Blank Book Makers
2.06.2012 – 17.06.2012
Fonderie Kugler, Geneva
The exhibition Blank Book Makers and the catalogue aimed to address the latest developments in artists’ book history, and gave a dynamic overview of inspiring recent works. Included in the exhibition were many books dealing with topics such as emptiness, space, or the very substance of pages, as well as books which explore the book in itself or bookworks publications. With the sheer abundance of interesting publications, showing all facets and aspects of contemporary developments through images would have been extremely challenging.
We therefore chose to identify and showcase the current ideas and needs of the artist’s book medium. This approach greatly benefitted from the efforts carried out at the large annual artists’ book conventions, such as Printed Matter’s New York Art Book Fair and many more. The exhibition also owed a great deal to all the mediation activities carried out via independent information networks, which play a significant part in promoting artists and their books, and was in itself an expression of gratitude to all the hard-working people behind these exhibitions and platforms, as well as to specialized booksellers. This also extends to directors and curators of institutions, collectors, and publishers for the ways in which they made their works and knowledge available to us. The Blank Book Makers exhibition in Geneva and its supporting body of work could not have been carried out without their generous contributions.
AND Publishing, Vincent Barras, Olivier Bessard-Banquy, Boabooks, Boekie Woekie, Susanne Bürner, Coracle press, Simon Cutts, dasein, editions 75, edition fink, editions nord, Greatest Hits, Lynn Harris, Héros-Limite, éditions incertain sens, Innen zine, Louis Lüthi, Mark Pezinger Verlag, Nieves, Occasional Papers, OMMU, Jan Voss, Eric Watier, Eva Weinmayr, Westphalie Verlag, Zédélé.
Books by Vito Acconci, Pierre Garnier, Art & Langage, Robert Barry, Roland Barthes, Pierre Barthes, Samuel Beckett, Julien Berberat, Irma Blank, O.F. Bollnow, Ray Bradbury, Koen Brams & Krist Gruijthuijsen, Marcel Broodthaers, Stanley Brouwn, Susanne Bürner, Paul Bury, James Lee Byars, John Cage, Italo Calvino, Ulises Carrión, Mariana Castillo Deball, Les Coleman, Sackett Colin, Simon Cutts, Lieven De Boeck & John Murphy, Guy de Cointet, Pierre de Massot, herman de vries, Jean Delvaux, Dieter Roth, Victor David Dinnerstein, Peter Downsbrough, Marcel Duchamp, Fra Elbertus, Leif Eriksson, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Robert et Cie Filliou, Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Jason Fulford, Heinz Gappmayr, Dora Garcia, William H. Gass, Nicolas Geiser, Michael Gibbs, Fabrice Gigy, Sébastien Goy, Sigurdur Gudmundsson, Sönke Hallman, Jérôme Hentsch, Katrin Herzner, Susan Hiller, Masanao Hirayama, Anthony Huberman, Tom Johnson, David Jourdan, Martin Kippenberger, Yves Klein, Richard Kostelanetz, Jaroslaw Kozlowski, Frédéric Laé, James Langdon, Yvan Le Bozec, Henri Lefebvre, Jürg Lehni & Alex Rich, Gordon Lish, Louis Lüthi, Anne Lydia, George Maciunas, Sara MacKillop, Stéphane Mallarmé, Piero Manzoni, Annette Messager, Helen Mirra & Lyn Hejinian, Jonathan Monk, Bruno Munari, Julien Nédélec, Bp Nichol & David Aylwood, Sun Noh, Brian O’Doherty, Paul van Dijk, Georges Perec, Michalis Pischler, Salvador Plascencia, Manuel Raeder, Sophie Ristelhueber, Niklaus Ruegg, Allen Ruppersberg, Ed Rusha, Claude Rutault, Georg Rutishauser & Matthias Kuhn, Jonathan Safran Foer, Sarkis, Ferdinand Schmatz & Heimo Zobernig, Janis Schroeder, Idries Shah, Izet Sheshivari, Sterne Laurence, Peter Stoffel, Ramaya Tegegne, Nik Thoenen & Lorenzo le kou Meyr, Tim Lee & Markus Soo, Roland Topor, Endre Tót, Joëlle Tuerlinckx, Richard Tuttle, Jiri Valoch, Bernard Villers, Jan Voss, Andy Warhol, Eric Watier, Lawrence Weiner, Eva Weinmayr, Karen Willey, Ian Wilson, Rahel Zoller.
We published the catalogue Blank Book Makers ↗︎ with Boabooks.↗︎
The exhibition Blank Book Makers benefitted from the support of the Loterie Romande and the Ville de Genève.