Salto de páxina. O libro de artista no século XXI (Santiago de Compostela)
Curated by Rocío Santa Cruz
21.10.2015 - 21.02.2016
Auditorio de Galicia. Santiago de Compostela
'The only books that will be of interest to us in the future are those that can be regarded as works of art.'
Michel Butor, 1987
The artist’s book emerged in the second half of the twentieth century, specifically in 1963, when Edward Ruscha produced the first edition of Twenty-six Gasoline Stations. From then on, the most avant-garde artists chose to use the book as a means of breaking away from previous artistic traditions, despite the paradox of employing a traditional artistic medium.
For Ruscha, the distinctive nature of these books lies in their innovative spirit and in their conception as works of art, recognising the book as an artistic entity in its own right and establishing an independent genre, just as painting, sculpture and video had previously done. This conception has endured to the present day and remains one of the fundamental legacies of the 1960s. The persistence of this legacy explains why, now in the twenty-first century, the book continues to enjoy remarkable relevance. This runs counter to the predictions made two decades ago by those who foresaw its disappearance in the face of new digital media for text and image. Perhaps, as Michel Butor wrote in 1987: ‘The only books that will interest us in the future are those that can be regarded as works of art.’
This was the premise behind the launch of ARTS LIBRIS in 2010, the international fair devoted to artists’ books and contemporary editions. With the aim of encouraging both the market for and the creation of artists’ books, Banco Sabadell sponsors the ARTS LIBRIS / BANCO SABADELL Prize, dedicated to the acquisition of publications, as well as the AL Collection, which has also enabled ARTSLIBRIS to become a publisher, building an important international catalogue year after year. The works published and awarded during these years, together with others from the Banco Sabadell Art Collection and the ArtsLibris Collection, form part of this exhibition.
The exhibition brings together landmark works from the last decade, particularly from the past five years, during which many younger artists have devoted a significant part of their practice to self-publishing, embracing precisely the digital tools that once alarmed those who predicted the demise of the book.
Books and publications by international artists form the four thematic areas of the exhibition: contemporary bibliophily, the poetics of the book-object, the artist’s book and the photobook. Andy Warhol, Lawrence Weiner, Jaume Plensa and José Pedro Croft enter into dialogue with the work of younger artists such as Cristina de Middel, Ricardo Cases and Simona Rota. An important section of the exhibition is devoted to works by Galician artists including Antón Lamazares, Leopoldo Nóvoa and Vari Caramés.
The book, as a work of art of the twenty-first century, is the creative territory explored by this exhibition, although many contemporary artists’ books extend beyond the boundaries imposed by the format: they expand to embrace the boundless territory of art. For this reason, many of the artists’ books, and especially the photobooks featured in the exhibition, form part of a broader whole: a series, an installation, a manifesto or a collection that continues onto the gallery walls.
Butor’s future is our present. The new space of the book in the twenty-first century is not a limited or enclosed space: it is boundless and embraces every discipline; it is a space of freedom in which all art finds expression.
