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The Century of Artists' Books / Johanna Drucker
Books
REF.BC.1765
xxii, 377 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
2004
The first full-length study of the development of artists' books as a twentieth century art form. This work situates artists' books within the context of mainstream developments in the visual arts from Russian Futurism and Surrealism to Fluxus, Conceptual Art, to Postmodernism. Designed to raise critical and theoretical issues as well as provide a historical overview, Drucker explores more than two hundred individual books in relation to their structure, form, and conceptualization. Topics include the discussion of the poetics of the books, the book as metaphor, the conceptual space of the book, and books as narrative and non-narrative sequences. Each chapter uses these specific issues to examine the works of well-known book artists and publishers. The book provides a foundation for future work in the history and critical interpretation of artists' books, as well as offering a structure for teaching artists' books to practitioners, collectors, and curators.
Contents: The artist's book as idea and form -- Conceptualizing the book: precedents, poetics and philosophy -- Artists' books & the early 20th-century avant-garde -- The artist's book as a democratic multiple -- The artist's book as a rare and/or auratic object -- The codex and its variations -- Self-reflexivity in book form -- The book as a visual form -- Books as verbal exploration -- The book as sequence: narrative and non-narrative -- The artist's book as an agent of social change -- The book as conceptual space (performance and exhibition) -- The book as document -- Metaphor and form: the artist's book in the 20th century.