the end of the book.... (again)

More from This is not the end of the book; by Umberto Eco and Jean Claude Carriere.  I am still thinking about it and re-reading parts of it.  Background:  It was recently translated from the French and I picked it up when I was in London - in the bookshop at the British Library. (Oh - such a place!) The book is full of the enthusiasm of these two great thinkers...for all things - but especially all things bookish. Yes they can sound "pontificatey"  but I think they've earned it.

This idea of "the end of the book" has been going on for a few decades now.  My MFA thesis exhibit was (coughs) in 1987 and titled "Books in Space."  It was my reflecting on the "new" idea that books were disappearing, as well as how we navigate "different kinds" of space (ex. family space, academic space, community space).  I was beginning to explore calling into question (among other things) the nature of just what it was that constituted a book, or reading for that matter...as well as what was happening to books.  The idea of "books in space" came from the initial thinking and research - my outreach to astronauts - asking them what books they would take into space.  The only one who answered me was Sally Ride, who said she would take "The Tao of Pooh."

“But what is a book? And what will change if we read onscreen rather than by turning the pages of a physical object? What will we gain, and more importantly, what will we lose? Old-fashioned habits, perhaps. A certain sense of the sacred that has surrounded the book in a civilisation that has made it our holy of holies. A peculiar intimacy between the author and reader, which the context of hypertextuality is bound to damage. A sense of existing in a self-contained world that the book and, along with it, certain ways of reading used to represent.” ― Jean-Philippe de Tonnac, This Is Not the End of the Book

Anyone involved in book arts - making, teaching or critiquing - is very aware what is meant by "reading."  And it has little to do with words on a page.  It goes back to that question I was thinking about in 1987 - how DO we navigate different kinds of space?  How do we read form, materiality, the way text is place on a page?  It is so much more than content - it is more akin to what Barthes wrote about in The Pleasure of the Text;

Thus what I enjoy in a narrative is not directly its content or even its structure, but rather the abrasions I impose upon the fine surface:  I read on, I skip, I look up, I dip in again. Which has nothing to do with the deep laceration the text of bliss inflicts upon language itself, and not upon the simple simple temporality of its reading. 

When someone hands me an artists' book for the first time - it is like beginning a journey.  The way it is built - the way it smells and the sound of the pages when I turn them.  Are there surprises?  I love surprises.  I feel this way about reading any new book -- always have.  Ahhh I'm starting to ramble now -- next post will try for more clarity.

Read this rock - Black River Harbor, Lake Superior

ALTERED BOOKS: ONE HIT WONDERS?

New book in the mail today, ART MADE FROM BOOKS, with a preface by Brian Dettmer and an introduction by Alyson Kuhn.  I haven't really had time to look at it thoroughly, but it reminds me of a question that I have debated with Max Yela on occasion.  Are altered books one hit wonders?  Or are they - as the title of this book seems to imply,  not really book art, but rather art made from books.  It is a fine distinction and perhaps not one that many people would care about.  But for Max, who (thankfully) grows and maintains a large collection of book art and for me - who teaches and considers these questions (see what book artists think about?) it is an interesting idea and worth some consideration.

 Brian Dettmer

Do It Yourself

2009

Altered Set of handyman books

9" x 31-1/2" x 4-1/2"

In a Spring 2007 article in BONEFOLDER, Jen Thomas writes about the art of Melissa Jay Craig saying. "...she studied under Ray Martin and Joan Flasch, both of whom encouraged
Craig to explore the creative potential within the book form. Soon her pieces evolved from traditional book structures into stylized book objects. She took these book objects a step further and created an installation titled Library. Without a universally accepted critical definition of book arts, Craig was
free to let her ideas materialize without the limitations that painting had previously presented.
Though Craig felt free to experiment with the book form, not all those working within the field of book arts recognized her work as artist’s books. The critic Clive Philpot once derided Craig’s work during his lecture at an artists’ book event at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Craig says, “I had some of my altered books there and he referred to them directly, saying, ‘These are NOT books. They are fetishistic objects.’ Knowing his particular bias, I felt honored to be included in his condemnation. I do make objects. Books are objects. What makes them fetishistic is their inherent resonance, the ability to communicate on a visceral, nonverbal level. So, like the issue of beauty, I can embrace that description; fetishistic objects carry an implicit communicative power. They can be read.”

Pulp Fiction, Melissa Jay Craig

Yes, they can be read.  But there is reading and then there is reading.

(....to be continued)