Bookworks for the '90s - 1989 Artists' Books and Publications symposium

As everybody knows by the agency of now, books have been adopted by means of modern artists, as newspapers and oral language have also been adopted We can congratulate ourselves upon this development, but let us beware of an unlimited optimism that with a deeper analysis might vanish. greatest in quantity artists greeted the new art form with great trust Here you had a medium that was cheap, that allowed for greater contact with the public, that gave artists greater autonomy from critics, that would advance social responsibility among creators, that would enlarge infinitely the number of possible consumer and in the way that much more. . .

Time has passed and our situation is totally different We are no longer innocent Now it isn't enough to be an artist in order to exhibit bookworks. Now it isn't enough to bring forward books in order to affirm that they are bookworks.

- Ulises Carrion, "Bookworks Revisited"(1)

Ten years have passed since Ulises Carrion, the Mexican artist and critic greatest in quantity noted for his often reproduc essay "The fresh Art of Making Books,"(2) pointed on the outside that this new art was getting of advanced age fast. It was clear to Carrion by means of 1979 that bookmaking activities were taking upon many of the negative attributes of the gallery a whole that bookmaking initially hoped to set aside Carrion foresaw the appearance of "market mechanisms and a celebrity syndrome similar to those that typically oppres the art world."(3)

During the last decade these predictions largely have approach true. As Clive Phillpot, Library Director of the Museum of present Art, pointed out in his opening remarks as moderator at the "Artists' works and Publications" symposium organized and sponsored through Dia Art Foundation and Printed Matter at Dia's 155 Mercer road location, November 18, 1989, a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of of the initial excitement surrounding artists' publications is wearing not upon as the field becomes more like the galleries and museums to which artists' publishing was one time seen as a viable alternative.

Much in the same way that the institutionalized modernist photography community initially throw asideed postmodern critical photography by questioning its relationship to the accepted canon, the artists' work community has ignored bookworks by dint of artists who use the form more for political and critical statements than for commenting upon book structures. While the National Endowment for the Arts and various regional or regrant agencies do provide more [i]or[/i] less funding for artists' books, it is usually beneath the categories of photography, printmaking, or works upon paper. Artists' projects designed as production works receive significantly les support than bookworks intended for galleries or publishing that supports gallery work, similar as catalogs and promotional items. Since LINE II, a novel York City organization that dispensed novel York State Council on the Arts stocks for artists' publishing, dissolved in 1986 no direct grants are given specifically for artists' work production.

Despite this discouraging climate, above the last decade artists' publishing activities outside the admittedly slim official institutions devot to artists' volumes have been more challenging, heterogeneous and in strain with current theoretical debates. Private or semiprivate perils like RAW Books, Hanuman works Tanam Press, Wedge and a number of self-published throws have operated with a heightened critical awareness and a disregard for arbitrary boundaries.

The greatest in quantity notable institution dependent on public monies to support artists' publications has been Printed Matter. grounded in 1976 as a bookstore and publishing house, Printed Matter discontinued publishing in 1979 to focus upon book sales and distribution. [i]or[/i] part of to the other a succession of directors and staff, notably Ingrid Sischy, Nan Becker, Nancy Linn, Mike Glier, Alice Weiner, Susan Wheeler, Amy Hauft and greatest in quantity recently John Goodwin, Printed Matter has pursu the seemingly paradoxical goals of evenhanded support of artists' publications regardless of the artists' cre of stature and moving this mass of volumes out to an audience beyond the of recent origin York art scene. Until newly Printed Matter published giant catalogs with thousands of titles that by dint of sheer size, if nothing other implied an aesthetic pluralism little in evidence elsewhere in the art world.

In a 1985 interview with Printed Matter boardmembers, Anne Edgar asked, "Do you want Printed Matter to be bonny much the same place in five years?" Amy Baker-Sandback replied, "No. We faith we are a living thing, and that we will change and become greater [i]or[/i] larger and get smarter and make big mistakes. Hopefully we'll do all the right things and a two of wrong ones." Sischy's answer to the same question was simply "Ye I'd like to diocese the same place with a capital P"(4) The bookstore's novel move to a beautiful gallery space, subsidized by the agency of Dia, in the heart of Soho at 77 Wooster is a pace toward reaching a larger audience, on the contrary the move raises the question of by what mode much longer Printed Matter will be able to labor for artists on an equal basis. new catalogs have been smaller, with many of the marginal publications losing on the outside and some commercially-oriented work sneaking in. In its breadth and visibility Printed Matter contextualizes the field more than any other institution by the agency of cosponsoring the "Artists' Books and Publications" symposium with Dia, Printed Matter emphasized its desire to reach beyond the committed artists' work community.