Still Life Meets Performance Art

Artist Books

Compostela by Lars Arrhenius, 2004

Description: An exhibition catalog contains a DVD with animated pictograms about life in the city.; Accompanying DVD title: The Street. Computer animated pictograms about daily life in the city. Published by Xunta de Galicia, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

ARKITIP, 19XX

Description: Los Angeles art magazine; each issue features different artists, providing site-specific work.; A mixture of two color, four color and black & white; offset printed; perfect bound.; Accompanying fold out prints designed for ARKITIP by Rostarr.; Issued in clear pvc bag with snap closure.; Limited edition of 1000.

Night Flyers by Joseph H Scheer, 2003

Description: The book illustrates over a hundred species of moths selected from artist's collection. Digital scanning technology allows for the examination of the insects at a high resolution.; Chinese stab binding with red string; printed on double leave, oriental style.; Essay by Gerar Edizel.; Published by Nexus Press / Institute for Electronic Art, Atlanta, Georgia.

This is Not America Either by Balázs Czeizel, 1993

Description: Produced and printed for Montage 93: International Festival of the Image ... images were selected arbitrarily from the streetlife of Los Angeles in the year of 1989. Edited by Judit Borus; published by Visual Studies Workshop Press, Rochester, New York.

Cremaster 3 or The cremaster Cycle by Matthew Barney, 2002

Description: Cremaster 3, the last in Matthew Barney's epic five-part film project, is part zombie, part gangster film. Set in 1930s New York and Saratoga Springs as well as the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, the plot explores the Irish mob system, freemasonry, and Celtic lore as further symbols for the forces at play in Barney's mythological system. The book features still photography from the film. {info. from artbook.com} Published by Guggenheim Museum Publications, New York City.

Get Rich With Art, (late 1990s/early 2000s)

Description: This publication is a combination of graphic design, fine art, multimedia and music; 20 young artists have developed a game that combines board and computer game.; The game includes 1 CD-Rom (for Mac & PC), with additional music tracks, a game board, 80 works of art by 20 artists, 80 outrageous economic and social events, 6 art dealers, 6 private collection cards, 24 exhibition cards, 1 set of playing instructions.; in English and German.

I [Jump] by Liese A Ricketts, 1998

Description: Issued in clear vellum envelope.; Library's copy no. 3 out of 25 signed by the artist.; Cover title. Published by Poor Press, Chicago.

Invisible Sightings by Ed Pien, 1998

Description: Catalogue of an exhibition of drawings held at Artcite from May 30 to June 29, 1997. Published by Artcite, Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

Luigi Ontani (self titled), 2004

Description: Artist's catalog printed on translucent paper with one foldout plate.; Limited edition of 1000 copies. Published by Sperone Westwater, New York City.

The Beautiful Book by Jack Smith, 2001 (reprint from 1962)

Description: The only autonomous collection of Jack Smith's photographs to appear during his lifetime. The beautiful book comprises 19 hand-tipped black-and-white contact prints originally published in an edition of 200 copies. The 2001 Beautiful book is a true facsimile produced by Granary Books in collaboration with the Plaster Foundation. New prints have been made from the original negatives and hand-tipped onto Canford Buttercup paper. The covers are silk-screened in two colors on Tweedweave paper and saddle-stitched. The printing and arrangement of the photographs, choice of materials, and nature of the binding are consistent with the four copies of the book given by Smith to Marian Zazeela in 1962.; Reprint. Originally published: New York : Dead Language, 1962.; Printed in a numbered edition of 200.

Angus 15 Jaar by Mark Manders, 2001

Description: A collaboration between Mark Manders and Marije Langelaar.; "House to house newspaper for Rotterdam, distributed on the day of the 15th birthday of Angus.".; Printed in an edition of 100 copies in collaboration with International Sculpture Collection Rotterdam. Published by ROMA Publications, Arnhem, Holland.

Nite Soil by Kenward Elmslie, 2000

Description: "...a huge cycle of collages interspersed with accompanying text ... 41 original postcard collages inspired by his long poem that bears the same title.".; Published by Granary Books, New York City.; Literary Format - Poems.; Production Format - Postcards.

Unthunk by Les Coleman, 2002

Description: Aphorisms and images by the artist. Published by IVDX Errata, Stockholm, Sweden.

Turbulence : A Log Book by Henrik Drescher*, 2001

Description: "Turbulence is an intricately produced artist's book that catalogs Drescher's vivid world of images, and a visual narrative that follows one man through the troubled past, an uncertain future, and the enduring timelessness of myth."--P. [4] of cover.; Selected text excerpted from Hindu Myths.; Board covers.; 3 cut-out windows on front cover. Published by Chronicle Books LLC, San Francisco, California.

Pipeline 24 Smash Hits by 24 Puzzle Punk Bands, 1995

Description: Compact disc of collaborative sound work between the band: Yamantaka EYE and Shinro Otake, accompanied by the booklet, Yamantaka's diary.; Titles from container.; Issued in slipcase. Published by UCA: Uwajima Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan.

The Fastener Incident by Mark Wagner, 2001

Description: "The story is about librarians who fight over the use of paperclips or staples. The form of the book follows from the content... looking like some kind of official report or document." {Artist's description from acquisition sheet}.; Bound in file folder with title on the cover and folder tab.; Illustration by Dylan Graham.; Limited edition of 200 copies. Published by Bird Brain Press, Brooklyn, New York.

What Can A Man See? by Russell Edson, 1969

Description: Author's autograph copy.; Series - Jargon 37.; Published by Jargon Society, Penland, North Carolina.

12 Décors Textiles by Marc Camille Chaimowicz, 1983

Description: Designs of 12 textile patterns by the artist Marc Camille Chaimowicz, including two fabric samples.; Text by Hubert Besacier, in French and English. Published by Comportement Environnement Performance, Lyon, France.

Disasters of War : A Coloring Book by Oli Watt, 1997

Description: "A disaster coloring book" -- Cover.; A coloring book depicting war scenes. Published by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.

Elegy for the 21st Century : Eco-cidal Mania by Jason Weller

Description: collage, drawing, photographs; self-published, single issue monograph; undated.

Freakout (Temporal Bodies) by Luanne Martineau, ?2007

Description: "Luanne Martineau re-works each cover of FREAKOUT, grafting polymorphous forms from grey and coloured fleece onto the existing industrial grey felt surface. Abject and beautiful, these parasitic swellings, bruises, organic and decorative forms now invade and adorn the cover. Inside, the densely sandwiched texts are transplants from a range of history. German surrealist Hannah Hoch, Oscar Wilde, the British novelist Angela Carter and philosopher/theorist Georges Bataille, are intertwined with documentary photographs from the U.B.C. Architecture Department and images of the artist's recent work. Carefully guiding this complex mix in and out of delinquency and comedy, these recombined images and texts alter the meaning of both, re-editing historical and ideological understandings." {from publisher's web site}.; Includes bibliographical reference.; Library has copy no. 23 in a limited edition of 50.; Published by Flask Publishing in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Interior by Tsang Kin-wah, 2003

Description: monograph self-published in Hong Kong.

"NANO" - Stories in a Blink by Michael Miller, 2005

Description: The book presents two back to back visual stories (comics): Face to Face and Flatman. Published by Sara Ranchouse Publishing, Chicago, Illinois.

Acme Comics No. 10 by T Motley, 1992-1994

Description: 4-color silkscreen cover.; fanzine comic book published by Fandom House, Denver, Colorado.

Bring Me Your Love by Charles Bukowski, 1983

Cover illustration by R Crumb.; published by Black Sparrow Press, Santa Rosa, California.

Imagined Experiences : Make This Magazine, 2006

Description: Theme-based fantasy magazine (Issue 3), reproducing photographs, drawings, sketches, and poetry. Published by Megan Mullett, New York City.



All images © the respective artist; all notes above are quoted or paraphrased from the source site; click through on images to display enlarged versions.


The Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection from the John F Flaxman Library at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. (click 'browse'; actual images begin on page 3)

The web collection consists of more than 3000 digitised visual items: experimental art from the 1960s to the present, including but not limited to artists' book, sound art, performance art documentation, reference works, artists' 'zines, multiples, mail art, ephemera. There are about 150 pages of thumbnails: the vast majority of the catalogued material has now been digitised, although there are some 'unavailable' images in the first couple of thumbnail pages and towards the back of the collection.

The collection was named after the late Joan Flasch, a bookbinder and teacher at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In almost all cases (seemingly), only a cover/container image is available, but there are clickable metadata terms that may turn up more works by the same artist, publisher etc.

Previously in particular: Kohler Artist Books & Otis Artbooks [ferret around in bookart for other 'art book' posts]