The Fecund Ambiguity
The Research
The proposition is simple: experiment with a theoretical and critical approximation to an especially interesting sector in contemporary art encompassing the works referring to books, or the so-called artist’s book and book-objects. This category has been constructed during the twentieth century out of the interrelation between artists and theorists, both with an inheritance of the preexistent conformations of the object which we call the book. A página violada: da ternura à injúria na construção do livro de artista (“The Violated Page: From Tenderness To Injury In The Construction Of The Artist’s Book”) is the title of my Master’s thesis in visual art, now in book form, in Portuguese. It will be published by the publishing house of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), with financial support, obtained through a competition open to the general public, from Fumproarte, a municipal program to support the arts in Porto Alegre, Brazil 1. As with other idioms, in the artistic jargon in Brazilian Portuguese it’s normal to use the unifying designation “the artist’s book”. But take as a starting point my Brazilian look into the identity of this category in the more general sense of the term. There isn’t any motive to separate local production from the larger international movement. On the contrary. If the production and distribution have been in fact very weak in periphery markets, this doesn’t impede that it belongs in the world context. In such specific situations, universal conflicts can emerge. For example, the problem of the permanence of the model is manifested in the almost omnipresence of the common book as a paradigm, or parameter, of a consolidated and universally accepted identity. How can we cause a rupture? Or how do we associate to the success of the book’s form? Yes, the problem is plastic, but it will involve the artist as much as the art theorist. There are more than a few researchers and artists who try to clarify limits. In fact, as an artistic category it’s persistent, considering its fruits are sometimes totally in text, other times without writing, varying formally from small pamphlets to wooden blocks and bricks. For this reason, at the beginning of the presentation of my research, I propose: “Close your eyes and imagine a book”. We know of the dependence that the imagination has in relation to perceived common knowledge. To speak of the book, one thinks of the codex, the form of a book that we are most accustomed to see. We also know of the reading compulsion. It is very difficult, really very difficult, to not read a word that appears in front of us. In light of these factors, two forming (or conforming) problems of the artist’s book are introduced: the critique of the established physical configurations and the critical act of reading.
The category of the artist’s book is composed of a large, varied and, at times, offensive group of works which frequently have as a theme their own condition as book, exercising critical comment about their own identity and circumstance. This is especially visible in collective shows, which seek a wide range of manifestations. One of the possible origins of shock or estrangement, which a large group of very different works could cause for the public, could be in the presumption that works belonging to the same category should be extremely alike. My objective here is to experiment with critical procedure, trying to comprehend the dimension of the presence of the opposing gestures of preservation and challenge in this artistic category in which the book becomes art. This study examines the tension involved in the search for the category of the artist’s book (lato sensu) through formal originality, through the formative process of elaboration of the works and through the establishment of the concepts in its own field. Considering its usage of materials and thematic variety, the artist’s book is a mixed category, established a posteriori by means of the appropriation of graphic objects related to reading. It seems to be a category defined much more by its media than by technique, ranging from the book to the non-book 2. And if this category exists, it is because conceptualists also exist. For this reason I examine it, considering its commentators as important as its artists.
It is not uncommon that the erudite in other cultural fields think of the book primarily, or only as, a container of texts. Even though the book may present ornamental craftsmanship, for them, any sign of non-verbal intelligence would be uninteresting. I understand that the plastic analysis of the work may be elaborated by means of the statement that the page can be used as a support as well as a shaping material, or both, even when the page doesn’t in fact exist (that is, physically). Understand, also, that what the artist appropriates is, in my opinion, the most significant cultural object of the occident. The book is an object that has existed prior to other objects in contemporary art, in both its forms and its dogmas. This is the source of a formal problem: the artist balances, in some point which he or she chooses, between the respect for traditional conformations of the book (the codex for example), and the rupture or transgression (physical or spiritual) of consecrated norms of presentation of this object. One possibility used to approach my subject critically was the adoption, as parameters, of the concepts of tenderness and injury. These nouns were used in the full extension of their meanings in Portuguese. But without Manichaeism. These two sentiments can intermeddle in the same work, generating plastic tension on the page and/or in the volume, not considering at this moment the conceptual and theoretical possibility of a non-page or non-volume. Perceived nuances not only can, but should be instruments in the conceptualization and characterization of the work and of the category to which it belongs, including certain copies of the illustrated book (which has ample transit in the universe of the bibliophiles), or any book-object (a product almost exclusive to the visual arts). I accept the imprecision of the limits of this category as a very welcome characteristic. This is a priceless contribution.
The title “The Violated Page” tries to verbalize a reflex impression. As said before, I present the plastic problem of artistic creation expressed by way of the appropriation of a consecrated support of traditional culture. The book presents itself as the dominant space for text most adequate for divulging intellectual knowledge, and it is historically marked by this. Here we see the intrusion of this object, originally related to reading, in the art of the twentieth century. Two basic questions pose themselves. Could the violation of the laws of the page determine integration as well as fragmentation of the work’s form or meaning? And furthermore, could this be one of the determinants characterizing an artistic category?
The immediate sensation felt by one who reads or hears the word “violation” seems to involve repugnance and censure. This demonstrates a negative connotation that the word implies, or a negative connotation that the public transfers to it. In exchanging ideas with other people, I found the term associated to sexual violence (a connotation not related to the topic at hand), in detriment to more common meanings, which are not necessarily negative for art: violation of rules, disobedience of laws, infraction of norms, offensive defiance of models, injury to the paradigm. The reasons of this negative association could be profound. But on the other hand, it could indicate that the word “violated” carries an ambiguity appropriate to the alterations which the page suffers from its shifting back and forth between occupation and art.
I maintained the original subtitle (From Tenderness to Injury in the Construction of the Artist’s Book), trying to clarify the proposal a bit more, pointing to the principal creative dualism (or of the attitude of the artist) reflected in his or her work. At this point emerges another doubt: being that this plastic event is accompanied, from the start, by the comprehension of its suppositions and challenges, wouldn’t this dualism be reflected in the critical opinions of researchers, art critics and specialized librarians?
The Book
The Violated Page has three principal parts. The first is called “Definitions and indefiniteness of the artist’s book”. In this section, the survey of the bibliography was done in association with the study of the principal Brazilian and international theoretical tendencies. I tried to present the point of view of some of the principal researchers. I introduced the subject pointing to authors who influence the presence of the artist’s book in the system of the arts, especially concentrating on those who try to reduce the area to a manifestation of the nineties (others of the more important researchers are commented in following chapters). As for Brazilian authors, I quoted those who I judged more significant for the construction of this field in the country (national researchers continue to be commented in following chapters). Also, I introduce the problem of rigorous and broad uses of the expression the artist’s book, as well as its relation to the book-object and the book-work.
In the two following sections, I begin with the principle that the relative perception of two objects can be successive, which implies the notion of time, or simultaneous, which implies the notion of space. Turning in this direction, I develop the chapter entitled “Temporality and Corruption of Memory,” followed by the chapter “Spatiality and the Exacerbation of the Body.” The latter is longer than the former because it goes back to, or proceeds with, themes which were formerly sketched out (sequentiality, for example). As to the common division – spirit and matter, I associate memory and body, being the body the physical being formed out of the matter that possesses a system of ideas and senses. In these developments of the text, I tried to draw a curve which has at opposite ends the problems of breaking through the limits of the graphic or commercial arts, literature, and the more conventional artistic categories (principally, printing, painting, and sculpture). I end with conclusions, annexes and the bibliography (with some annotated references) and a small glossary of graphic and editorial terms.
Most of the studied works are products of the nineties, with accessible prices and are easy to acquire. Part of the earlier production of artist’s books was also considered, so that principle problems might be made apparent, and so that a relation might be established with some of these predecessors. I begin with a rapid verification of the principle local production (in my state), especially in the seventies and eighties, and proceed with the Brazilian production of rare works available in libraries and museums (for the most part this group is composed of book-objects, existing relatively few artist’s books in stricto sensu; of the latter, predominate their relation to visual and concrete poetry). Some Brazilian artists, that are considered representative of some plastic possibilities of the book, were contacted. Some of the interviews of these artists were transcribed for their documentary importance 3. Afterwards, I tried to show some examples of Brazilian and international production available today in common or specialized bookstores, galleries and museum shops. In addition, I had the intention to report about principle exhibitions occurring during the period studied in my research. I sought some names specifically, maintained correspondence with some cultural organizers in the area and researched what was possible of the specific conceptual (theoretical) bibliography. Here, I call attention to three important international exhibitions (which I unfortunately could only get to know by means of catalogues and depositions) which were fundamental to my work: Llibres d’Artista, Barcelona, Metrònom, 1981, curated by Rafael Tous; Livres d’artistes, Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, 1985, curated by Anne Moeglin-Delcroix; and The Altered Page, New York, Center for Book Arts, 1988, curated by Marvin Sackner. This last one was a motivator for the title of my research.
Conclusions and inconclusiveness
I intend to observe one more dual posture, among others, the artists relation to the book, and what is projected in his or her work. The artist has, as his or her most difficult problem, the choice of the relationship that will be established with his or her creation. On one hand, the artist is the thinking being that admires the familiar form of books and its almost sacred status. The book brings with it the taste for the perpetuation of the classic form, its condition as a most noble deposit of knowledge, expressed by the enthusiasm and respect for the surface, for the act to turn the page and for its rhythms. In this case, the artist executes a flat and clean art, of textures and shadows, related to the elaboration of the support, suave and classic. It asks for the animosity and the subtlety of our gaze, of our memory and imagination. On the other hand, the artist is the creator that expresses himself through the idea of transgression, confronting the sculptural with the flat, breaking up the page, dilacerating the structure, injuring, forming, deforming and transforming. Here the integral possibility of touch appears, and the profanation of the (almost) consecrated rules of presentation and use of the object book. In other words, the presence of art and its craftsmanship shouts in our hands. In these two postures solidifies the universe of tension between the preservation and the physical offense suffered by the structure of the artist’s book in its broadest sense (lato sensu). Could the insinuation of duality be the cause of the estrangement that the public sometimes feels?
The artist’s book is still an outcast in some sectors of art, those which don’t gain anything from its status as a common mutt. At times it is excessively luxurious, at times it is simple and crude. It can cost a single coin, or more than our salaries. It is frequently ignored by the system, even though the same public that rarely visits museums and galleries may have one or two copies at home, without even knowing it. But this ignorance persists. Some time ago, after having lunch with a friend, we went to a bookstore in Porto Alegre, known for its variety of available titles. I found a book by Waltercio Caldas for sale, Velazquez, an interesting work with all of its pages entirely out of focus. I suggested to my friend that he buy it. He joked with me: “But there isn’t anything to read!” The bookstore saleswoman asked me, really perturbed: “So explain to me, why didn’t I understand, what this is?” I constructed a beautiful speech, that that was a book and a work of art, etc. My arguments didn’t help. The salesman wasn’t convinced and my friend didn’t buy the book. And the solitary copy remained a few more weeks waiting for someone to buy it.
Now, having passed two years since this humorous experience, I present for public evaluation the result of an investigation that ended up being a lot more problematic than initially imagined, in as much as it brought to light more tensions existing in this specific area of participatory intellectual expression in art than I had expected to find. But what a good job to do! I hope that the study to be published doesn’t sleep on the shelf. Yes, sooner or later it will be still in some shelf of a library, but it will be alive, I hope, hiding out, peeping at the visitors. Let’s hope that someone interested, whoever it may be, when finding the volume on the shelf, exchanges more than a few looks with it. The effort of this research, and the effort of those people who collaborated with it, will be, in this way, recompensed.
