What can a book be? How can the form of the book be used as an artwork in itself? Often published in small editions, or produced as one-of-a-kind objects, Artists’ Books came about as an alternative space to produce and/or disseminate ideas.
Generally speaking, Artists’ Books are interactive, portable, movable and easily shared but this genre is vast.
Here follows an all-too-brief selection of modern artists whom have reconfigured the mediavel invention:
Dieter Roth, ‘bok 4a’ (1961)
Lygia Clark, ‘Livro-obra’ (1964-1983)
Ed Ruscha, ‘Every building on the Sunset Strip (1966)
George Maciunas, ‘Fluxkit' (1966–67)
Augusto de Campos, Open (Abre), (1969)
Marcel Broodthaers, ‘Atlas’ (1975)
Sol Lewitt, ‘Brick Wall’ (1977)
Julije Knifer, ‘Hölderlin, Der Rhein’ (1984)
Yaacov Agam, ‘Rainbow Torah’, (1992)
Ettore Spalletti, ‘Salle de Fêtes’ (1998)
Peter Fischli and David Weiss, ‘Will happiness find me?’ (2003)
Christian Marclay, ‘Shuffle’ (2007)
Allan McCollum, ’The Book of Shapes’ (2010)
Sun Young Kang, ‘Memories Unfolded’ (2011)
Les Bicknell, ‘The Weight of Invisibility’ (2012)
Tauba Auerbach, ‘Stab/Ghost’ (2013)
Noriko Ambe, A Piece of Flat Globe Volume 34 (2013)
Valérie Buess, ‘Boycotting Its Original Content’ (2017)
Julie Johnstone, ‘The Sound of the Rain’ (2017)