Johanna Drucker, professor of contemporary art at Yale University delivered a lecture yesterday titled "The Artist's Book: From Historical Precedence to Electronic Possibility" accompanied by a slide presentation and book display at 105 Dartmouth Hall to a small audience.
The lecture was the second in the series,"Books and the Imaginary," sponsored by the Eighth Annual Dartmouth College Humanities Research Institute.
The artist's books is created as a primary work of art, meaning that the text, pictures, paper, cover and binding together in their original form constitutes each work. The semantic meaning of the text is only one component of the artist's book, said Druckman, a maker of artists' books herself since 1972.
The other unique quality of the artist's book, as differentiated from literary books, is what Druckman refered to as "the bookness of the book form," which contributes to the aesthetics and meaning of the art.
Druckman further explored her topic by saying "the concept of the book, as we know it, has a long cultural legacy. The book exists as a symbolic vehicle in metaphysics, politics and poetics."
The artist's book explores all of these avenue, playing with our cultural associations of books while blurring the boundries between literary art and visual art, said Druckman.
The artist enlists typography, paper texture, punctuated layout of the bound book, to create an artist's book which is highly self-concious of its physical book form.
