In this installment of book treasures in our Special Collections, we will be looking at broadly distributed multiples: materials that are expressive with experimentation similar in energy to a modern-day zine. As a counter to William Morris’ reaction to industrial modes of mechanized typesetting and high-speed presses and paper making of the 19th Century, artists in the 20th Century took advantage of inexpensive modes of reproduction to mass produce books.
These books can be seen in person with a visit to the Central Library. If the book is held in Special Collections, an appointment can be made to see these items by using this online form.
Starting with its first issue in 1942, VVV was a magazine published and edited by David Hare (1917 - 1992) in collaboration with other Surrealist artists. There were four editions of this magazine with contributions from Marcel Duchamp, André Breton, Max Ernst, Robert Motherwell, Roberto Matta, etc. VVV experimented with printing form and included fold-out pages, bold typography, and spinning elements. Issue 2-3 that is held in Special Collections has a "readymade" back cover by Marcel Duchamp with actual pieces of chicken wire. This short-lived magazine helped to introduce European Surrealist artists, who immigrated to the United States because of World War II, to the broader American audience.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Fluxus, an international community of artists, composers, designers, and poets, were engaged in new forms of art that emphasized process over finished product. Fluxus artists were hugely inventive: such as Dick Higgins, with Something Else Press, creating the concept of intermedia, the interdisciplinarity between artistic genres. Henry Flynt, developing the concept of Conceptual Art, and Nam June Paik and Wolf Vostel, being early proponents of video art. Of note for bookworks, Dick Higgins (1938 – 1998) published books through Something Else Press that are experiments in content, typography, and process-orientated artworks. Listed below are some notable examples collected at the Central Library. It should be noted that neither item is in its original binding and has been library-bound.
Dieter Roth (1930 – 1998) was a Swiss-born artist active in Fluxus. In 1968, he created 246 Little Clouds, which delightfully uses raking light in photo reproduction to make it seem like actual pieces of paper are taped on each page. The book is a stream-of-consciousness narrative about his trip from New York to Iceland.
The Four Suits is a collaboration between Benjamin Patterson, Philip Corner, Alison Knowles, and Tomas Schmit. Each section contained is dedicated to their own aesthetic practices. As an example, Alison Knowles’ section is an exploration of the letter "T" that involves altered dictionary pages and graphic arrangements of teeth.
Most likely, the best-known artist’s books are those made by American artist Ed Ruscha. Ruscha chose to make his books look as inconspicuous as possible in his celebration of the vernacular landscapes of Los Angeles and its surrounding environs. The titles of his small books that were written between 1962 and 1978 are as literal and banal as possible. Of the 16 Ed Ruscha books made between 1962 and 1978, nine are held in Special Collections and are listed below.
Ed Ruscha Art Books in our Collection
His most famous book of the series would be Every Building on the Sunset Strip [1966] which literally is a photograph in a fold-out accordion style of every building on the Sunset Strip, one landscape photo for each side of street.
