Artist's Books (page 1)

Kyrillos Sarris
Difficulties of Showing Books
 

Kyrillos Sarris
11 Months (notebook), 2000


Kyrillos Sarris
La Nuit Noire Théorique, 1998

The book is the means for a private transaction between the "author" and the "reader". The response lies entirely in the hand of the reader. A book can be flicked through, opened in the middle, read slowly, started at the end, but it cannot be presented publicly with these freedoms and remain in its natural state, unless it is experienced privately in a public situation.
Clive Phillpot
 

Kyrillos Sarris
Readings, 2001
I use the ‘book’ as a form of art, because I have the conviction that art itself is not a constitutive element of social life. Civilization is a private venture.

When I decided to show my books, I stumbled upon the contradiction concerning the private and the public aspect of the whole project.

In order to overcome this –at least partially– I devised three versions of ‘simulated readings’.

FIRST a video installation consisting of two monitors showing the actual reading of Ulises Carrión’s book and also the leafing through my own books, SECOND the sequential imaging of the pages of two of my books (The Journey of a Full Stop and A Rebours) in scroll form, THIRD by placing the books themselves under perspex cases and demanding that the pages be turned daily by the curator.

Kyrillos Sarris, März 2001
Kyrillos Sarris
Word-Objekt from Finnegan’s Wake, 1998-2000

Demosthene Agrafiotis
Artist’s books / Artwork books. A short conceptual guide
Demosthene Agrafiotis
Clinamen, 1980-1990
…In the 1960s a new variety of books emerged in the cultural horizon –the ‘artwork-books’ or ‘artist’s books’. These creations lay claim to the title of art objects since they employ language, images and writing as raw materials rather than vehicles of meaning, and aim to explore even the very nature of books as cultural conventions. Above all, the ‘artwork-books’ or ‘artist’s books’ aspire to pose questions regarding the image, writing and the book as physical object and work of art; to trigger hitherto unknown sensations, thoughts, fantasies and pleasures.

…The origins of ‘artwork books’ –i.e. books which are works of art in themselves rather than the means for the diffusion of another work of art (poetry, painting, photography, etc.)– are multiple… [and associated] …with the desire for alternative art to exist in parallel… with the "utopia" of abolishing the boundaries between artist and non-artist, between production and distribution, between high and minor art… Today this world assumes especial importance as modern technologies promise the advent of books without paper and the distribution of information through information super highways.

... It is for this reason that the term ‘artist’s books’ also encompasses the terms ‘artwork books’, ‘object books’, ‘performance books’, ‘conceptual books’…

The adventure of Clinamen forms part of this trend, this drift of initiatives...

 Demosthene Agrafiotis



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