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Book As Artwork: 1960/72

Item date(s): 2010

Lynda Morris
Germano Celant


Pages: 97pp
Size: 178mm
Edition: One of 800 copies

Sub-type: Catalogue

Place publication: Brooklyn, NY
Publisher: 6 Decades Books
ISBN: 978-0-9829694-0-3

Additional notes:
This book was originally published in an edition of 800 copies by Nigel Greenwood Inc., London, 1972.

This is the second edition.

The book has been incorrectly bound and reads from back to front.

Extract from Catalogue 234. Jonathan A. Hill Bookseller:

First edition of this seminal exhibition catalogue, which features the first English translation of Celant’s essay on artists’ books, as well as an important list of nearly 300 then-unheralded artists’ books.

Originally published in the first issue of the Italian magazine data (Sept. 1971),the essay is recognized as one of the earliest in-depth examinations of the book form and its bearing within Conceptual art.

Celant (1940-2020), the art historian and critic, organized several Arte Povera exhibitions in Italy in

the 1960s and was later appointed senior curator of Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim museum. He also served as director of the 1997 Venice Biennale.

“Book as Artwork is poorly produced, as is acknowledged by the publishers, hence the fairly low price; however, it does make Germano Celant’s text available to an English-speaking audience . . . the text is disappointing; although it is one of the first pieces about book art as an adjunct of conceptual art, it really amounts to a cobbling together of a series of annotations to the works, without any real analysis of the use of the book as a medium. its value lies in Celant’s references to the significance of the book-form to certain artists, in its attention to Italian examples, and to the fact that he (and Lynda Morris) have attempted to produce a first list of examples of book art.”–C. Phillpot, “Feedback, 1973“ in Booktrek (2013), pp. 31-32.

The exhibition list (pp. 31-47), compiled by Celant and the art historian and curator Lynda Morris and presented chronologically, features many works that were completely unknown at the time. it includes works by Higgins, Oldenburg, Rot, Cage, Ruscha, Ono, Filliou, Kaprow, Knowles, Pistoletto, Siegelaub, Emmett Williams, Warhol, Acconci, Andre, Darboven, Byars, Nauman, Tuttle, Brouwn, Buren, Tom Phillips, Weiner, Kossuth, Baldessari, Broodthaers, etc.

✳ see also s. Klima, Artists Books: a Critical Survey of the Literature (1998). pp.19-20. Desjardin, The Book on Books about Artists Books Books (2013 ed.) 3.

Ref: 2102







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