You never really know what you’re going to find on a shelf in the Special Collections store room. Most shelves are laden with antiquated books in shades of autumn: rich brown leather, letters picked out in gold, threads of red and gold, all square edged and standing to attention like soldiers in formation. But there is one shelf that stands out amongst the rest, where muted shades give way to a cacophony of primary colours, saturated and sharp. There is no militant uniformity on this shelf, these books are large and small, their measurements and ratios unpredictable, and their subject matter highly diverse. These are the artists’ books and together they form one of Special Collection’s most contemporary and distinctive collections.
But what exactly is an artist’s book? An exact definition is surprisingly slippery and, while book experts, artists, and librarians have pondered the question at length, there is yet to be an exact consensus. It is the inherent flexibility of the artists’ book, its refusal to fit neatly into any single categorisation, that has spurred so much debate. But there are certain points that everyone can agree on. Lucy Lippard offered the interpretation that “artists’s books are not books about art or on artists, but books as art”.1 In other words, these books are intentional pieces of artistic expression. The forms that they take are highly varied in design and content, and they often challenge traditional publication norms.
Despite the “unruliness and impropriety” of the artists’ book, Special Collections departments around the world have collected these bookworks since the medium came to prominence in the 1970s2. Librarians recognised their importance as an art form often with social commentary, and national significance. In UCD Library, we endeavour to collect artists’ books with connections to Ireland, Irish artists, and of course our own University. They can represent new ways of responding and utilising archival material and often reframe previously published texts through an artistic lens. And so we preserve these rare objects as evidence of our contemporary world, to be safeguarded for future generations.
But artists’ books also offer more than that. As librarians, they can challenge our usually stringent cataloguing practices. Describing the work and message of the artist on a text-based record often requires a hefty dose of creative thinking, and perhaps even breaking a cataloguing rule or two (yes, this is exciting for librarians). They make us ask the question “How can I convey what this book is really about?”, reminding us what cataloguing is really all about. For our users, they can bring a sense of whimsy and surprise to primary source research. Perhaps too they also invite researchers to consider their own methods and output, and to explore academic practices beyond the traditional.
Artists’ books are labours of love and testaments of skill. Creating a book by hand is a complex and involved process. First there are the contents: text or images or a mixture of both. There is the method of printing: digital, letterpress, by hand. The paper: its size, colour, texture. The binding: thread, glue. The format: opened from left to right, top to bottom, or something entirely different. At every phase of the process there are decisions to be made and where there is choice, there is expression. It isn’t hard to see then why artists may be drawn to books as a way to manifest their vision. The creation process can be a collaborative undertaking with illustrators, printers, papermakers, and bookbinders working in tandem on a single publication, or the work of a single artist, and details such as these are often recorded in a colophon at the end of the book.
Artists’ books often come to us resting comfortably inside their own custom box or slip case. Usually handmade, these coverings lend protection to the precious item inside but they can also become a design feature in itself. Subtle imagery, like a single skull motif, can be a tantalising taster of the contents within. Others, with fine embossing and gold gilding, can rival the book itself in its extravagance and aesthetic presentation.
They can also impress with their size. Like all aspects of the design, the dimensions of the book is a conscious choice and can convey a multitude to its viewer. Oversized tomes can fill an entire table in the Special Collections reading room. They have been designed to take up space, to grab your attention. Their heavy pages, often made with high quality cotton rag, require you to turn them deliberately and slowly, with each hand grasping a corner. As you do so you are sometimes treated to that unique sound of weighty pages turning one by one. There is a sense of ceremony with the process and this intangible feeling can become a design feature in itself, working in conjunction with the words on the pages.
But books do not need to be large or grand to evoke feeling. Sometimes it’s those deliberately small and unassuming books that can make you feel the most. Like their larger counterparts, they require you to interact with them in a particular way. They sit in the palm of your hand, their entire structure supported by just you. Their delicate pages demand a gentle and focused touch while the small font draws your eye in close. There is something intrinsically enigmatic about a small book and artists’ books can be a great medium to explore this.
Artists’s books can be playful, a space to be creative and rethink our notions of “a book”. The collection displays various types of book bindings, some very different from the other books on our shelves. Some are bound with thread and without the use of glue, a tradition more common in east Asian bookbinding. These bindings are left on display, unlike most bindings in the traditional western fashion wherein the binding itself is hidden and unseen behind the cover.
And the playfulness is not reserved for the binding: pages can be folded “concertina” style or in even more complex structures, covers can be constructed using fabric or wood. Artists’ books are displays of creativity and are limited only by the imagination of their creator.
I hope it’s clear then how artists’ books can challenge, inspire, and provoke. They are beautiful and powerful objects in their own right but they also serve as important records of Ireland’s contemporary artists, printers, poets, and more. It is for all these reasons that they continue to be a valuable addition to the shelves of Special Collections.
References
- Lippard, Lucy. Conspicuous Consumption: New Artists’ Books in Artists’ Books : A Critical Anthology and Sourcebook / edited by Joan Lyons. ↩︎
- Farman, Nola. Artists’ books: managing the unmanageable in Library Management 29(4/5):319-326. ↩︎
This post was written by Claire Dunne, Library Assistant, UCD Special Collections and the National Folklore Collection