JAB–Journal of Artists' Books

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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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