«Salto de página. El libro de artista en el siglo XXI. Colección de Arte Banco Sabadell» (MUA, Alicante)
17.02.2023-30.04.2023
MUA Museo de la Universidad de Alicante. Alicante
Over the last few years, the Banco Sabadell Art Collection has assembled a remarkable collection of artists’ books by both national and international creators, giving rise to one of the few private collections of artists’ books in Spain. The exhibition Salto de página offers an overview of this collection through five thematic sections: historical precedents, artists’ books, book objects, photobooks and self-publishing.
The exhibition begins with the origins of the art book at the end of the nineteenth century, when artists started illustrating texts by writers and poets, and extends to the present day through publications by contemporary artists made possible by digital technologies.
Marcel Duchamp once said that an artist’s book is a book made by an artist. Acting on this premise, from the second half of the twentieth century onwards the most avant-garde artists began to use the book as a means of breaking with traditional art, employing this format to convey ideas, as conceptual artist Sol LeWitt argued.
The defining characteristic of these books lies in their innovative spirit and in their conception as works of art. Artists came to recognise the book as an artistic entity in its own right, creating an independent genre just as painting, sculpture and video had done before. This understanding remains alive today, as younger artists devote part of their practice to self-publishing and embrace the possibilities offered by contemporary technologies.
Many of the artists’ books included in this collection transcend the book format itself and find a continuation on the walls of these galleries, where works from the Banco Sabadell Art Collection by renowned artists such as Alicia Framis, Joan Fontcuberta, Cristina de Middel, Equipo Crónica, José Pedro Croft and Mar Arza are also on display.
