I have my personal gripes about Janet Zweig’s and Johanna Drucker’s purse-lipped critiques of the artist’s book. Their approaches have many unfortunate things in common beyond sheer contrariness (both authors, for example, approach the entirely subjective world of artist books with the single-mindedness of a scalpel). But for the purposes of simplicity and at the expense of several genuinely important and well-made points from both sides, I am simplifying their complaints into a single issue: the argument between style and substance.

Not a balanced argument by any means. Style is considered the flourishy and meaningless fodder for the masses, while substance is the meat of the matter — the stuff we’re really looking for… Consider Zweig’s condemnation of “crafty overproduced luxury items” in favor of “rich temporal experiments, books that do participate in the conversations and challenges of contemporary art”. Now read from Drucker: “Overproduction is particularly deceptive since it tends to confer importance simply through conspicuous display.” For both authors, style is the shallow, preening younger brother; an early indication of staleness, derivativeness, and meaninglessness. Not a work worth liking, in other words.

With this in mind, I will discuss The WunderCabinet: the Curious Worlds of Barbara Hodgson & Claudia Cohen. 

Here it is. A beautifully designed wooden box cover, containing a miniature facsimile of an antiquarian wunder-cabinet — a place in which to display your fanciful collection of foreign, exotic trinkets from around the world. Somewhere, Zweig is turning restlessly in her bed and muttering ‘crafty overproduced luxury items’ under her breath.

It also contains a journal, written and illustrated by the two artist-authors and built to resemble an old travel-journal. The writing discusses natural history, archaeology, astronomy, mathematical principles, and historically important wunder-cabinets (such as that of Manfredo Settala, a Milanese wood-turner with a collection on the sciences). However, if we’re being honest with ourselves, that isn’t what draws our eye when we open the book.

I’ll admit it, I stared at the star charts, stratigraphy plots, pressed plants, hand-inked heiroglyphs, alphabet grids, and sketches of ammonite shells first. They’re beautiful, they obviously took an incredibly long time to make, and substantively they are utterly meaningless. Unless you consider a rangy and breezy education on the contents of wunder-cabinets to be a participation in ‘the conversations and challenges of contemporary art’, of course. It would take some stretch of the imagination.

Here arises the difficulty with the ‘style vs. substance’ dichotomy. According to Zweig, an artist book such as the WunderCabinet is an object to be marveled at and then put aside. There is no deeper, richer meaning to it, nothing to return to but the same pictures and pressed plants. It is beautifully vacant of meaning, it is a dressed-up corpse — it would not be very useful on a desert island, in other words. (Neither would a novel, really, unless it tells you how to build a raft.)

But I can tell you personally that there is no other book I would rather return to. In fact, out of every artist’s book displayed in this class, the WunderCabinet is the only one I have requested to see extracurricularly; I have read it from cover to cover; if you were to give me one of the books from the Smith Collection for free, then you would be crazy, but I’d know exactly the one I’d want. It was inspiring. I took notes.

Zweig compared the experience of reading a good artist’s book to watching a good movie or excellent theatre, and I believe this is revealing. Cinema’s critical darlings may fit her criteria, but what about movies like The Avengers or Shrek? They aspire to no ideal, no high-browed message, no contemporary issue of importance. They aim to entertain only, and they have left their big-budget, cerebrally vacant fingerprints smeared upon the face of American culture while doing so. I would watch these movies again and again, but the sole difference between them and the intellectually underwhelming artist books Zweig so despises is a slightly heftier price tag.

This is a gross oversimplification of the issue, of course, yet the merits of the beautifully vacant book should still be discussed. Aesthetic beauty can inspire… Zweig compares the artist book to a narrative-driven novel, which is valid; but the artist book lies upon the bridge between the novel and the work of art, and its connection to the latter has been largely, and unfairly, ignored.

I’ve decided to contrast two books, The WunderCabinet and Wordswordswords to demonstrate how they either align or go against Zweig and Drucker’s criteria.

I think The WunderCabinet: The Curious Worlds of Barbara Hodgson and Claudia Cohen (Heavenly Monkey Editions, 2011) would fit Drucker’s criteria as a “creative use of the book format.” The WunderCabinet is Hodgson and Cohen’s idea of what 16^th-to-18^th century wonder cabinet collection of natural and manmade objects. It stretches beyond the pages of a more “conventional” Livre d’Artiste, and is presented instead as an inlaid wooden box. Inside each compartment is a unique and delicate object, such as a shark’s tooth, fossilized coral and glass eyeball. It’s divided into two parts, Naturalia and Artificialia and engages the viewer in a very different way, causing them to carefully and curiously examine each artifact that was handpicked or hand drawn.

Zweig’s critique asks us to acknowledge whether the book “present[s] a new way of thinking”. Because of its one-of-a-kind detail, extraordinary bookbinding, and concept as a modern Renaissance wonder cabinet, I think it pushes our curiosities as an artist’s book. It embraces nostalgia and a sense of the old world in a new, tangible way. For those who happen to have access to the thirty copies in the series, the tactile quality to the book allows you to directly interact with the materials, unlike a typical experience in a museum. However, my one critique would be that the fragileness and limited accessibility does create a barrier to this particular artist’s book, which isn’t uncommon among Livre d’Artiste books.

For many in the course, Wordswordswords by Edwin Schlossberg (Universal Limited Art Edition, 1068) seems to be a favorite from Book sets 5 & 6. Yet, personally, I wouldn’t bring it with me on a desert island, and I don’t think Zweig would either. I can appreciate the role that the physical materials have, and the immediate tangible experience that unfolds, but to me, it lacks the curiosity and unique experience that The WunderCabinet gives viewers. I think the tangibility and interaction between book and viewer gave more meaning for me with Hodgson and Cohen’s work than it did for turning the pages of Edwin Schlossberg’s Wordswordswords. Yet, I think Drucker would find its structure and materials intriguing. It’s true – I will give it credit for bringing diversity in material, and it looks interesting.

Personally, I find that Wordswordswords has a more “art” feel than it does as a book. While the WunderCabinet certainly doesn’t have a deep underlying message of political and social change, it does teach us something about scientific reasoning and neo-Renaissance ideas in a physical, engaging way.

Critics such as Drucker and Zweig make important and valid points about Artist’s Book’s place in the art world, highlighting the difficulty of creating a concrete criteria for the genre. The main cause for their concern is that “the junk…that is being produced under the rubric of AB’s will just drag the level of production and conception to an impossible low. In examining Book Sets 5 & 6, I find a diverse and interesting assortment of books that each present an interesting concept to the table.  I would like to discuss Wordswordswords by Edwin Schlossberg, Robert Raushenberg and Jasper Johns, and Panorama by Julie Chen as ideal representatives of what artist’s books and do and be.

Wordswordswords sets out to explore the different ways in which we think about and interact with language. The artists utilize a variety of mediums in order to share this concept with the reader, allowing him or her to experience forms and structures of language. For example, the book contains pages made of transparent film and metal-like sheets. The book also applies different fonts, font sizes, and text formats to address the different ways the reader interacts with his or her text; each new page is a playful, new experiment with language. I had the opportunity to delve into a page that used three different sheets of transparent film, each with lines of text that (when all the pages were stacked together) formed a cohesive narrative. This structure let me experience a variety of different text since I could form a number of phrases/poems with different sheets; each one creating different meaning and aesthetic every time. The font size was small so I was forced to carefully examine the text and have an intimate interaction with the words. At the same time, the intimacy was brought into contrast with the transparency of the sheet which innately brought my environment into view as the background to my text.

What I like about Livres D’Artiste books is that they oftentimes take pre-established works or texts such as poems, or in the case of Chen’s Panorama, environmental awareness content and reintroduces, expand the way I interact with them—the familiar becomes new, again. Panorama serves as a book about Life, the World, and Human existence through engaging structures. I found that the texture and layers of the book enticed me to engage in the reading panels. For example, there were several pages with different panels that provided eerie message. I could also form different messages with different panels.  What most attracted me to this book was the large, pop-up “towers” which seemed to erupt out of the page. Each layer of the “tower” had different content or continuous script throughout and I had to investigate, literally, into the page in order to understand what message Chen was trying to convey. This book brought text and the book format into a profound and lively new light.

Book sets 5&6 show many different examples of books which exist in the livre d’artiste genre. Having moved onward from the older European livre d’artiste books from book set 4, we were able to explore a wide range of what currently is being done with the genre. In our readings we encountered two important criticisms of artists books one of which was by Janet Zweig. The consideration of her critique of artists books in “All Dressed Up With No Place to Go: The Failure of Artists’ Books” factored largely in my viewing of these two book sets.

One book that stood out to me was  Walasse Ting’s 1 Cent Life, which proves itself to be an excellent book when viewed through both of these critical lenses. For it to appease Zweig’s criticism we must ask “does it [the book] contribute anything to the knowledge of the reader, does it present a new way of thinking?”  I would argue yes, it does. First we can considered it as a book of Pop Art, pop art was largely a form of social commentary, a reflective exercise in considering consumer culture during the 1940s and 50s. A number of pop artists contributed prints to Ting’s poetry which, in and of itself did great work as form of social critique. A specific example of a page that stood out to me was p12 which showed a depiction of lynching alongside Ting’s poetry. For me, this experience was striking. So rarely up until this point had I seen any works attempt to address the issue of race. It was a powerful experience having both a visually striking book and a book which confronted people with important political issues. By all means, it certainly passes Zweig’s test.

Another book Wordswordswords by Edwin Schlossberg, was also in the set. And while, it did not move me in the same way as Ting’s 1 Cent Life, I do believe it to still be of value. Zweig hints at the existence of such a book in her article lamenting, “Purchased for 4,500, it consists of a single word, the word “words” printed over and over on many pages (…) If you‘ve got a thing idea, it may be best to let form and content unite by producing a humble thin thing” But, how does she know it was a thin idea in the first place?

Zweig’s frustrations with the genre are not entirely unfounded. It is not wrong to ask art to elicit some sort of reaction from the viewer. However, we have to question our system of valuing those reactions. So that books with socio-political impact are included and valued but also, that books which exist in the tradition of art for art’s sake may also have a place. Both Scholssberg’s and Ting’s books resonated with me but, for completely separate reasons. If we forced all books to exist as socio-political commentary then we might run the risk of limiting ourselves. Zweig begins her article with the question of whether she would bring a novel or an artists’ book with her on a deserted island. But, I would challenge this question with another question: “What novel?” Just as some novels are crafted to address matters and some are merely exercises in writing. Does not the same standard hold true for artists books? Some may be just for viewing and move us by the simple fact that they are beautiful while others, can use beauty to confront us with other important ideas.

In this week’s past readings I have started to think more about the books we have seen and held in class. Although, their criticisms are valid in many ways their opinions are not seen in the books we have seen in Book Sets 5 & 6. In Book Set 5 we looked at Wordswordswords by Edwin Schlossberg with images created by Robert Raushenberg and Jasper Johns and in Book Set 6 we saw The WunderCabinet: the Curious Worlds of Barbara Hodgson & Claudia Cohen. These two books seem to not only refute Zweig’s and  Drucker’s critisims but also answer Drucker’s prerequisite questions about artwork.

Wordswordswords was an experience envisioned by Edwin Schlossberg. The book offers an interesting presentation – a cold, crisp metal slip box which conceals a unbound book of similar description. The actual book itself serves the reader by creating an experience – go through the pages to pull apart the story by literally changing the appearance of words through separating the many pages that hold the building blocks for the words but only appear to be random shapes.  By having the pages come together to form words, instead of just having them typed on a single page, allows the reader to feel as if their separating the pages is a form of deconstruction and investigation through the book. The project creates an inventive interplay between words and their material. The materials of the words serve as the carrier for the experience in a new way than in the traditional book.  Schlossberg’s word and page interplay forces the reader to slow their process and makes getting the meaning of the words more than just reading them.

The WunderCabinet: the Curious Worlds of Barbara Hodgson & Claudia Cohen engages the reader in a nearly overpowering way. The book itself offers a beautiful journal like collection of observations with hand-colored drawings and diagrams with the occasional 3D element. The bottom of the box offers a collection of miniature wonders ranging from various clock faces to shells. The box itself is also captivating with its inlaid wood design. The art serves to illustrate for the reader the larger aspect of the collection that would not fit in the box and also shows the illustrators view on the piece. The tactile objects allow the reader to understand the book by holding the physical inspiration for the writing. The combination of the two allows the viewer to imagine that they are holding the prized journal of a friend who is letting them touch their most prized treasures.  Having this sort of interaction with the book immediately establishes an intimate relationship with the text and objects. The materials serve to allow the reader the opportunity to look at the objects someone has honored in a new way – to people in the modern world a watch face is often over looked but seeing the book and then getting to remove the watch from its small, personal velvet compartment makes it seem like a new discovery.

Wordswordswords and The WunderCabinet are two modern Livres D’Artiste that exceed the requirements set forth in this past week’s criticisms. These two books also offer exquisite examples for what modern Livres D’Artiste should be.

Barbara Hodgson and &Claudia Cohen The Wundercabinet book/artifact collection made for an intricately tactile reading experience.  Inspired by the 16^th century Wunderkammen of European collectors, Hodgson and Cohen set out to create a project that would act as an extension of a room where such a collection of “exotic curiosities” would have been housed.  The authors successfully managed to simulate the actual experience of sensory-overload upon entering a Wundrkammen.  In an actual Wunderkammen, the collection’s owner would have been able to explain objects and provide anecdotes as needed.  Hodgson and Cohen created their book as a stand in, allowing readers a guide to their experience with the objects inside the box. While their introduction even states: “Drawn as well to a universe compressed into the side of a box, we delight in the microcosm that encourages playful juxtaposition and multi-sensory contemplation,” this is obvious withoutany explanation. The personal nature of the collection would not be as strong if the small objects were absent from the final product – even though it could be argued that the objects are not book-like. In essence, the book becomes the Wunderkammen, organizing the chaotic nature of an actual room of wonder – condensing it into a manageable form that is still complex and consuming.

Wordswordswords by Edwin Schlossberg is a book that is very dependent on its materiality for meaning. While each page is a uniform size, Schlossberg (or maybe the publisher/others involved) expanded the possibilities of experience with the use of paper, plastic and aluminum (or something like aluminum).  Each page reacts differently to its surroundings, making for a reading experience that is in constant flux. This book is aesthetically beautiful but the material choices were made to enhance the meaning of the words onthe pages. In some, the reader’s face is mirrored back at them, while in others a constant shift of light occurs as the page is turned. Using clear plastic instead of paper for some of the pages was an interesting choice that added a new dimension to Wordswordswords.  The plastic pages allowed me to see through them to the pages before/after and in other instances a stack of plastic pages worked together to form complete words and sentences – with parts of each being printed on different layers. This book would not have been as successful had it been printed with normal materials and all harmony between text and page would have been lost.