JAB26 – JAB30 on this page, keep scrolling down.
JAB26
JAB26, fall 2009, offset printed on the Heidelberg GTO by BF with assistance from Maggie Puckett and Daniel Mellis–both are Print Production Fellows and graduate students in the MFA Interdisciplinary Book & Paper Program at the Center for Book and Paper, Columbia College Chicago. The paper is Mohawk Superfine.
Table of Contents
• When a Multiple Becomes a Book: Losing Artists & Photographs at MoMA Library
– Sheelagh Bevan
• Gutter Crossing: on Emily McVarish
– Kyle Schlesinger
• The Square
– Emily McVarish
• The Hybrid Book Experiment
– Amanda D’Amico & Michelle Wilson
• Guest
– an artist’s book by Amber Hares
• Context is King: The Democratic Multiple in a Digital Age
– Mary Tasillo
• Access & Closure by Tody Millman
Clifton Meador
• Book Production of Russian Avant-Garde Books 1912-1916
– Johanna Drucker
• Let Us Now Reproduce Famous Men & Women, the Mothers & Fathers that Begat Us
– Tate Shaw
• Emerging Artists & Awards + Received & Noted
– Brad Freeman
• Fog Behind the Eyes: An Essay on Reading [a poem in book form]
– April Sheridan
In this issue of JAB & the Future
Brad Freeman
This issue of JAB contains the most pages [50] ever published in JAB’s thirteen year history and is an indication of the continuing and rapid expansion of the field of artist books. There are more books being made by artists, more conferences being held, and there is an increase in the amount of substantive essays being written by serious scholars and artists. Seems like I’ve said this before and without being redundant I can confidently state that the growth of the AB World continues to excelerate (growing faster and better). In this past year I attended five artist book conferences—four in the US and one in Brazil.
The first ever Pan American artist book conference was held at the Universidad Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Belo Horizonte, Brazil November 16 - 20, 2009. Seminário Perspectivas do Livro de Artista was organized by Amir Cador and Maria do Campo Freitas of the Escola de Bela Artes at UFMG and they have generously given permission for JAB to publish lectures from the conference. JAB29 (spring 2011) will be dedicated to this conference. The lectures will be published in English and Portuguese as well as Spanish if space allows. Two new artists’ books by Martha Hellion and Paulo Bruscky will also be published JAB29. Some of the speakers included Felipe Ehrenberg (“Art and Politics”), Paulo Silveira (“The Critic and the Artist Book”), Martha Hellion (“Gesture and Performance in the Artist Book”), and Bernadette Panek (“The Artist Book and the Museum”). I delivered the inaugural address on “The Contemporary Artist Book” and the lecture “Editioned Artist Books” about my own ABs.
Four of the articles in JAB26 are derived from talks given at the other four conferences in the past year. At the first conference of the College Book Art Association (CBAA), held at the University of Iowa, Sheelagh Bevan read a variation of her essay “When a Multiple Becomes a Book: Losing Artists & Photographs at MoMA Library.” In February of this year Emily McVarish gave a talk on her new book The Square—published this year by Granary Books—at the second biannual CODEX conference and book fair in Berkeley. Mary Tasillo’s “Context is King: The Democratic Multiple in a Digital Age” was initially presented at the tenth biannual Pyramid Atlantic conference and book fair in Silver Spring, Maryland. And Johanna Drucker read her paper “Book Production of Russian Avant-Garde Books 1912-1916” at the Getty Research Institute’s conference The Book as Such in the Russian Avant-Garde in February.
In a continuation of JAB’s commitment to be a platform for original creative expression two artists’ books are inserted in JAB26—Amber Hares’s Guest (sewn into the center spread) was commissioned specifically for this issue; and April Sheridan’s Fog Behind the Eye: An Essay on Writing (attached to page 52) which was printed as part of the Printers’ Ball held at Columbia College Chicago in July.
Also in these pages, Kyle Schlesinger’s “Gutter Crossing: on Emily McVarish” takes a close look at the thoughtful and exquisitely wrought letterpress books of McVarish. In their essay The Hybrid Book Experiment Amanda D’Amico and Michelle Wilson summarize the conference and book fair held at the University of the Arts this past June. Access & Closure by Toby Millman and concerning her experiences as an American Jew in Palestinian East Jerusalem is reviewed by Clifton Meador. In another book review Tate Shaw examines the Rice University Press facsimile of Gelett Burgess’s Le Petit Journal des Refusées. And I have written about the works of William Snyder, Antonio Serna, and Sun Young Kang—each an emerging artist using publication arts as a primary medium.
Mary Jo Pauly
JAB26 cover
Artists & Photographs, Multiples, Inc. 1970
from Sheelagh Bevan's essay
"When a Multiple Becomes a Book: Losing Artists & Photographs at MoMA Library"
Photo John Wronn, Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Emily McVarish, Flicker, 2005, Granary Books, NYC
"Gutter Crossing: on Emily McVarish" by Kyle Schlesinger
Johanna Drucker, "Book Production of Russian Avant-Garde Books 1912-1916"
Amber Hares, Guest, 2009
an artist book sewn into the spine of JAB26
Martha Hellion (writing), Paulo Silveira (speaking/gesturing, and the audience–
Seminário Perspectivas do Livro de Artista, Escola de Bela Artes, UFMG,
Belo Horizonte, Brasil, November 20, 2009, photo–BF, pages 1 & 2 JAB26
to be contd.,
JAB27
JAB27, spring 2010, 36 pages, offset printed on the Heidelberg GTO at the Center for Book and Paper Arts, Columbia College Chicago by BF with assistance from Daniel Mellis, graduate student and Print Production Fellow in the MFA Interdisciplinary Book and Paper Program, CBPA/CCC.
JAB27 includes an inserted artist book by the Dutch artist Elizabeth Tonnard titled Mood Potential, printed in duotones.
JAB27 was guest edited by Tate Shaw and the issue is dedicated to photo-bookworks.
From Shaw's Editor's Note:
"JAB27 is intended to connect with the Photo-Bookworks Symposium at Visual Studies Workshop (VSW), Rochester, NY on July 1-3, 2010, an event that recognizes the 40th Anniversary of Visual Studies Workshop, founded in 1969 by Nathan Lyons."
Table of Contents
• Cover, Inside Cover Everything 2008, 2009
– Chris George
• Editor's Note
– Tate Shaw
• Artistic Control and the Means of Production
– Brad Freeman
• Display as Discourse
– Nathan Lyons
• Milkweed Seeds
– François Deschamps
• Visual and Verbal Experience in Photo-bookworks
– David Schultz
• Text, Image, Writing, Reading: Kristen Merola's Things I Wanted to Tell You
– Aaron Cohick
• Weighted Praise: Phil Zimmermann's Sanctus Sonorensis
– CJ Mace
• Which Cloud?: Elisabeth Tonnard's Mood Potential
– Chris Burnett
• • • • •
JAB27 includes one artist book
Elisabeth Tonnard, Mood Potential, 2010
• • • • •
Chris George
JAB22 cover
Elisabeth Tonnard, Mood Potential, 2010
two consecutive turns of her inserted artist book in JAB27
François Deschamps
organizing his books in a space from
personal to political and from funny to sad
Nathan Lyons
two (of four) page spreads of his photographs in JAB27
Nathan Lyons, detail
JAB28
JAB28, fall 2010, offset printed on the Heidelberg GTO at the Center for Book and Paper Arts (CBPA), Columbia College Chicago by BF with assistance from the Print Production Fellows Kathi Beste, Kaitlin Kostus, and Jordan Knecht. The cover is silkscreen printed by Sonnenzimmer.
JAB28 is a special issue on artist book distribution edited by April Sheridan.
Table of Contents
• Letters from the Editors
– Brad Freeman & April Sheridan
translated by Skye Enyeart-Rust
• Shifting Artist Book Distribution Models – Brandon Graham
• Portrait of the Artist as Young Book Makers
– Julie Cloutier and Claire Nereim
– Printmaker Agata Michalowska
– Center for Book Technology-Jonathon Krohn
– Jon Rafman
– Books Received JAB28
• • • • •
Le livre d'artiste et son articulation à la pratique contemporaine, de 1980 à nos jours The Artist Book & Its Relationship to Contemporary Practices
Océane Delleaux
first paragraph:
The historiography of the artist’s book demonstrates similarities between artists’ books and contemporary art movements and art making practices, especially in the period from the 1960s to the1980s. Just to name a few are the works of: Johanna Drucker (The Century of Artists’ Books, 1995), Stephen Bury and Marcus Campbell (Artists’ Books: The Book as a Work of Art, 1963-1995, 1995) and Anne Moeglin-Delcroix’s thesis (Esthétique du livre d’artiste, 1960-1980, 1997). Today, the artist’s book offers new perspectives and is more topical than ever. In this context, it adopts various supporting publications (reviews, albums, journals, cards, calendars, comics, forms, catalogs) while still lending itself to other artists’ publications (posters, CDs, multiples) and other more comprehensive works. The purpose of this article is thus to analyze the methods of distribution and the kinds of exchanges that artist book makers have borrowed from contemporary aesthetic practice, whose borders have expanded.
L’historiographie du livre d’artiste a établi les correspondances de ce type d’édition avec les pratiques et les mouvements qui lui sont contemporains, en particulier dans la période allant des années soixante aux années quatre-vingt. Il suffit de citer en particulier les travaux de Johanna Drucker (The Century of Artists’ Books 1995), de Stephen Bury et Marcus Campbell (Artists’ Books : The Book as a Work of Art, 1963-1995 1995) ainsi que la thèse d’Anne Moeglin-Delcroix (Esthétique du livre d’artiste, 1960-1980) publiée en 1997. Aujourd’hui, le livre d’artiste est plus que jamais d’actualité et offre de nouvelles perspectives. Dans ce contexte, il adopte non seulement des supports toujours variés (revue, album, journal, fiche, calendrier, bande-dessinée, fiche, catalogue) mais s’articule encore à d’autres éditions d’artistes (posters, cédéroms, multiples) et à d’autres œuvres plus globales. L’objet de cet article sera donc d’analyser les modes de diffusion et les types d’économies empruntés par le livre d’artiste actuel au sein de propositions esthétiques contemporaines de plus en plus ouvertes.
• • • • •
A Little Book of Boekie Woekie is a book project produced as an insert in JAB28. It is sewn into the spine at the center spread. It was offset printed on the Heidelberg GTO at CBPA. The design and print production are by Kathi Beste, Kaitlin Kostus, and Jordan Knecht under the direction of Brad Freeman. Beste and Kostus are Print Production Fellows and graduate students in the Book and Paper MFA program at Columbia College Chicago. Knecht is an undergraduate at Hampshire College focusing on book arts and printmaking and currently at CCC for one year.
• • • • •
Sonnenzimmer
JAB28 cover
"Le livre d'artiste et son articulation à la pratique contemporaine, de 1980 à nos jours"
"The Artist Book & Its Relationship to Contemporary Practices"
"Shifting Artist Book Distribution Models"
Brandon Graham
excerpt from Graham's essay:
Printed Matter was established in New York City, in 1976, as a for-profit alternative art space. It quickly became the preeminent force for distributing, evangelizing, and fostering the understanding and appreciation for artists’ books and other printed ephemera — such as mail art and zines. Printed Matter was envisioned, by its founders, as a necessary inoculation against what was ailing the traditional gallery system; a cold, intellectual, and expensive industry that catered to wealthy collectors and was largely inaccessible and intentionally uninviting to the average viewer. Because Printed Matter planted its flag so forcefully and has been so often written about, it serves as a useful touchstone for the distribution strategies that have developed since.
A Little Book of Boekie Woekie
hard cover version
A Little Book of Boekie Woekie
JAB29
JAB29, the BRAZIL JAB, spring 2011, offset printed on the Heidelberg GTO (eine farben) at the Center for Book and Paper Arts, Columbia College Chicago in March/April, 2011.
Printed by Kathi Beste, Kaitlin Kostus, Jordan Knecht, and Brad Freeman. Beste & Kostus are Print Production Fellows and graduate students in the Department of Interdisciplinary Arts Book & Paper MFA Program at CPBA. Knecht is an intern from Hampshire College.
Beste designed the JAB29 Art Envelope. Knecht letterpress printed them on a Vandercook at CBPA.
Digital files were imageset at CBPA on the Agfa Avantra 25.
The fonts are Remontoire and Graficz from PsyOps.
The paper is Mohawk Superfine Softwhite.
Designed by BF and Kathi Beste.
• • • • •
JAB29 is the Brazil JAB because four of the five essays were written by Brazilian artist/scholars. The essays are based on talks given during the conference "Perspectives of the Artist's Book," held at the School of Fine Arts of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Belo Horizonte, Brazil in late 2009, and published here for the first time. The conference organizers were Maria do Carmo de Freitas Veneroso and Amir Brito Cador. The essays were published in Portuguese and English. Alice Monsell was the translator.
• • • • •
Table of Contents
• Brazil JAB
– Brad Freeman
• PERSPECTIVAS DO LIVRO DE ARTISTA: UM RELATO
– Maria do Carmo de Freitas Veneroso
• PERSPECTIVES OF THE ARTIST’S BOOK: A REPORT
– Maria do Carmo de Freitas Veneroso
• A CRÍTICA E O LIVRO DE ARTISTA
– Paulo Silveira
• CRITICISM AND THE ARTIST’S BOOK – Paulo Silveira
• ESTUDO SOBRE O ESPAÇO PARATEXTUAL NO LIVRO DE ARTISTA
– Daisy Turrer
• A STUDY ON THE PARATEXTUAL SPACE IN ARTISTS’ BOOKS
– Daisy Turrer
• O SIGNO INFANTIL EM LIVROS DE ARTISTA
– Amir Brito Cadôr
• THE CHILDREN’S SIGN IN ARTISTS’ BOOKS
– Amir Brito Cadôr
• BOOK FAIRS–PARIS & BEYOND
– Catarina Figueiredo Cardoso
• BOOKS RECEIVED
• COLOPHON
Felipe Ehrenberg
JAB29 cover
Paulo Silveira
"Criticism and the Artist Book"
After a relatively long period of methodically studying artists’ books we are able to gather a collection of comments about the critical activity on the artist’s book as a specific product or category of contemporary art. Visual arts are both the starting and end point of our observations, although we can still move through other fields such as literature, cinema, aesthetics, sociology, and economics. Our object of analysis is slippery, and we’ll contemplate it from the point of view of art history and theory. For these reflections, criticism is only possible because history and theory precede it.
Intermedia artworks are a recognized part of contemporary art requiring a new language of criticism rather than borrowing from other fields such as painting and sculpture. The symbolic landscape in the second half of the twentieth century added new skills (or qualifications) to artists. These enhanced competencies are supported by the historical vanguard that preceded them, leading artists to a high degree of training and education, ranging from a renewed theoretical understanding of the status of the project to the mastery of digital systems in the workshop. ( . . . )
"Book-Work" Exhibition - UFMG Library, 2009
Felipe Ehrenberg and his work MICROemergencies MACRObibliophilics
photo–BF
Cirando, Paulo Silveira
The + is a desert, Hélio Fervenza
Collection of Minas Gerais Writers
photo–Lucas Dupin
Martha Hellion
"Book-Work" Exhibition - UFMG Library, 2009
photo–Lucas Dupin
Performance directed by Martha Hellion
with the balloon Libro alado de Martha
photo–BF
Paulo Bruscky
Intersigne III, n.d.
Wlademir Dias Pino and João Felício dos Santos
A marca e o logotipo brasileiros / The Brazilian Brand and Logotype, n.d.
photo–BF
Greetings from Luan & Kelly
in Belo Horizonte
JAB29 Art Envelope
with Martha Hellion's artist book Belo Horizonte
and BF's Perspectivas do Livro Artista - annotated conference schedule
attached to JAB29 inside back cover
JAB30
JAB30, fall 2011, was offset printed (CMYK throughout) on the Heidelberg GTO (eine farben) at the Center for Book and Paper Arts / Columbia College Chicago by Brad Freeman, Jenna Rodriguez, and Claire Sammons. Rodriguez and Sammons are Print Production Fellows and graduate students in the Interdisciplinary MFA in Book and Paper at CCC. The paper is Mohawk Superfine.
The cover, printed in duotone is by James Prez with a little design assist by BF.
The inside cover is from Mirror Box, a book by Ulises Carrión with rubber stamped boxers on soft paper, published by Stempelpaats, Amsterdam, 1979.
Table of Contents
• JAB30 and the Future
– Brad Freeman
• Ulises Carrión: Other Books and So
– Gerrit Jan de Rook
• Embodying Bookness: Reading as Material Art
– Manuel Portela
• A Woman's World: The Artist's Books of Isabel Baraona
– Catarina Figueiredo Cardoso
• Isabel Baraona: Four Recent Books
– Karol Shewmaker
• Artist's Pages
– Kevin Riordan
• Weproductions: Forty Years and Counting
– Brandon Graham
• Nothing In Its Place: The Blank Page
– Karen Wirth
• Book Reviews
– Karol Shewmaker
• Slicing the Page: The Story of Champion Books
– Ted Hopkins
• Books Received
– Brad Freeman and Claire Sammons
• • • • •
Eric Carlson's artist book &&& is inserted in an envelope on the inside back cover.
• • • • •
James Prez
JAB30 cover
excerpt from "Ulises Carrión: Other Books and So"
by Gerrit Jan de Rook
With the arrival of Ulises Carrión (1941-1989) in Amsterdam, around 1972, the Netherlands was an exciting artist richer. Unfortunately, here in the Netherlands, too few people are aware of that. While Carrión had but a small group of admirers here, and only a handful of Dutch libraries have his books in their collections, international interest in this artist continues to be considerable. Carrión's major theoretical work, The New Art of Making Books (1975), was published in at least five languages, including a recent Greek edition. Several of his artist’s books have been reprinted in Switzerland. In Mexico, he caused a furor as that country's first conceptual artist. The wide-ranging interest in Carrión's work is thanks not only to his great enthusiasm and the many languages he spoke, but also to his continual activities in various countries to draw attention to the importance of artists’ books and mail art.
Ulises Carrión, Mirror Box, 1979
inside cover JAB30
Other Books and So Archive, Amsterdam, 1978
photo–Michael Gibb
Karol Shewmaker's essay
"Isabel Baraona: Four Recent Books"
Isabel Baraona, Diário, 2011
four consecutive page spreads