In an era when new electronic technologies threaten to diminish the book's role as humankind's primary communication tool, there is a growing interest in artists' books, art works made by artists in book form.

"There is a sense of this medium having `arrived' with museum interest, traveling shows with catchy titles, workshops [and] maturing educational programs," said book artist and printmaker Karen Kunc, an art professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, at a symposium on artists' books and the book arts. Long a part of the art scene in Europe, now, said Kunc, "there is a groundswell of interest across America. In every national print competition one can now see artists' books, perhaps entered as a challenge to the parameters of the traditional definitions of the print."

Moreover, "there are increasing opportunities for artists to exhibit their artists' books," noted Rory Golden, executive director of the Center for Book Arts in New York. "There is an increased interest in making books by artists--and by crafty ladies" Added curator Krystyna Wasserman, director of the Library and Research Center of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.: "Artists' books are still moderately priced, easy to exhibit and a very creative way of expressing many artistic ideas. Artists' books are containers of ideas."

And although some dealers question what the marketplace is for these works, at Art Basel Miami in December, exhibitor Printed Matter, a New York artists' bookstore, sold $28,000 in artists' books, ranging from $5 Jenny Holzer pieces to a $7,500 portfolio of work by John Baldesarri and other artists entitled "Stills." "People were thrilled to see our prices, especially when Jenny Holzer works were priced in the thousands elsewhere in the fair," reported David Platzker, director of Printed Matters. "We made 470 sales in five days." Printed Matter, located in the heart of the New York art world just a few feet from the Dia Center, recently announced a partnership with the Whitney Museum of American Art to commission the publication of new artists' books and related artists' publications, including projects with Vija Celmins, Rita McBride and Ed Ruscha.

An Undefinable Art Form

Artists' books are a hybrid, multi-medium art form. Artists create them for a variety of purposes, as one-of-a-kind objects or as multiples, made by hand or not, richly luxurious in materials or as offset publications. Artists' books can be structured as pop-ups, folded pages, scrolls, tunnels (giving visibility to what lies behind), fluttering flags, tablets or the traditional Western codex of folded pages sewn on one side. Book artists may use handmade papers, archival art paper, construction paper purchased in bulk or no paper at all. Artists' books do not always marry words or text with images. There is no one form or look to artists' books. Collectors must give up their pre-conceived notions of what a book should be, said Wasserman. "There is no prescription of what an artist's book should look like, or even that it has pages."

With most categories and genres of art, the art world does not spend much time defining what the genre is. "It is very wearying to the artists who make artists' books to constantly have to discuss what it is," said Carolee Campbell, an artist who owns Ninja Press in Los Angeles. Indeed, the simple definition of an artist's book is that it is a book made by an artist. Beyond that, a chorus of voices debates its very nature.

"The beauty of the medium is no one can define what it is," said art dealer Brian Valzania, owner of PABA Photo Arts Book Arts Gallery in New Haven, Conn. "It's not painting, sculpture or photography--but it can incorporate all of those elements. One of the beauties of a book is that you can touch it, feel the pages, go through it at a speed you choose" That is, if it has pages--or if the artist's book can be opened at all.

"An artist's book has the mark of a hand," said Karen McDermott, a book artist and curator of several exhibits of artists' books. "It is something created by a person to make a statement of some kind, in book form." But artist and Cornell University art department chair Buzz Spector, whose body of work focuses on the book, disagreed. "Artists' books don't need to be handmade, but they do require evidence of the mind of the artist."

In fact, added Spector, who has been a part of the artists' books movement since the 1970s, "the phrase `artists' books' was never intended to apply to unique, hand-crafted objects--it drew in part on the quality of publication."

Perhaps the broadest definition of artists' books comes from Michael Morin of Buffalo, N.Y. "I intend, therefore I am," he wrote in a discussion of artists' books. "Intent is everything. An artist's book is different than other books simply because it was conceived and executed from the beginning as a work of art by its creator."

There are countless variations among artists' books. Connecticut illustrator and artist Jennifer Mazzucco makes artists' books "stuffed" with the detritus of everyday life. "I do a codex binding, but there's lots of stuff inside, including found objects and beads." Her works are not a journal but do comment on "what I think is going on in the world, an expression like a painter makes in a painting," she said. "I need to marry words with images, and that's really hard to do in a painting. No one ever asks me why I put words in a book."

David Drum, a Los Angeles book artist, used cut-outs, collage and paper with torn edges bound in traditional codex style to create "Snowy Evening," a handmade artist's book, based on the Robert Frost poem. Matthew Liddle of North Carolina descended a sculpture-like artist's book from the ceiling in his "Critical Masses," where the words explore dialogues and criticism ("This is not art," "My kid could have done that") that occur in contemporary artmaking.

Brooklyn artist Maureen Cummins made "Femme Fatales" by making a vintage-looking leather cover photo album with die-cut black and gilded pages into which she placed Victorian-style photographs of women in various poses. "They were hand-colored and set into the pages on the right-hand side, and on the left she wrote the names of torture devises that were given female names, like `The Widow,'" described Valzania. After making a one-of-a-kind artist's book, Cummins made an edition of 50 color xerographs ($950 each).

In "Kimono/Kosode," an artist's book in an edition of 125 ($450), artist Carol Schwartzott evokes the graceful layers of traditional Japanese dress. This artist's book uses a repeated design of a cutout kimono shape and tri-fold panels covered with patterned and colored Japanese papers. "Kimono/Kosode" can lie flat, but when it is displayed on its edge, a tiny multi-dimensional theater appears, and the kimono becomes a window.

Recently, there's been a trend toward "altered books," where an artist takes an existing book and carves it, sculpts it, changes it and then displays it. Artist Byron Clercx takes pages of books and laminates them together, while several artists, including Berwyn Hung, have immersed books in liquid and encased them in containers. Canadian artist Steve McSherry cuts up books into tiny pieces, pulps them and makes paper that he then utilizes in new artists' books.

While Spector believes altered books are not artists' books, but rather sculptures whose context is the book, McDermott, who recently curated "Altered Books: Spine-Bending Thrillers" at the Rider University Art Gallery in Lawrenceville, N.J., disagreed. "The artists in this show are dealing with the same philosophical ideas as book artists. An artist's book is any art object made by an artist who can't resist the feel of paper."

Artists' Books vs. Art Books

It is important not to mistake artists' books for art books, collaborative illustrated books (livres d'artiste) made by writers and artists but driven by the authors, collectors' editions that include original fine art editions of prints or photographs or exhibition catalogs. "The difference between an artist's book and a book illustrated by an artist has to do with intentionality and degrees of control," said Tracy Honn, director of Silver Buckle Press. "In general, the book artist conceptually controls the whole publication."

Consider artist Gerhard Richter's "Richter 858." The book is a multimedia limited edition ($125) which brings together poetry, text, music and spoken word (on a CD) with loose-leaf images of Richter's abstract paintings, as well as 35 reproductions of details of the paintings, all placed in a brushed aluminum slipcase. The project was conceived by poet and critic David Breskin, not Richter himself, and was designed by Mark Fox of BlackDog. It is richly printed and is a beautiful volume, but it is not an artist's book.

Artists' Books in the Marketplace