The quiet democracy of the contemporary artist’s book (or, why do artists make books?)

Bodman, Sarah L.

Abstract

Invited paper at Books That Fly Conference, University of Brighton, Faculty of Arts and Architecture.

As today’s discussions are related to the concept of the ‘artist’s book’ in the show Blood on Paper -
The Art of the Book and Tom Lubbock’s review in The Independent, I would say that those were not examples of artists’ publishing in terms of democratic works. Yes, the books were impressive, large and attention grabbing, and were obviously of their time, but for me, they were not what
artists’ books are about. The show comprised mostly of very well known (predominantly male) artists, some of whom had produced only one artist’s book (‘produced’ in the loosest term, as these books were mostly printed and bound by a studio publisher not by the artist), and made for
a high-end art market, not for general public consumption. Most had no relation to the books made by artists today – these were made for money, not the message.

Full paper can be downloaded from: http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/flybooks08/sbtalkb.pdf

Speakers:
Peter Seddon (Host)
Sarah Bodman
Gerald Fleuss
Professor George Hardie
Mark Pawson
Susan Skarsgard
Sam Winston

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: Books that Fly
• Start Date: Jul 5, 2008
• End Date: Jul 5, 2008
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 8, 2019
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: artist’s book
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1017132
• Publisher URL: http://artsresearch.brighton.ac.uk/news/books-that-fly
• Related Public URLs: http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/flybooks08/sbtalkb.pdf
• Additional Information: Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : Books that Fly