Books by Artists: In Our Hands
by Cam Forbes
Recently I have become fascinated with the evolving world of artist books. As a painter and drawer I am interested in this genre as a way to develop a more diverse community of makers, reach a wider audience and allow for more intimate experiences with the visual arts.
A study in 2001 found that the average visitor to the Metropolitan Museum of Art looked at a painting for 27.2 seconds.i Even as an artist, I am often overwhelmed in crowded museum spaces and rush through the experience. If I am really interested (and comfortable) I might stay for longer, yet I rarely find time to visit an exhibition twice. It wasn’t until I worked as a gallery attendant in my youth that I discovered the relationship one builds with pieces of art when they are experienced day after day. Artist book multiples ii can be a way to have this repeat exposure in an intimate and personal way. One can look at them over and over, share them with friends and
even take them to bed.
Books, as sources of information and objects of knowledge, are at a critical point of change. The traditional movable type printing process, invented by Gutenburg in 1439, is cited as one of the three most important discoveries of the modern world, along with gunpowder and the compass iii. Printing technology allowed for widely accessible books and texts, setting in motion a way to share information both institutionally and subversively and thus allowing for the development ofthe modern world.
With the rise of electronic media, particularly e-readers and the internet, the traditional book publishing industry is now in flux. While the sales of mass printed books have gone down in recent years, this does not mean the end of the book as an object. Digital technology has allowedaccess to affordable printing. With a rise of independently published authors and books, there is much controversy. Some believe this accessibility creates a lack of professionalism and poor quality, while others believe that diverse and innovative authors, who would have never been published for marketing reasons, are now able to distribute their work.iv
The advent of digital publishing (both on paper and electronic) has also allowed for an expansion of the visual vocabulary of the book. For example, historically the styles of graphic novels and comic books were limited due to colour plating. Now graphic novels are extremely diverse in format and reflect a variety of production techniques. One only has to look at Canada’s leading graphic novel publishers, Drawn and Quarterly, to see the possibilities of this genre, and the current crossover between the popular-culture-driven graphic novel and the contemporary artworld.
The relationship between mass print production, graphic arts and fine arts has a long and robust history. For instance, the French post impressionist painters Les Nabis were inspired by Japanese woodcuts to create graphic paper-based works as well as paintings. Printed Matter, a New York organization, was founded in 1976 to promote publications made by artists. They envisioned, “…publications as democratizing artworks – inexpensive artworks – that could be consumed alongside the more traditional output of paintings, drawings, sculptures or photography…. not simply catalogues of pre-existing artworks, but rather works in their own right, ‘narratives’intended to be seen in a printed, bound, and widely disseminated format.”v
This vision is inspiring to me. It gets to the heart of what we are often missing by only experiencing art in gallery settings. Books and gallery installations are not an either/or situation. More than ever, artist books offer a medium to deepen aspects of our visual arts practice. They are an opportunity for collaboration between a variety of artists and creative thinkers. As a forum to expand on ideas visually and creatively, books can reach a wider public and engage viewers in a more ongoing relationship with art.
Cam Forbes is a painter and collaborative visual artist. Inspired by community, landscape, architecture and systems that define and link our spaces, her current paintings are based on observations from buildings along Winnipeg’s Assiniboine River.
i Jeffrey K. Smith and Lisa F. Smith, “Spending Time on Art”, Empirical Studies of the
Arts, Issue: Volume 19, Number 2, 2001, pages 229-236
ii For the purposes of this essay, I am discussing the artist book multiples as opposed to
bookworks that are one-of-a-kind art objects.
iii Wikipedia, “Works by Francis Bacon”, Novum Organum, Liber I, 1620. Adapted from the1863 translation: “These three have changed the whole face and state of the world; first in
literature, second in warfare, third in navigation; whence have followed innumerable changes, in
so much that no empire, no sect, no star seems to have exerted greater power and influence in
human affairs than these mechanical discoveries.”
iv David Vinjamuri, “Publishing Is Broken, We’re Drowning In Indie Books—and That’s a Good
Thing”, Forbes Magazine, 2012/08/05 (forbes.com)
v http://printedmatter.org/about/books.cfm