Introduction to the Artists’ Books

Abstract

In this issue where critics, book artists, archivists and poets participate in defining the problematics of the modern artist’s book, production and reading emerge as the key issues. Contemporary artists have modified traditional practices to such an extent that their readers are hard pressed to give a suitable definition of an illustrated book. By undergoing spatial displacements, text and image exchange or relinquish their respective identities. Many barriers have been crossed and many oppositions have disappeared, notably between handcrafted and industrial artifacts, between theoretical and creative productions, between unity and multiplicity of media. Text and image alternate, combine or wage war on one another. Their various alliances and rivalries give rise to a variety of questions discussed in this issue. Do text and image upstage or enhance each other? Does the shape of the book translate or subvert its message or meaning? Is the binding more than mere decoration and can its absence be revealing? In view of many radical changes, the artist’s book assumes multiple functions: aesthetic, political, cultural and social. Frequently it provides a form of protest against either institutionalism or elitism even though it can cater only to an elite. The act of reading becomes complex, the reader, curator or librarian can no longer perform routine tasks, but must participate on another level in the creation or production of the book.