This is a continuation of the September 1st post.
As is common among book artists, I introduce viewers to my books on my website. The structure and images of most of my books are so entwined with the text that the book does not make sense if that text isn’t read. For Lily Yeh’s and my Rwanda book, I experimented with a video that included pauses allowing the viewer to read the text. The result was embarrassingly dull (and never posted). It jolted me into recognizing that the usual reason for introducing one’s book on a website is to present a glimpse, an arresting visual glimpse of the book. That does not include experiencing the book. I was reminded of that when I checked out the images and the handling video, on the Big Jump Press website, of Katie Baldwin’s and Sarah Bryant’s remarkable new artist book, Small Patches of Land. Although certainly presenting a visually beautiful book, the website does not in the least communicate the multifaceted experience of the book, one that requires that it be handled and read. (I knew that because I had the book.) So how can a book artist give actual access to experiencing one’s books?
There is nothing new about that discussion. See, for one of many examples, Anna Platz-Twelt’s essay on her Art Blog, “Artist Books: Display and Exhibition,” and online there are at present a number of archives that go beyond letting you know about the book to actually moving through it – digitally, of course. Johanna Drucker’s ArtistBooksOnLine project may not be defunct, but it was highly effective and influential in, among other things, promoting the value and need for that. The Cynthia Sears Artists’ Book Collection of Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, in its critically focused Artists’ Books’ Unshelved series, presents books in a holistic way, one that includes attention to the experience of moving through a book – its images, tactility, and text. Aaron Cohick and AB Gorham’s S Apostrophe S Artist Book Readings, an online series of book artists showing and reading their books, gets even closer to capturing the experience of an artist book. The virtual world also, of course, offers digital versions of some printed books, which allows the viewer to move through a book on their own. But nothing online of which I am aware deals with both the issue of the reader’s agency and the physiological experience of handling and reading a book.
When I submitted a book to the Madison CBAA conference exhibition, I included a note stipulating that the book be handled. But when I got to the exhibition, I found every book was labeled the same, “Please do not touch.” There were many books at the exhibition displayed with a spread that, although not giving the full experience of the book, was arresting, evocative, often visually tactile. Overall, I felt that that created a rather successful exhibition of art – visual art. However, my book did not contribute to that success because of the extent that the visual was mediated by other modalities, the temporal and the verbal. And my book was not alone.
That exhibition made me quick to agree to help with planning and designing an exhibition that would include artist books for the eighty-plus year-old organization American Color Print Society that in the past had just exhibited prints. The first suggestion that came up for exhibiting books was for a table, on which books would be placed, with chairs. I felt strongly, however, that the books needed to have the same presence as the art on the wall, which meant that they’d be on the same visual level – on pedestals or shelves – and not require a rather major interruption in the audience’s usual movement through the gallery by asking them to pull out a chair and sit down. Prospective book artists would be asked if they wanted a book handled and how it should be displayed. My thought was that the books to be handled would be in one area, with prominent signage above stating something to the effect of “These books require being handled and read.”
But it turned out, only two books, one being mine and one a zine, were clearly in that category. There were, however, quite a few artists who stated that their books could be handled “gently.” So, in the end, there was no big sign insisting on handling, but small tags next to each book, one “Please do not touch,” another “Please handle gently,” and, for two, “This book needs to be handled and read.” On opening night, I saw a few people touch books that had that “gently” tag, but they didn’t pick up and read the book. Due to the many available pedestals and the support of the installing team and the books that, despite their static pose, were visually remarkable, the artist books, I felt, did contribute to the success of the exhibition. But, again, it was an art exhibition and did not fully give expression to what artist books are.
Since that show, I’ve been mulling over the word “gently.” My original thought was that for those book artists their work had a preciousness that had more weight than the artists’ need to have their books experienced. But that is an oversimplification. Handling a book goes against accepted behavior at art exhibitions for both audience and artist. Also, of course, there’s the problem implicit in that handling. A museum has guards who make sure you don’t cross the line separating you from, protecting, the painting. There’s clarity to that. But when does handling a book cross the “gently” line?
Book fairs offer the opportunity for the viewer to be in the same physical space as the book and often the opportunity to handle the artist book. I approach them, however, with ambivalence. First, there are so many tables, so many books! There’s no way I can give them the attention I’d like. Also, occasionally and understandably, when a collector who may buy a book, is also there, I’m clearly in the way. But much more frequently, indeed routinely, my experience of handling a book is undercut by my awareness of the artist behind the table, watching, hoping I won’t suddenly just put the book down.
The Members Showcase at the CBAA 2024 conference was smaller, more intimate, than the usual book fair – and not focused on sales – but I still felt that discomfort with examining a work with the artist there watching. At Clif Meador’s table, I admired his new book, Endloser Krieg / Endless War, as he turned the pages, but I couldn’t help complaining that what I wanted to do is to sit down and read the book, taking my own time. So, he invited me to come sit, back behind the table, and read it. It was only then that I understood the arresting visual art of the book as part of complex powerful experience that, though ostensibly about the 17thcentury Thirty Years War, was in fact much more than that.
So, I am back to the issue of access to artist books and my feeling that focusing on artist books as simply a visual art form denies something essential about at least many artist books. Artist books are not just a theater of one, but a physical theater of one. A double curse.
Susan Viguers began her career as a scholar and teacher of literature and writing at the University of the Arts. Mid-career she transitioned from Liberal Arts into the College of Art and Design, began making artist books, and eventually, for nine years, directed the MFA Book Arts/Printmaking Program.
