How to write/talk about these books?
Let’s look at what they’ve been called:
– private press books,
– livres d’artiste,
– the vanity press,
– illustrated books,
– self-published books,
– artist’s books,
– livres d’art.
So let’s surrender and ego a little…
All these terms hold some water, but what they tell me is they’re hard to define… Imagine trying to nail a piece of jelly to a wall.
They’re independent because they occupy the no man’s land between writing and the visual arts. one could mount the argument they’re the perfect hybrid – and as such they’re probably best placed to speak/reflect the world and the times we are living in.
So how are these books I make different from the books you buy from a bookshop of Amazon?
Art books are meant to look like MONOGRAPHS.
Picture books, like CATALOGUES.
Literature is meant to look like a NOVEL/SLIM. EDITION.
Fashion is meant to look at its sharpest in a MAGA.
But books by artists DON’T need:
a brief,
a target audience,
a key message,
or a marketing strategy.
They don’t follow corporate guidelines,
house colours
branding
or flash a recognisable logo.
Books made by artists are made from the inside out, rather from the outside in. They refuse to slot into a standard format imposed by designers, publishers, popular taste. They fly an independent flag, and – unlike most ‘art’ – they should never be autograph objects.
And remember to keep Mallarmé’s notion that all life exists to end up in books. These books know that challenge and take it on.