Noosa Regional Gallery, Tewantan, Australia
22nd September 2006
Why are artists' books not accepted by art institutions?
A debate at Interaction 2006: a seminar exploring the artist's book, Noosa Regional Gallery, Tewantan, Australia, 22nd September 2006. Part of Books.06 works of imagination 10+beyond: celebrating 10 years of artists’ books, 22nd September to 29th October 2006,
www.noosaregionalgallery.org
Debate speakers: Michelle Bland, Sarah Bodman, Deidre Brollo, Ritchie Ares Doña and Marshall Weber.
Sarah’s argument (via video) - artists' books are accepted by art institutions:
The debate question - Why are artists’ books not accepted by art institutions? well, I am here to argue that they most definitely are. Part of my job (at the Centre for Fine Print Research at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK) is to collaborate with other institutions to promote the subject of artists’ books. When I contacted institutional staff to ask if I could use images from their websites for this presentation and told them the debate question, they said ‘of course you can use them, and please make sure you tell them that we really love artists’ books!”
In the UK, many art institutions have working collections of artists’ books in their libraries for students (and often the public) to access. Winchester School of art, Manchester Metropolitan University and Chelsea College of Art and Design, all have huge and accessible teaching collections of up to 1000s of artists’ books.
Hereford College of Art and Design has a taught programme of book arts across many courses, with book arts lectures by national and international speakers, and an annual book arts competition for staff and students. This year’s competition, which is currently on show at our university, attracted 68 entries, which proves how much they love artists’ books in that institution.
Larger institutional collections in the UK include: Tate Britain, The Word and Image Dept of the Victoria and Albert Museum and The British Library, all of which are based in London. All of these institutions work hard to promote and collect artists’ books. ARLIS UK and Ireland, in collaboration with staff at Tate Britain, The V&A Museum and Chelsea College of Art and Design, has just published Artists’ Books: A Cataloguer’s Manual, a really useful book for staff in libraries and institutions and for private collectors (which really proves how much the subject has grown in recent years).
Further afield in the USA, there is the Yale Center for British Art, which has a huge, accessible collection of rare books, and contemporary artists’ books, and the renowned Joan Flasch Artists’ Books Collection at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where Doro Böhme does an amazing job of promoting the subject. Regional competitions around the USA such as the Florida Artist’s Book Prize also do a great job of bringing book arts into local communities.
We have worked with American and European institutions, to set up artists’ books partnership, exhibition programmes with universities, collections, schools, libraries and bookshops in North America, UK, The Netherlands and Finland. We are continuing this programme where we loan artists’ books from our collection on a no fee basis, to set up exhibitions that promote the artist’s book to a wider community. The last programme of a loan of a year’s worth of themed artist’s books exhibitions to the AKI (ArtEz) in The Netherlands, has resulted in them establishing a popular, long-term exhibition programme of regional and international artists’ books, at both the college and a local bookshop.
Staff working with artists’ books in national UK collections initiated the Librarians’ Books project, which we ran last year. These people spend their working days caring for artists’ books and some had mentioned that they would love to make a book themselves. This snowballed into the Librarians’ Books Exhibition Tour, with 46 librarians, curators, writers and archivists joining the project from national and international libraries, collections and colleges, and subsequently arranging a tour of the wonderful books they had made to five venues over a seven-month period.
Since May 2004, the Bookmarks series of free, international artwork distribution has been at 46 venues in Italy, The Netherlands, UK, Germany, Poland, Canada, Brazil, South Korea, Cyprus, Australia, and the USA. Over 150 artists have contributed more than 15,000 bookmarks to the four projects so far. Bookmarks: Infiltrating the Library System's aim is to get more people to appreciate work in the format of the artist's book and we regularly have institutional staff contacting us to ask if they can join the project as they love being a part the distribution process.
New artist’s book fairs and events are now frequently appearing in the UK, often hosted by institutions. These things cannot happen without support and interest, and they often occur because there is a passionate interest in artists’ books from institutional staff; who have a collective purchasing power and the energy and dedication to promote book arts.
If we want more institutions involved and interested in the artist’s book, then it is really up to us to show them the amazing diversity of works out there, and all work to promote the artist’s book together so we can bring more institutions into our world.
Thanks very much to Corrie Wright and Maryke Stagg for inviting me to participate in this debate. The programme of events and the exhibition information can be viewed at www.noosaregionalgallery.org
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