morris’s mini-memoir of her role in organizing the Celant/Greenwood exhibition.

Germano had sent Nigel [Greenwood] a wonderful, arty handwritten letter in pink capitals … on December 22, 1970:

DEAR PUBLISHER I AM PREPARING FOR A NEW INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE A COMPLETE ANTHOLOGY OF BOOKS MADE DIRECTLY BY ARTISTS. 

…Nigel had met Germano and had his telephone number in Genoa. I was sitting beside him when he phoned and proposed Book as Artwork exhibition for September 1972. Germano immediately agreed.

For sources of book art since the close of the Celant/Greenwood exhibition, we are spoilt for choice. Print and digital, image-rich aggregations of book art abound. We can return to the Phaidon and Bury books. We can turn to the well-illustrated print and online publications from the Centre for Fine Print Research at the University of Western England, online library collections such as the MassArt Library or Chicago’s School of the Art Institute, the websites of dealers such as Zucker Art Books displaying their wares, the dozens of websites for recurring book art fairs such as International Artist’s Books Triennial Vilnius (1997 – present) and CODEX International Book Fair (2007 – present) and community sites such as Artist Books 3.0. In the future, the Getty Research Institute‘s processing of the Steven Leiber Basement archive should also yield a rich source of images of works by the artists selected for the Celant/Greenwood exhibition. 

Present-day online access challenges Mallarmé’s dictum: ”Everything in the world exists to end up in a book.” Now it seems:

Everything in the world exists to end up on the web.

As far as that premise holds, this annotation and rearrangement of Celant’s bibliography — a “webliography” — offers an online starting point for connecting the book as artwork 1960/1972 with the book as artwork since. In providing some images of the works and links to images, the webliography offers anyone interested in book art the means to gain a more colored impression of the period’s book art.  That the primary impression is still black and white underscores the impact of xerographic technology on artists then as well as that of conceptualism driven by text or photograph. A webliographic approach also offers the opportunity to link the book art of the Celant exhibition with book-oriented Web-art or Net-art such as that of Amaranth Borsuk, Taeyoon Choi, Gunnar Green, Johannes Heldén, Bernhard Hopfengärtner and many others referenced below.

The reorganization here of Celant’s and Morris’s list — by artist alphabetically then chronologically — makes it easier to see the curators’ tendencies in selection as well as the influence of practical factors. The curators’ selection is obviously more Western, less Eastern European and even less Middle Eastern and Asian. Individuals’ prodigality surely played a role in whom and what was included. As Morris’s essay in the Phaidon book reveals, the geographical proximity of works available to be chosen played a role; so, too, the influence of the then-contemporary art network played a role (Atkinson, Beuys, Celant, Dwan, Greenwood, Hansjorg Mayer, Walther König, Maenz, Siegelaub, Sperone and the many other personalities of the Art-Language, Arte Povera, Conceptualist and Fluxus movements); and even the size of suitcases and availability of transport for bringing the artwork into the UK played a role. 

Generally the online links for the artists’/authors’ names lead to biographies, either in their official websites, Wikipedia or other news sources. Where an artist/author is listed multiple times, the links vary from instance to instance to provide a wider range of information about the individual and, in some cases (such as Dieter Rot’s), more images. The links behind the publishers’ names go to publishers’ websites or Wikipedia entries about them. The links that follow each entry resolve to images of the work, videos, audio, interviews or essays relevant to the work. For selected entries in Celant’s list, a compare/contrast takes the user to websites or works whose juxtaposition might shed light on the similarities or differences between the item in Celant’s list and book art of the subsequent decades.

The webliography also supports the haptically as well as digitally inclined. The links behind the titles of the works provide information on the nearest library location of the work (although not all titles could be located).  Be sure to enter your own location and refresh the results. 

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A “webliography” for

Germano Celant’s Books as Artworks 1960/1972

2nd edition, published by 6 Decades Books, 2010, and 1st edition published by Nigel Greenwood, Inc., 1972.

______. Manifestos. New York: Great Bear Pamphlets, 1966. [Contributors: Ay-OPhilip CornerRobert FilliouJohn GiornoAl HansenDick HigginsAllan KaprowAlison KnowlesNam June PaikDiter RotJerome RothenbergWolf VostellRobert Watts, and Emmett Williams] [Images] [Compare/contrast with Jessica Lack’s Why Are We ‘Artists’?: 100 World Art Manifestos, with Michael Pichler’s Publishing Manifestos and this review of Luca Lo Pinto’s exhibition “Publishing as an Artistic Toolbox, Vienna, 28 January 2018“]

Acconci, Vito. Transference: Roget’s Thesaurus. New York: 0 to 9 Books, 1969. [Image] [Video] [Essay] [Compare/contrast with Sam Winston’s Darwin, 2015]

Agnetti, Vincenzo. 14 Proposizioni sul Linguaggio Portatile. Turin: Sperone Editore, 1972. [originally published in Flash Art]

Andre, Barry, Huebler, Kosuth, LeWitt, Morris and Weiner.  The Xerox Book. New York: Seth Siegelaub, Jack Wendler, 1968. [Image] [Video, Jack Wendler] [Compare/contrast with Michael Mandiberg’s Print Wikipedia, 2015, and Paul Soulellis’ Library of the Printed Web, 2013 to present]

Andre, Carl. Seven Books of Notes and Poetry. New York: Dwan Gallery/Seth Siegelaub, 1969. [Images] [Essay on artist] [Video, Carl Andre] [Video, retrospective] [Compare/contrast with Sam Winston’s Dictionary Story Book, 2014]

Anselmo, Giovanni. Leggere. Turin: Sperone Editore, 1972. [Images] [Compare/contrast with Leilei Guo’s The Way, 2008]

Art & Language. Olivet Discourse. Paris: Templon Editeur, 1971. [Image]

Atkinson, Terry; Baldwin, Michael. Frameworks-Air Conditioning. Coventry: Art & Language Press, 1967. [Image] [Essay] [Video of Baldwin and Ramsden, Chicago symposium] [Compare/contrast with Taeyoon Choi’s “Zero & One”, 2017]

Art & Language – Poster for Air-Conditioning Show, 1971-1972
Colección MACBA. Consorcio MACBA. Depósito Philippe Méaille.

Atkinson, Terry; Baldwin, Michael. Hot-Warm-Cool-Cold. Coventry: Art & Language Press, 1967. [Image]

Atkinson, Terry; Baldwin, Michael. 22 Sentences: The French Army. Coventry: Precinct Publications, 1968. [Image]

Atkinson, Terry; Baldwin, Michael. Sunnybank. Coventry: Art & Language Press, 1969. [Image] [Compare/contrast with M.L. Van Nice’s Feast is in the Belly of the Beholder, 2010]

Atkinson, Terry; Baldwin, Michael. Theories of Ethics. New York: Art & Language Press, 1971. [Image]

Atkinson, Terry; Bainbridge, David; Baldwin, Michael; Harrison, Charles; Hurrell, Harold; Kosuth, Joseph. Art-Language. Cologne: Dumont Schauberg, 1972. [Essay] [Essay]

Image result for art & language: texte zum phänomen kunst und sprache [book]

Baldessari, John. Ingres and Other Parables. London: Studio International, 1972. [Image] [Also see Clare Lehmann’s entry on Baldessari in Artist’s Who Make Books, 2017, p.29]

Baldessari, John. Choosing: Green Beans. Milan: Edizioni Toselli, 1972. [Images][Compare/contrast with George Gessert’s Natural Selection, 1994]

Baldwin, Michael; Hurrell, Harold. Handbook to Ingot. New York, Coventry: Art & Language Press, 1971. [Image] [Video of Baldwin and Ramsden]

Barry, Robert. ”   “. Turin: Sperone Editore, 1970. [Images] [Essay] [Compare/contrast with Elisabeth Tonnard’s The Invisible Book, 2012]

Barry, Robert. Robert Barry 1969-71. Cologne: Gerd de Vries, 1971. [Compare/contrast with Elisabeth Tonnard’s A Dialogue in Useful Phrases, 2010]

Barry, Robert. Something Which Is…(30 Pieces as of 14th June 1971). Cologne: Paul Maenz, 1971. [Image]

Barry, Robert. Two Pieces. Turin: Sperone Editore, 1971.[Images]

Baruchello, Gianfranco. Mi viene in mente. Milan: Edizioni Galleria Schwarz, 1966. [Image] [Compare/contrast with Xu Bing’s Book from the Ground, 2014]

Becher, Bernd & Hilla. Anonyme Skulpturen. Dusseldorf: Städtische Kunsthalle Verlag, 1970.  [Image] [Video] [Compare/contrast with Anselm Kiefer’s The Rhine, 1992-2013, and Helen Malone’s Ten Books on Architecture, 2012]

Blake, John. John Blake : recent work, 1969-71 : a travelling exhibition arranged by the Circulation Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1972. [Image] [Compare/contrast with Anouk Kruithof’s The Daily Exhaustion, 2010]

Bochner, Mel;  Cherix, ChristopheWorking Drawings and Other Visible Things on Paper Not Necessarily Meant to Be Viewed As Art: Visual Arts Gallery, School of Visual Arts,December 2 – December 23, 1966 [New York]. Köln: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 1997. [Images] [Compare/contrast with Johanna Drucker’s All: the Books I Never Wrote or Wrote and Never Published, 1962 to 2017]

Bochner, Mel. The Singer Notes. New York: Self-published, 1968. [Images] [Compare/contrast Bochner’s notes and drawings resulting from conversations with scientists and engineers at Singer Labs in New Jersey with the Smithsonian Libraries’ online exhibition Science and the Artist’s Book, 1995]

Bochner, Mel. Misunderstandings (A Theory of Photography). New York: Multiples, Inc., 1970. [Images]

Bochner, Mel. Notes on Theory. Kingston, RI: University of Rhode Island, 1971. [Image]

Bochner, Mel. 11 Excerpts (1967 – 1970). Paris: Edition Sonnabend, 1972. [Images]

Boshier, Derek. 16 Situations. London: Idea Books, 1971. [Images] [Compare/contrast with Sascha Pohflepp’s and Chris Woebken’s Situated Sampling Set, 2017]

Derek Boshier, Situation 1 (from the ‘16 Situations’ series), photograph, 1971
See The Courtauld Institute blog.

Boyle, Mark. Journey to the Surface of the Earth. Stuttgart: Hansjorg Mayer, 1970. [Images and book by J.L. Locher] [Compare/contrast with New England Guild of Book Workers’ Geographies: New England Book Work, 2014]

Brecht, George. Fluxus No. 1 March 1964. New York: Valise eTRangLE, 1964. [Images]

Brecht, George. Chance-Imagery. New York: Something Else Press, 1966. [Images, including facsimiles] [Compare/contrast with Barb Tetenbaum’s and Julie Chen’s Artist’s Book Ideation Cards, 2013, and Paul Soulellis’s Chancebook #1 (Why Does It Hurt So Bad), 2013]

Brecht, George; Filliou, Robert. Games at the Cedilla, or the Cedilla Takes Off. New York: Something Else Press, 1967. [Images]

Brøgger, Stig. 21. marts 1969 = March 21 1969. Copenhagen: Jysk Kunstgalerie, 1969. [Second edition]

Broodthaers, Marcel. Image: un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard. Antwerp: Wide White Space, 1969. [Images] [Video] [Compare/contrast with Doug Beube’s Veil: Secret Wars of the C.I.A., 1996, J. Meejin Yoon’s Absence, 2004, Jonathan Safran Foer’s Tree of Codes, 2010, Pauline Rafal’s Windows, 2014, and James Bridle’s Every Redaction, 2015]

Double-page spread Marcel Broodthaers Image: Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard, 1969

Brouwn, Stanley. 100 This Way Brouwn Problems for Computer IBM Model 95. Cologne: Walther König, 1970. [Essay] [Compare/contrast with Julie Johnstone’s 2-20% | 20-2cm, 2014]

Brouwn, Stanley. La Paz. Schiedam: Stedelijk Museum, 1970.[Image] [Images]

Brouwn, Stanley. Tatwan. Munich: Aktionsraum, 1970. [Images] [More images] [Compare/contrast with Craig Mod’s and Dan Rubin’s Koya Bound: Eight Days on the Kumano Kodo, 2016]

Brouwn, Stanley. Durch Komische Strahlen Gehen. Monchengladbach: Stadtisches Museum, 1970. [Image] [Image]

Brouwn, Stanley. Steps. Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum, 1971. [Image] [See also Clare Lehmann’s entry in Artists Who Make Books, 2017, pp. 57-58][Compare/contrast with James Bridle’s All Roads Lead to X, 2015; compare/contrast with Yu-Wen Yu’s Boston to Taipei ,2013]

Brouwn, Stanley. Afghanistan-Zambia. Aachen: Gegenverkehr e.V., Zentrum für aktuelle Kunst, 1971. [Image & essay] [Compare/contrast with James Bridle’s Where the F**k Was I?, 2011}

Brouwn, Stanley. One Step (IX-100X). Brussels: Galerie MTL, 1971. [Essay]

Brouwn, Stanley. 1 Step – 100,000 Steps. Amsterdam: Art & Project, 1972. [Image]

Buren, Daniel. Limites Critique. Paris: Yvon Lambert, 1970. [Images] [Site]

Burgin, Victor. Work and Commentary. London: Latimer Press, 1972.  [Image] [Video] [Essay] [Exhibition 2012]

Burgy, Donald. Art Ideas for the Year 4000. Andover, MA: Addison Gallery of American Art, 1970. [Video] [Compare/contrast with Gunnar Green’s and Bernhard Hopfengärtner’s 75000 Futures, 2014]

Burgy, Donald. Contexts Completion Ideas. Krefeld: Schuring, 1971. [Compare/contrast with Praxis, Museum of Nonvisible Art, 2011]

Burn, Ian. Xerox Book. n.p.: Self-published, 1968. [Compare/contrast with Paul Soulellis’s Apparition of a distance, however near it may be, 2013]

Xerox Book (1968)
Ian Burn

Burn, Ian; Ramsden, Mel. Six Negatives. New York: Society for Theoretical Art, 1969. [Images] [Video of Baldwin and Ramsden]

Burn, Ian; Ramsden, Mel. Notes on Genealogies. Vol. 1, No. 2. New York: Art-Language, 1970. [Essay by Thomas Dreher]

From the National Gallery of Victoria
Melbourne, Australia

Burn, Ian; Cutforth, Roger; Ramsden, Mel. Proceedings. Vol. 1, No. 3. New York: Art-Language, 1970. [Essay by Jo Melvin]

Burn, Ian; Ramsden, Mel. Notes on Analyses (1). Coventry: Art-Language Press, 1970. [Image]

Burn, Ian; Ramsden, Mel. Stating and Nominating. New York: Art-Language, 1970.

Burn, Ian; Ramsden, Mel. The Grammarian. New York: Art-Language, 1970.[Image]

Byars, James Lee. 100,000 Minutes, or the Big Sample of Byars, or 1/2 an Autobiography, or the First Paper of Philosophy. Antwerp: Galerie Anny de Decker, 1969. [Images] [See also Clare Lehmann’s entry in Artists Who Make Books, 2017, pp. 75-77] [Compare/contrast with Johanna Drucker’s All: the Books I Never Wrote or Wrote and Never Published, 1962 to 2017]

Cage, John. Silence. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan Press, 1961. [Video] [Compare/contrast with Paul Soulellis’s 273 Relics for John Cage (A Likeness Is an Aid to Memory), 2011]

Cage, John. A Year from Monday. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan Press, 1967.

Cage, John. Notations. New York: Something Else Press, 1969.

Cage, John. Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Things Worse) Continued, Part Three. New York: Great Bear Pamphlets, 1967. [Video] [Compare/contrast with Robin Price’s As You Continue, 2011]

Carlini, Alessandro; Lang, Karl. Prozess Art, Situation Art. Berlin: Self-published, 1971.

Castillejo, Jose Luis. The Book of I’s. Constance: Castillejo, 1969. [Images] [Video] [Audio]

Castillejo, Jose Luis. The Book of Eighteen Letters. Madrid: Artes Graficas Luis Peres, 1972. [Images] [Audio]

Chiari, Giuseppe. Senza Titolo, 1971. Milan: Edizioni Toselli, 1972. [Images] [More images]

Collins, James. Revision and Prescription. New York: 98 Greene Street, 1971. [Image]

Corner, Philip. Popular Entertainments. New York: Great Bear Pamphlets, 1967. [Images] [Compare/contrast with Andrew Savage’s Savage Presents Jean Michel Jarre, 2011]

Costa, Claudio. Estratti da Evoluzione-Involuzione. Genova: Edizioni Masnata, 1972. [Image]

Croce, Giancarlo. a  a’b’  b. Rome: Edizioni Gap, 1971.[Compare/contrast with Abra: The Living Book by Kate Durbin, Amaranth Borsuk and Ian Hatcher (2014)]

a  a’b’  b (1971)
Giancarlo Croce
19.3 x 18.5 cm, 48 pages + cover
a  a’b’  b (1971)
Giancarlo Croce
19.3 x 18.5 cm, 48 pages + cover

Cunningham, Merce. Changes: Notes on Choreography. New York: Something Else Press, 1968.

Cutforth, Roger. The Empire State Building. New York: Art Press, 1969. [Image] [Compare/contrast with Helen Malone’s Ten Books on Architecture, 2012, and Mandy Brannan’s 30 St Marys Axe, 2015]

Cutforth, Roger. The Visual Book. London: Lisson Gallery, 1970. [Image]

Cutforth, Roger. CN/ET/ESB: The Non-Art Project. New York: Self-published, 1971. [Image] [Compare/contrast with Helen Malone’s Ten Books on Architecture, 2012]

Darboven, Hanne. Xerox Book. Hamburg: Self-published, 1969.

Darboven, Hanne. 6 Manuskriptie 69. Dusseldorf: Michelpresse, 1969. [Image]

Darboven, Hanne. Das Jahr. n.p.: n.p., 1971. [Unable to locate]

Dibbets, Jan. Robin Redbreast’s Territory: Sculpture 1969, April — June. New York, Cologne: Siegelaub/Walther König, 1969. [Images] [More images] [Compare/contrast with Stephen Collis’ and Jordan Scott’s Decomp, 2013; with Marinus van Dijke’s Eye, 2013]

Dibbets, Jan. Perspective Correction. New York: Multiples, Inc., 1970. [Image] [Essay] [Compare/contrast with Wendy Wahl’s Laid Open, 2017]

Dibbets, Jan. 3.12.1971 t/m 16.1.1972. Eindhoven: Van Abbemuseum, 1971.

Fabbris, Giorgio; Spiller, Giorgio. Assenza. Venice: Self-published.

Ferguson, Gerald. The Standard Corpus of Present Day English Language Usage Arranged by Word Length and Alphabetized within Word Length. Halifax: Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1970. [Images] [Compare/contrast with Masumi Shibata’s UED (Uncertain English Dictionary), 2008]

Filliou, Robert. Ample Food for Stupid Thought. New York: Something Else Press, 1965. [Images] [Compare/contrast with Black Page catalogue from the Laurence Sterne Trust, 2009]

Filliou, Robert. Hand Show. Villingen: Saba-Studio, 1967. [Image] [Additional images]

Filliou, Robert. A Filliou Sampler. New York: Great Bear Pamphlets, 1967. [Image]

Filliou, Robert. 14 Chansons et 1 Charade. Stuttgart: Hansjorg Mayer, 1968. [Images] [Additional images]

Filliou, Robert (with Beuys, Brecht, Cage, Iannone, Kaprow, Marcelle, Patterson and Rot). Teaching and Learning as Performing Arts. Cologne: Walther König, 1970. [Images] [Video]

Fisher, Joel. Double Camouflage. Mansfield, OH: Mansfield Fine Arts Center, 1970. [Image] [Additional images]

Flynt, Henry. Down with Art. New York: Fluxpress, 1968. [Image] [Additional images] [Compare/contrast with Doug Beube’s Breaking the Codex, 2011]

Fulton, Hamish. The Sweet Grass Hills of Montana as seen from the Milk River of Alberta. Turin: Sperone Editore, 1971. [Image] [Additional images] [Compare/contrast with Helen Douglas’s The Pond at Deuchar, 2013]

Fulton, Hamish. Hollow Lane. London: Situation Publications, 1972. [Images] [Additional images]  [Video] [Compare/contrast with Craig Mod’s and Dan Rubin’s Koya Bound: Eight Days on the Kumano Kodo, 2016]

Gilbert & George. A Message from the Sculptors Gilbert & George. London: Art for All, 1970. [Image] [Additional images] [Video]

Gilbert & George. To Be with Art is All We Ask. London: Art for All, 1970. [Image] [Additional images] [Video]

Gilbert & George. The Pencil on Paper Descriptive Works. London: Art for All, 1970. [Additional images]

Gilbert & George. A Day in the Life of Gilbert & George. London: Art for All, 1971. [Image] [Additional images]

Gilbert & George. Oh, The Grand Old Duke of York. Lucerne: Kunstmuseum Luzern, 1972. [Image] [Additional images]

Gilbert & George. Side by Side. Cologne: Walther König, 1972. [Images] [Compare/contrast with Abra: The Living Book by Kate Durbin, Amaranth Borsuk and Ian Hatcher (2014)]

Graham, Dan. End Moments. New York: Self-published, 1969. [Image]

Graham, Dan. Two Parallel Essays. New York: Multiple, Inc., 1970. [Image] [Compare/contrast with Tom Abba’s These Pages Fall Like Ash, 2013.

Graham, Dan. Dan Graham. London/Cologne: Lisson Gallery/Walther König, 1972.

Graham, Rodney. Works 1963-1969. Cologne/New York: Walther König, 1970.

Greco, Sandro. Saper Sorridere. n.p.: Self-published, 1971. [Article]

Gregory, Kathe; Landis, Marilyn; Lewis, Russell; Crane, David; Kahn, Scott. Stolen. New York: Colorcraft Lithographers/Dwan Gallery, 1970. [Images] [Compare/contrast with Andrew Savage’s Stolen White Goods, 2006, and then Cristina Garrido’s intervention White Goods, 2011]

Hamilton, Richard. Polaroid Portraits, Volume One. Stuttgart: Hansjorg Mayer, 1972. [Images] [Compare/contrast with Anouk Kruithof’s The Daily Exhaustion, 2010]

Harvey, Michael. White Papers. New York: Self-published, 1971. [Images] [Additional images]

Hemsworth, Gerard. South West Coast of England. Amsterdam, London: X-One/Nigel Greenwood, 1970.

Hidalgo, Juan. Viaje a Argel. Madrid: Zaj, 1967. [Images] [More images]

Higgins, Dick. What are Legends: A Clarification. Calais, ME: Bern Porter, 1960. [Images]

Higgins, Dick. Jefferson’s Birthday / Postface. New York: Something Else Press, 1964. [Images]

Higgins, Dick. A Book about Love & War & Death, Canto One. New York: Great Bear Pamphlets, 1965. [Images] [Video]

Higgins, Dick. Foew and ombwhnw : a grammar of the mind and a phenomenology of love and a science of the arts as seen by a stalker of the wild mushroom. New York: Something Else Press, 1969. [Images] [Video]

Huebler, Douglas. Durata Duration. Turin: Sperone Editore, 1970. [Images] [Video] [Compare/contrast with Andrew Eason’s Clock Watching, 2006]

Huebler, Douglas. Location Piece #2. New York: Multiple, Inc., 1970. [Images] [More images] [Video] [Compare/contrast with Barbara Tetenbaum’s Mining My Ántonia; Excerpts, Drawings, and a Map, 2012]

Hurrell, Harold. Fluidic DeviceCoventry: Art-Language, 1968. [Image]

Johnson, Ray. The Paper Snake. New York: Something Else Press, 1965. [Video of reprint edition]

Kaltenbach, Stephen. [Artforum Advertisements]. New York: Artforum, Issues dated November 1968 through December 1969. [Image] [Artslant interview]

Kaprow, Allan. Assemblage, Environments & Happenings. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1965. [Images] [Video]

Kaprow, Allan. Pose: Carrying Chairs through the City, Sitting Down Here and There, Photographed, Pix Left on Spot, Going On, March 22 1969-1970. New York: Multiples, Inc., 1970. [Images]

Knowles, Alison. By Alison Knowles. New York: Great Bear Pamphlets, 1965. [Images]

Kosuth, Joseph. Four Titled Abstracts [within S.M.S. Portfolio no. 3]. New York: Letter Edged in Black, Inc., 1968]. [Images] [More images]

Kosuth, Joseph. Function. Turin: Sperone Editore, 1970. [Images] [Additional images]

Kosuth, Joseph. Notebook on Water. New York: Multiples, Inc., 1970. [Images] [Additional images]

Kosuth, Joseph. The Sixth Investigation 1969, Proposition 14. Cologne: Gerd de Vries, 1971. [Image] [Video]

Kosuth, Joseph. The Sixth Investigation 1969, Proposition 2. Buenos Aires/Cologne: CAYC/Paul Maenz, 1971. [Video]

Lamelas, David. Publication. London: Nigel Greenwood, 1970. [Images] [Video]

Latham, John. Least Event/One-Second Drawings/Blind Work/24-Second Painting. London: Lisson Gallery, 1971. [Image] [Video] [Cover of the work indicates a publication date of 1970]

Law, Bob. 16 Drawings. London: Lisson Gallery, 1971. [Images] [Audio]

LeWitt, Sol. 49 Three Part Variations Using Three Different Kinds of Cubes, 1967-1968. Zurich: Editions Bischofberger, 1969. [Images] [Video]

LeWitt, Sol. Four Basic Kinds of Straight Lines. London: Studio International, 1969. [Images][Video] [Film][See also Clare Lehmann’s entry in Artists Who Make Books, 2017, pp. 171-172]

LeWitt, Sol. Schematic Drawings for Muybridge II, 1964. New York: Multiples, Inc., 1970. [Images] [Video, Veronica Roberts] [Video, Charles Haxthausen]

LeWitt, Sol. Four Basic Colours and their Combinations. London: Lisson Gallery, 1971. [Images]

Lole, Kevin; Smith, Paul. Handbook on Models. Coventry: Self-published, 1972. [Unable to locate a work of this title in WorldCat, but one with the title The Relativism of Emotion Handbook to the Model and same date of publication is described in Paul Robertson‘s “A Collection of Rare Art+ Language Books and Internal Documents – Many Unknown in Literature”, Gorebridge, Midlothian: Unoriginal Sins/Heart Fine Art, n.d.]

30 x 21cm, 50pp (printed recto only) plus printed card covers. Xerox inner pages as issued. The first and only edition of this theoretical work based on a physical model (electro-shock, photo beams and electronic buzzers) acting as metaphor for analogue, theoretical and representative models. Cover is very minority marked on the front and back cover has a faint diagonal crease else VG++. From the archive of David Rushton who believes only 10 or fewer of this book was published.

Long, Richard. Rain Dance. New York: Multiples, Inc., 1970. [Images]

Long, Richard. From Along a Riverbank. Amsterdam: Art & Project, 1971. [Images] [Compare/contrast with Helen Douglas’s Venetian Brocade, 2010]

Long, Richard. Two Sheepdogs Cross In and Out of the Passing Shadows the Clouds Drift Over the Hill with a Storm. London: Lisson Gallery, 1971. [Images][See also Clare Lehmann’s entry in Artists Who Make Books, 2017, pp. 175-176]

Maloney, Martin. Integuments. Brattleboro, VT: Press Work, 1969. [Image] [Video] [Additional outtakes]

Maloney, Martin. Fractionals. Brattleboro, VT: Press Work, 1970.

Maloney, Martin. Intervention (Five Days and Five Nights at the Galerie MTL). Brussels: Galerie MTL, 1970. [Images] [Compare/contrast with Sam Winston’s Darkness Visible, 2017]

Double-page spread from
Intervention (Five Days and Five Nights at the Galerie MTL), Martin Maloney
Brussels: Galerie MTL, 1970

Manzoni, Piero. The Life and Works. Glucksburg-Hamburg-Paris: Peterson Press, 1963. [Image] [Artspace essay] [Compare/contrast with Marc Straus’s White Heat exhibition, 2017]

Marchetti, Walter. Arpocrate Seduto sul Loto. Madrid: Zaj, 1968. [Images] [More images]

McLean, Bruce. King for a Day. London: Situation Publications, 1972. [Images]

Merz, Mario. Fibonacci 1202 Merz 1970. Turin: Sperone Editore, 1970. [Images] [Additional images] [Compare/contrast with Rutherford Witthus’ Anything is a Mirror, 2007, and Susan Happersett’s Box of Chaos, 2014]

Merz, Mario. Una somma reale e una somma di gente. Turin: Sperone Editore, 1972.

Morris, Robert. Continuous Project Altered Daily. New York: Multiples, Inc., 1970. [Images] [Additional images][Further additional images][Still more images]

Nauman, Bruce. Burning Small Fires.  San Francisco.: Self-published, 1968. [Images]

Display of Ed Ruscha’s Various Small Fires and Milk, 1964, at Pliure: La Part du Feu, 2 February – 12 April 2015, Paris. Photo by Robert Bolick. Reflected in the lower left hand corner is the display of Bruce Nauman’s Burning Small Fires; in the upper right corner, the film clip of Truffaut’s 1966 Fahrenheit 451; and in the upper left, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva’s La bibliotheque en feu, 1974.

Nauman, Bruce. Clea Rsky. n.p.: Self-published, 1969. [Images] [Additional images] [Compare/contrast with Anouk Kruithof’s Automagic, 2016]

Nauman, Bruce. Laair. New York: Multiples, Inc., 1970. [Images][Additional image]

N.E. Thing Company. A Portfolio of Piles. Vancouver: Self-published, 1968. [Images] [Compare/contrast with Alicia Martín’s Biografias, 2002 ongoing]

N.E. Thing Company. Trans VSI Connection NSCAD-NETCO. Halifax: Nova Scotia College of Art & Design, 1969. [Images] [Compare/contrast with Dennis Ashbaugh’s and William Gibson’s AGRIPPA: A Book of the Dead, 1992]

Oldenburg, Claes. Injun & Other Histories. New York: Great Bear Pamphlets, 1966. [Image]

Oldenburg, Claes. Store Days. New York: Something Else Press, 1968. [Images]

Oldenburg, Claes. Notes in Hand. London: Petersburg Press, 1971. [Images]

Ono, Yōko. Grapefruit. Tokyo, New York: Wunternaum, 1964. [Images]

©Yoko Ono

Oppenheim, Dennis. Flower Arrangement for Bruce Nauman. New York: Multiples, Inc., 1970.  [Images] [More images]

Paolini, Giulio. Cio che non ha limiti e che per sua stessa natura non ammette limiti di sorta. Turin: Self-published, 1968. [Image] [Another image] [More images]

Paolozzi, Eduardo. Metafisikal Translations. London: Kelpra Studios, 1962. [Images] [More images] [Compare/contrast with Francisco Prieto’s London 1827, 2001-13]

Paolozzi, Eduardo. ABBA ZABA. London: Hansjorg Mayer, 1970. [Image] [Images] [More images]

Penone, Giuseppe. Svolgere la Propria Pelle. Turin: Sperone Editore, 1971. [Image] [More images]

Phillips, Tom. A Humument. London: Tetrad Press, 1970. [Image] [More images] [Video] [Compare/contrast with Jonathan Safran Foer’s Tree of Codes, 2010]

Phillips, Tom. Trailer. Dusseldorf: Hanjorg Mayer, 1971. [Image]

Pilkington, Philip; Rushton, David; Lole, Kevin; Smith, Paul. Concerning the Paradigm of Art. Zurich: Editions Bischofberger, 1971. [Last author’s name corrected from “Paul” to “Peter”] [From Paul Robertson, “A Collection of Rare Art+ Language Books and Internal Documents – Many Unknown in Literature”, Gorebridge, Midlothian: Unoriginal Sins/Heart Fine Art, n.d.

“30 x 21cm, 16pp (recto only). White card covers – with offset title. A text published by Bischofberger from a theoretical document written by Kevin Lole, Philip Pilkington, David Rushton and Peter Smith (formerly Analytical Art and by this time fully regarded as members of Art & Language) which applied Thomas Kuhn’s theory of paradigm shift to art (the original theory by Kuhn being a view that revolutions in scientific thought only occurred when sufficient contrary evidence to the prevailing orthodoxy had mounted up and the original hypothesis could no longer explain the physical evidence emerging from empirical studies). It is worth noting that at this time Bischofberger bought a great deal of Art + Language material from the group and published other documents by them including some of the group’s rarest publications – storing many of the more three-dimensional works for later resale. Bischofberger did not print the books himself – rather Art and Language arranged design and publication in Coventry (for free using the University’s resources) and David Rushton drove the books over in a camper van to Switzerland (breaking down just on the edge of the city due to running out of petrol and having little money left, Rushton coasted the last mile down hill on an empty tank).

The limitations of these series of books are usually placed at c. 200 but Rushton remembers taking far fewer than that with him and this Analytical Art book was in fact only produced in 50 copies taken to Zurich plus a few retained by the artists in the UK.

That said this is one of ONLY 5 copies which were numbered in roman numerals (this one being III/V) and signed by ALL of the four writers in pencil on the first title page.”]

Pilkington, Philip; Rushton, David. Sample from a Topological Notebook. Coventry: Self-published, 1972. [Video] [From Paul Robertson, “A Collection of Rare Art+ Language Books and Internal Documents – Many Unknown in Literature”, Gorebridge, Midlothian: Unoriginal Sins/Heart Fine Art, n.d.

“30 x 21cm, 28pp carbon copy pages and printed cover. This was one of ONLY four copies made and published by the group – two copies being signed by David Rushton and Peter [sic] Pilkington and created from original typed sheets and two copies remaining unsigned and created (as here) using the carbon copies from the originals. These latter two examples were regarded by the group as artist’s proofs of the book. This is the only copy of this book available for sale anywhere as from the original four prices: one is in Paul Maenz’s archive and another two copies are in the hands of private collectors (who purchased them from ourselves). This copy is signed by David Rushton and Philip Pilkington and has been stamped on the inside front cover with the official Art & Language Stamp and also designated in blue ink “Second Copy”. Fine estate and clearly rare.”]

Pistoletto, Michelangelo. Le Ultime Parole Famose. Turin: Tipolito Piano, 1967. [Images] [Additional images]

Pistoletto, Michelangelo. L’uomo nero: Il lato insopportabile. Salerno: Rumma Editore, 1969. [Included in this anthology; searchable here] [Image] [Cover image] [Video] [Compare/contrast with Abigail Thomas’s Micro-Pages, 2010]

Prini, Emilio. Magnete. [included within Celant’s Arte Povera published by Praeger , 1969.] [Unable to verify this; an image of the work appears in Emanuela Nobile Mino’s article “Emilio Prini: Non creo, se è possibile”, Flash Art 50, 298 Dicembre 2011 – Gennaio 2012.]

Magnet / Photo Series / Group 2000 / September 1968 / (4 Phase) / Continuous Photographic Photographs Continuously Photographs Up to 20,000 Shots / Run Time work / 10 years / annual series of 20,000 elements / technique / black and white photography / leafs / 3 M / K 203 3 / each 30 x 40 / constant time setting diaphragm / fixed tilt stand / 1969 / camera used maintains the original value and adds to the artistic market.

Ramsden, Mel. The Black Book. [Unable to find a work under this title in WorldCat]

Ramsden, Mel. Abstract Relations. New York: Art-Language, 1968. Edition of 5. [Unable to find a work under this title in WorldCat; the 5 images on the left in this photograph from the Philippe Méaille private collection at MACBA come closest.]

‘ART & LANGUAGE Incomplet’ exhibition views, 2014. Photo: EOS-AF, Estudi Orpinell & Sánchez — Artesania Fotogràfica
100% Abstract (1968) Art & Language

Roehr, Peter. Ziffern: 10 Typomontagen 1965. Cologne: Gerd de Vries, 1970.

Ty-100 (1965)
Peter Roehr
Source: Artnet 29 October 2017

Rot, Dieter. BOK 2a. Reykjavik: forlag ed, 1960. [Images and essay] [Video, survey of Rot’s artist’s books]

Rot, Dieter. BOK 2b. Reykjavik: forlag ed, 1961. [Links in author’s name lead to image]

Rot, Dieter. BOK 3a. Reykjavik: forlag ed, 1961.

Rot, Dieter. BOK 3b. Reykjavik: forlag ed, 1961.

Rot, Dieter. BOK 3c. Reykjavik: forlag ed, 1961. [For images, see Clare Lehmann’s entry in Artists Who Make Books, 2017, p. 243]

Rot, Dieter. BOK 3d. Reykjavik: forlag ed, 1961. [Video link]

Rot, Dieter. BOK 4a. Reykjavik: forlag ed, 1961.

Rot, Dieter. BOK 5. Reykjavik: forlag ed, 1961.

Rot, Dieter. Dagblegt Bull No. 8. La Louvriere: A. Balthazar & P. Bury, 1961.

Rot, Dieter. Daily Mirror Book. Reykjavik: forlag ed, 1961. [For image, see Clare Lehmann’s entry in Artists Who Make Books, 2017, pp. 242-243][Compare/contrast with Vienna Romanée’s Data Sewing Project,  2011 to present]

Rot, Dieter. Mundunculum. Cologne: Dumont Schauberg, 1961.

Rot, Dieter. Book AC 1958-1964. New Haven: Ives-Sillman, 1964.

Rot, Dieter. Quadrat-blatt. Hilversum: Steendrukkerij de Jong, 1965.

Rot, Dieter. The Copley Book. Chicago: Bill and Norma Copley Foundation, 1965. [For image, see Clare Lehmann’s entry in Artists Who Make Books, 2017, pp. 243-245]

Rot, Dieter. Kölner Divisionen. Cologne: Galerie der Spiegel, 1965.

Rot, Dieter. Quick. Reykjavik: Self-published, 1965.

Rot, Dieter. Poetrie No. 1. Stuttgart: Hansjorg Mayer, 1966.

Rot, Dieter. Scheisse: Neue Gedichte von Dieter Rot. Stuttgart: Hansjorg Mayer, 1966.

Rot, Dieter. Die Blaue Flut. Stuttgart: Hansjorg Mayer, 1967.

Rot, Dieter. A Look into the Blue Tide, Part Two. New York: Great Bear Pamphlets, 1967.

Rot, Dieter. Siebdruckbilder (Screenprint Pictures 1-4). Stuttgart: Hansjorg Mayer, 1967.

Rot, Dieter. Mundunculum (enlarged and corrected). Cologne: Dumont Schauberg, 1967.

Rot, Dieter. Poetrie 2 (301 kleine Wolken in Memoriam big J und big G : ein fingierter Bericht aus der inneren Fremde)Stuttgart: Hansjorg Mayer, 1967.

Rot, Dieter. 80 Wolken, 1965-67. Stuttgart: E. Walther, 1967.

Rot, Dieter. Poeting 3/4 (Poeterei: Doppelnummer …). Stuttgart: Hansjorg Mayer, 1968.

Rot, Dieter. Poemetrie. Cologne: Divers Press, 1968. [Image] [Compare/contrast with Robert Kalka’s Medium, 1995]

Poemetrie (no. 4 of the review Poeterei) (1968)
19 transparent plastic bags; letterpress, printed on both sides, filled with vanilla pudding and urine; plastic cover, back cover with signed drawing a.p. (ed. of 30 + 3 a.p.)
© Dieter Roth

Rot, Dieter; Williams, Emmett. Still More Shit — A Supplement. New York: Something Else Press, 1968. [Still more images]

Rot, Dieter. Die Kakausener Gemeine. Stuttgart: Hansjorg Mayer, 1968. [Images]

Rot, Dieter. Die Gesamte Scheisse/The Complete Shit. Berlin: Rainer Verlag, 1968. [Images]

Rot, Dieter. 246 Little Clouds. New York: Something Else Press, 1968. [Images]

Rot, Dieter. Little Tentative Recipe. Stuttgart: Hansjorg Mayer, 1969. [Images]

Little Tentative Recipe (1969)
Approx 800 rotaprints in colour.
8.8 x 8.8 x 8.8 cm. Adhesive binding wooden box. 100 unique pieces numbered.
© Dieter Roth

Rot, Dieter. Poetrie 5 to 1st. London: Hansjorg Mayer, 1969. [Images]

Rot, Dieter. Icelandic Leather. Reykjavik: Self-published, 1970. [Unable to locate by this title; may be referring to Volume 5, Bok 3 of the Collected Works]

Rot, Dieter. Snow. Stuttgart, Reykjavik, London: Wasserpresse Mayer, 1970. [Images]

Rot, Dieter. Postkartenblock (Postcard Pad). Cologne, London, Hellnar: Hansjorg Mayer, 1971. [Images] [Compare/contrast with Frances Kiernan’s All the Prints I Have Made, 2010]

Rot, Dieter. 2 Problems of Our Time: An Essay. Reykjavik: Verlag Reykjavik, 1971.

Rot, Dieter. Franz Eggenschwiler: The Young Man, the Man, His Time, His Work (until today 2.5.71), An Essay. Stuttgart: Hansjorg Mayer, 1971. [Images]

Rot, Dieter. Ideogramme. Stuttgart: Hansjorg Mayer, 1971.

Rot, Dieter. Smaller Works Part 1. Stuttgart: Hansjorg Mayer, 1971. [Volume 18 of Gesammelte Werke]

Rot, Dieter. Smaller Works Part 2. Stuttgart: Hansjorg Mayer, 1971. [Volume 19 of Gesammelte Werke]

Rot, Dieter. Who Was Mozart. Reykjavik: Verlag Reykjavik, 1971.

Rot, Dieter. Who’s the One Who Doesn’t Know Who Mozart Was? Reykjavik: Verlag Reykjavik, 1971.

Rot, Dieter. A Question? Reykjavik: Verlag Reykjavik, 1971.

Ruppersberg, Allen. 23 Pieces. Los Angeles: Sunday Quality, 1969. [Images]

Ruppersberg, Allen. 24 Pieces. Los Angeles: Sunday Quality, 1970. [Images]

Ruscha, Ed. Twentysix Gasoline Stations. Los Angeles: Self-published, 1963. [Images] [Interview about the book][See also Clare Lehmann’s entry in Artists Who Make Books, 2017, pp. 251-252][Compare/contrast with Sowon Kwon’s Whiteowned Gasoline Stations, 2007, and Ginger Burrell’s Twentysix Charging Stations, 2014]

Ruscha, Ed. Various Small Fires. Los Angeles: Self-published, 1964. [Images]

Display of Ed Ruscha’s Various Small Fires and Milk, 1964, at Pliure: La Part du Feu, 2 February – 12 April 2015, Paris. Photo by Robert Bolick. Reflected in the lower left hand corner is the display of Bruce Nauman’s Burning Small Fires; in the upper right corner, the film clip of Truffaut’s 1966 Fahrenheit 451; and in the upper left, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva’s La bibliotheque en feu, 1974.

Ruscha, Ed. Every Building on the Sunset Strip. Los Angeles: Self-published, 1966. [Images] [Animation] [Compare/contrast with Every Item in the Artists’ Book Collection of the Banff Centre Paul D. Fleck Library & Archives, 2013 to the present, and James Bridle’s installation Every CCTV (CC), 2017, an extension of The Nor, 2014]

Ruscha, Ed. Thirtyfour Parking Lots. Los Angeles: Self-published, 1967. [Images] [Compare/contrast with James Bridle’s Drone Shadow Handbook, 2013]

Ruscha, Ed. Nine Swimming Pools (and a Broken Glass). Los Angeles: Self-Published, 1968.

Ruscha, Ed. Business Cards. Los Angeles: Heavy Industry Publications, 1968. [Images]

Ruscha, EdStains. Los Angeles: Heavy Industry Publications, 1969. [Images] [Compare/contrast with Ellie Ga’s Classification of a Spit Stain, 2009]

Ruscha, Ed. Crackers. Los Angeles: Heavy Industry Publications, 1969. [Images]

Ruscha, Ed. Real Estate Opportunities. Los Angeles: Self-published, 1970. [Images]

Ruscha, Ed. Babycakes with Weights. New York: Multiples, Inc., 1970. [Images][See also Clare Lehmann’s entry in Artists Who Make Books, 2017, pp. 252-253]

Ruscha, Ed. A Few Palm Trees. Los Angeles: Heavy Industry Publications, 1971. [Images]

Ruscha, Ed. Records. Los Angeles: Heavy Industry Publications, 1971. [Images]

Ruscha, Ed. Dutch Details. Deventer: Octopus Foundation, 1971. [Images] [Video, more images and essay][See also Clare Lehmann’s entry in Artists Who Make Books, 2017, pp. 254-255]

Sonnier, Keith. Object Situation Object. Cologne, New York: Walther König, 1970. [Images] [Official website] [Video]

Spoerri, DanielTopographie Anecdotée du Hasard. Paris: Galerie Lawrence, 1962. [Images]

Spoerri, Daniel. An Anecdoted Topography of Chance. New York: Something Else Press, 1966. [Images] [Compare/contrast with Rutherford Witthus’ Anything is a Mirror, 2007]

Spoerri, Daniel. The Mythological Travels.... New York: Something Else Press, 1970. [Images]

Staeck, Klaus. Pornographie. Giessen: Anabas Verlag, 1971. [Images] [Official website]

Stezaker, John. Works, 1969 – 1971. London: Nigel Greenwood, 1972. [Compare/contrast with Doug Beube’s Speechless Series, 2015, Noriko Ambe’s Artist Books Project, 2009-13, and Scott Hazard’s Photo Constructs, 2011]

Stezaker, John. “0(A-F)” and Five Inherent Predicables. London: Nigel Greenwood, 1972.

Stezaker, John. “A” and Six Predicable Concepts. London: Nigel Greenwood, 1972.

Tacha, Athena. Heredity Study I, 1970-71. Oberlin, OH: Self-published, 1971. [Images] [Compare/contrast with Jan Fairbairn-Edwards’ Family Geology, 2015]

Tacha, Athena. Heredity Study II, 1970-71. Oberlin, OH: Self-published, 1971. [Images]

Tacha, AthenaSpatial Disorientation Staircases and Ramps 1971-72. Oberlin, OH: Self-published, 1972. [Image]

Titus-Carmel, Gerard. Joaquin’s Love Affair. Paris: Ericard Editeur, 1971. [Images]

Tuttle, Richard. 2 Books 1969. New York: Betty Parsons Gallery, 1969. [Images]

Van Elk, Ger. The Well-Shaven Cactus/Paul Klee um den Fisch, 1926/The Co-Founder of the Word OK/The Discovery of Sardines/The Symmetry of Diplomacy. Amsterdam: Art & Project, 1972. [Images] [More images ][Video]

Vautier, Ben. Le Livre Total: 13 propositions pour une nouvelle perception et conscience de l’objet livre. Nice: Self-published, 1963. [Image]

Vautier, Ben. Écrit pour la gloire à force de tourner en rond et d’être jaloux. Nice: Self-published, 1970. [Images]

Venet, Bernar. Astrophysics [within S.M.S. Portfolio no. 6]. New York: Letter Edged in Black Press, 1968. [Images]

Venet, Bernar. Exploited Subjects: Stimulated Raman Effect. New York: Multiples, Inc., 1970. [Images]

Walther, Franz Erhard. Objekte, Benutzen. Cologne: Walther König, 1968. [Images]

Warhol, Andy. A. New York: Grove Press, 1968. [Images] [Compare/contrast with Warren Lehrer’s A Life in Books, 2013]

Warhol, Andy. Andy Warhol. Stockholm: Moderna Museet, 1968. [Images]

Weiner, Lawrence. Statements. New York: Siegelaub, 1968. [Images][See also Clare Lehmann’s entry in Artists Who Make Books, 2017, p. 291]

Weiner, Lawrence. Traces. Turin: Sperone Editore, 1970. [Actual title is Tracce Traces.] [Images] [Compare/contrast Michael Winkler’s Word Art/Art Words, 1985]]

Weiner, Lawrence. 10 Works. Paris: Yvon Lambert, 1971. [Images][See also Clare Lehmann’s entry in Artists Who Make Books, 2017, pp. 293-294]

Weiner, Lawrence. 10 Obras. Buenos Aires: CAYC, 1971. [Images]

Weiner, Lawrence. Causality Affected and/or Effected. New York: Leo Castelli, 1971. [Images][See also Clare Lehmann’s entry in Artists Who Make Books, 2017, pp. 292-293]

Weiner, Lawrence. Flowed. Halifax: Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1971. [Images] [More images] [Compare/contrast with Demosthenes Agrafiotis’ The Chinese Notebook, 2015.

Weiner, Lawrence. Misschien door Verwijddering [Perhaps when removed]. Amsterdam: Art & Project, 1971. [Images]

Weiner, Lawrence. Quizas Cuando Removido [Perhaps when removed]. Buenos Aires: CAYC, 1971. [Edition of the work pirated and edited with the permission of Art & Project] [Image]

Weiner, Lawrence. Having Been Done At. Turin: Sperone Editore, 1972. [Images]

Weiner, Lawrence. Green as well as Blue as well as Red. London: Jack Wendler, 1972. [Full title is And/Or: Green as well as blue as well as red.] [Images]

Young, La Monte. An Anthology of Chance Operations. New York: La Monte Young and Jackson MacLow, 1963. [Contributors: Brecht, George; Cage, John; De Maria, Walter; Flynt, Henry; Higgins, Dick; Johnson, Ray; MacLow, Jackson; Morris, Robert; Ono, Yoko; Paik, Nam June; Rot, Dieter; Williams, Emmett; Young, La Monte; et al.] [Images] [Young soundtracks and video]

Young, La Monte; Zazeela, Marian. Selected Writing. Munich: Friedrich Publishers, 1969. [Images]

βΟβσβΟβσβΟβσβΟβσβΟβσβΟβσβΟβσβΟβσβΟβσβΟβσβΟβσβΟβσβΟβσβΟβσβΟβσβΟβς

Books On Books Collection – Amaranth Borsuk

Between Page and Screen (2012)

Amaranth Borsuk and Brad Bouse Between the Page and Screen (2012) Now available from SpringGun Press: http://www.springgunpress.com/between...

Between Page and Screen (2012)
Amaranth Borsuk and Brad Bouse
Website: Accessed 16 May 2014. Book: Perfect bound, H178 x W179 mm, 44 pages. Acquired 16 May 2014.

Between Page and Screen chronicles a love affair between the characters, P and S…. The book has no words, only inscrutable black and white geometric patterns that — when seen by a webcam — conjure the written word. Reflected on screen, the reader sees himself with open book in hand, language springing alive and shape-shifting with each turn of the page. The story unfolds through a playful and cryptic exchange of letters between P and S as they struggle to define their relationship. Rich with innuendo, anagrams, etymological and sonic affinities between words, Between Page and Screen revels in language and the act of reading. Publisher’s description.

Within months of its publication, this digital work of book art received attention from Johanna Drucker during the Tate Britain workshop “Transforming Artist Books (February 2012 — August 2012)“:

The finitude of a bound codex quite literally defines its limits in analogue form. Even … gesturing outward to the world of lived and imagined phenomena that comprise a shared realm of cultural knowledge, the book’s dimensions remain linked to its physical form. But where is such a book located in the spatial-temporal realms of networked environments? And when is a work produced? … Borsuk and Bouse’s depends on a linked connection between quick response (QR) codes on pages and files stored online. The capacity to conjure stored material that projects itself in augmented screens onto the perceived world further erodes the boundaries of interior/exterior edge and periphery that were traditionally defining features of an aesthetic work.

Between Page and Screen has been displayed in exhibitions such as “The Art of Reading (18 November 2017 — 4 March 2018)” held at the Meermanno Museum in The Hague.  Unusually, at that exhibition, the art was not simply on display. Touching was allowed. Paul van Capelleveen, one of the curators organizing the show, insisted that each work be touchable. As a curator at the Dutch national library and advisor to the Meermanno, he felt strongly that the challenges of multimodal literacy cannot be understood “under glass”. Apparently, the market agrees: Between Page and Screen is now in its second edition.

Further Reading

Created for the November 2016 issue of The Bellingham Review, “Abra: The Kinetic Page” is a polymorphic tour de force – online prose poem, video, review of and homage to an installation at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, WA, in 2014 and a promotion of the artists’ book Abra: The Living Book by Kate Durbin, Amaranth Borsuk and Ian Hatcher, published in 2014.

borsuk-abra

From where did such work spring?  From a project called “Expanded Artists’ Books: Envisioning the Future of the Book”. Inspired by the advent of the iPad in 2009 and a symposium held in 2011 with Bob Stein, Director of the Institute for the Future of the Book, Steve Woodall, then Director of Columbia College’s Center for Book and Paper Arts, secured funding for that project from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2012. Woodall later explained the intent of the project in that same workshop where Johanna Drucker drew attention to Between Page and Screen:

In its first phase, our project takes existing artist books and creates iPad applications that both represent and contextualise them. The apps will be made available as free downloads. With the many millions of portable devices running on the iOS platform, the reasoning goes that an under-distributed and too-obscure art form can gain wider reach and achieve greater public awareness. We will soon expand to include Android and other platforms, but we expect to stay within the ‘walled garden’ world of the app, as opposed to the open range of a purely browser-based platform – we feel that the smoother functionality and higher-quality user experience of the app work well with the expanded practices of authorship and craft engagement that define artist books.

In the project’s second phase we shall commission media artists to create born-digital artist book/apps, which will then be reverse engineered as physical books, or created in parallel with them. Owing to the creative countercharge it represents, we find this to be an extremely interesting phase of the project from a research standpoint.

It is the dialogue between the physical books and their digital avatars that provides a great part of the value of this project. … it is in the artist’s studio, whether that be an electronic workstation or a more traditional book art studio, where the dialogue will play out in the creative process. Artists will explore ways in which expression can take both virtual and physical manifestations, examining the advantages of each and how the interplay between the two can be leveraged to provide a comprehensive and powerful expression. Woodall, “Artists, Writers and the Future of the Book“.

Abra was funded by a grant from this project, and with Abra, Borsuk, Durbin and Hatcher have manifestly “embodied” the sponsor’s intent as will become clear as you read. But pause first on Borsuk’s Bellingham Review piece.

Borsuk is an inspired writer, a gifted conceptual and haptic artist. “Abra: The Kinetic Page” starts as a reflection on experiencing Ann Hamilton’s installation the common SENSE with its exploration and celebration of “touch”:

As I walked through the upper galleries, where newsprint images of the undersides of birds and small animals fluttered in the HVAC breeze, I thought about the way the exhibit invited us to read space. Hamilton’s juxtapositions, like the lines of a poem, rely on the visitor to bridge the between with their body. We provide the spark that leaps across the enjambed line where the tale of Cock Robin meets a downy hide.

I’ve strayed from what I wanted to tell you because Hamilton’s work requires it. It is, as she says, a form of attention she seeks to share with her audience—she creates installations as spaces animated by the viewer. She sets up the conditions for an experience or interaction, and then withdraws, trusting the reader / viewer / visitor to make meaning. To limn the contours of the work with their own gentle touch.

○ [Now note here how she pivots to experiencing Abra.] 

As I trace my finger along Abra’s cover, whose title is also the incipit, silently voiced by the reader, which activates the text, I’m invoking not only the magic word that brings things to pass as they are spoken, I’m invoking Hamilton, whose “handseeing” videos of the late 90s and early 2000s turn the fingertip into an eye, uniting reading and writing in a gesture that links dactyl and stylus, through the digital that fits like pen in glove.

Whether read on screen or heard in the video, Borsuk’s words and sentences are tactile. Listen:

borsuk-abra

Click on the image above for the video “Abra: The Kinetic Page” by Amaranth Borsuk

“Abra: The Kinetic Page” explores and celebrates the “fundamental relationship between the eye, the brain, and, critically, the hand” as Woodall hoped. It is a work of art as much as Abra itself.

If its artistry were not enough, The Bellingham Review piece takes things a bit further than might have been expected from the “Expanded Artists’ Book” project. Interestingly, The Bellingham Review piece also addresses changes in the value chain that hybrid books and hybrid book art must confront. As originally set out by Harvard’s Michael Porter, the value chain is the “set of activities that a firm operating in a specific industry performs in order to deliver a valuable product or service for the market.” Marketing is one of those key activities in the set.  In The Bellingham Reviewan online and print literary magazine, Borsuk has found not only a platform for marketing Abra, but a platform from which to offer a complementary work of art in the form of a video. An example of “art for art’s sake” that finally makes sense to the business school.

The example does not end there.  Reflecting in the Tate Britain workshop on the “Expanded Artist Book” project, Woodall remarked on “digitally trained designers … being drawn back to the fundamental relationship between the eye, the brain, and, critically, the hand, … photographers … combining digital processes with nineteenth-century ‘alternative’ techniques. … [and] … the enthusiasm most contemporary graphic designers have for letterpress printing.” Web skills, videographics and the YouTube/Vimeo channels are just as remarkably important, which is clear not only from the Abra siteThe Bellingham Review piece but from this shorter directly promotional video:

Abra: A Living Text Video editing by Louis Mayo: http://www.viewbility.com Shot by Nathan Evers at the Digital Future Lab, University of Washington, Bothell: http://www.bothell.washington.edu/dig... Music: Graham Bole, "We Are One": http://grahambole.bandcamp.com/releases

Abra: A Living Text
Video editing by Louis Mayo
Shot by Nathan Evers at the Digital Future Lab, University of Washington, Bothell 
Music: Graham Bole, “We Are One”

Woodall did wonder whether the project’s prompting a dialogue of the physical and digital would have implications for practical matters such as distribution. While Abra has a paperback version as an entry in the traditional channels to market, that offers little insight into such implications — not like the insight realized by the combination of website, promotional video and The Bellingham Review piece.

In fact, from a perspective of craft and product, the experience promised by the videos and website is completely available only if you download the app and have a copy of the limited edition of the artists’ book. Constructed by Amy Rabas, the artists’ book allows you to insert an iPad in the back of the book creating a continuous touch-screen interface. This interactivity with the reader is one more aspect of the work that realizes perhaps more than was expected from the “Expanded Artists’ Book” project.

The book’s simple, mysterious foil-stamped cover. Created by book artist Amy Rabas. Courtesy of the authors.

The book’s simple, mysterious foil-stamped cover. Created by book artist Amy Rabas.
Courtesy of the artists.

The laser-cut openings coalesce into a pinhole that begins to reveal the iPad below.

The laser-cut openings coalesce into a pinhole that begins to reveal the iPad below.
Courtesy of the artists.

Readers can begin to interact with the iPad, on which the book’s text is mutating on its own.

Readers can begin to interact with the iPad, on which the book’s text is mutating on its own.
Courtesy of the artists.

At the end of the book, the iPad is revealed, and the reader can make Abra their own using the menu at the top of the screen to “Mutate,” “Erase,” “Graft,” “Prune,” and cast an unpredictable “Cadabra” spell.

At the end of the book, the iPad is revealed, and the reader can make Abra their own using the menu at the top of the screen to “Mutate,” “Erase,” “Graft,” “Prune,” and cast an unpredictable “Cadabra” spell.
Courtesy of the artists.

With its poems mutating on the iPad screen, Abra challenges the play with boundedness beyond the effect Drucker explained when describing Between Page and Screen in 2012. In its digital challenge to boundedness, Abra has much in common with Visual Editions’ reimagining of Marc Saporta’s Composition No. 1  in an app format. The original work was published by Le Seuil in 1962 and translated by Richard Howard for Simon & Schuster the next year.

Marc Saporta Composition No. 1 Translated by Richard Howard Visual Editions (2011)

Marc Saporta
Composition No. 1
Translated by Richard Howard
Redesigned and reissued by Visual Editions (2011). Photo: Books On Books Collection.

Marc Saporta Composition No. 1 (2011) Introduction by T.L. Uglow, Google Creative Lab Diagrams by Salvador Plascencia Designed by Universal Everything

Composition No. 1 (the app)
Marc Saporta, Composition No. 1 
Diagrams by Salvador Plascencia, Designed by Universal Everything (2011). Photo: Books On Books Collection.

Introduction by T.L. Uglow, Google Creative Lab (2011) Marc Saporta Composition No. 1

Introduction by T.L. Uglow, Google Creative Lab and YouTube (2011). Photo: Books On Books Collection.

The unboundedness of Abra also has echoes in Field, the book, visual art and installation all in one produced by Johannes Heldén about the same time as Abra and The Bellingham Review piece. Field‘s interactivity, however, relies on a floor touchscreen of 20 square meters, one effect of which is to remove words from pages projected on a screen and another to animate a series of sculptural mutations of the Eurasian Jackdaw. The ephemerality of an installation combined with the effective of personal interactivity intensifies the challenge and play of unboundedness.

Field (2015) Produced, and premiered, at HUMlab, Umeå University Johannes Heldén

Johannes Heldén
Field (2015)
Produced and premiered at HUMlab, Umeå University. Screenshot: Courtesy of the artist.

Which brings us full circle to the installation-inspired “Abra: The Kinetic Page” and the last aspect of Abra: The Living Text that carries it beyond the expectations of the “Expanded Artists’ Book”. The work began as a collaborative book-length poem between Borsuk and Durbin.  Writing separately using a series of constraints, then weaving their words together and editing them side by side, the authors found a new voice emerging from the conjoined poem, that of ABRA herself. To give a body to that voice, they created a series of conjoined costumes, each an avatar reflecting various aspects of the poems.

Abra Woodnymph

Abra Woodnymph
Courtesy of the artists.

When I hear sad tales of “The End of Books“, I think of these artists and authors and the distances between them – Borsuk in Washington State, Durbin in southern California, Hatcher in New York, Hamilton in Ohio, Rabas and Woodall in Illinois and Heldén in Sweden. Then I look at the distance between my finger and screen, between my hand and the copy of Borsuk’s Between Page and Screen lying on the table here.  Those sad tales fade before the palpable vibrancy of book art and the transformative effect of the digital.

Abra features in Anne Royston’s piece on the media-bending of book art today at the College Book Art Association’s site.

See also Borsuk’s “Books and Bodies“, Cuaderno Waldhuter, August 2020. Accessed 25 September 2020.

And finally, see Borsuk’s The Book (MIT Press, 2018).