Category: Review
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Public Collectors Police Scanner
Public Collectors Police ScannerMarc FischerPublic Collectors2021 8.5 × 11 in. closed90 pagesSide stitch and fabric tape bindingRisograph and digital printing Proponents of the “thin blue line” assert that the police are the only thing preventing society from descending into violent chaos. A coyote in an alley, a bank robbery, missing children, and reckless driving: chaos…
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Witness 001
Witness 001Parker Bolin, Armando Diaz, Zachary Estes, Mmuso MatsapolaWitness Studios2021 8.5 × 5.5 in. closed40 pagesPerfect bindingOffset printing The inaugural issue of artists’ publication Witness invites readers to do just that: to not only look at Louisville’s racial justice movement in the summer of 2020, but to experience it more intimately. The photographs, from multiple…
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Terra Nullius
Terra NulliusChristopher Kardambikis2020 7.5 × 10.25 in. closed50 pagesBinding: Plastic strip fastenerRisograph I try not to talk about William Blake. I love his work, but I find his outsized role in the genealogy of artists’ books to be of little use for contemporary criticism. So, when I opened Terra Nullius by Christopher Kardambikis, I shuddered.…
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Convalescence
ConvalescenceGrant EvansAdversary Editions2020 6 × 9 in. closed110 pagesPerfect-bound softcoverDigital offset Convalescence is the first book by musician and visual artist, Grant Evans. It is far from the only artists’ book about grief, yet it stands out as particularly dark and gritty. Not only because it grapples with addiction and murder, but because Evans metaphorizes…
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This Land is My Land
This Land is My LandThad Higa2021 5.5 × 8.5 in. closed100 pages and two multi-page foldoutsCoptic binding with uncovered boardsDigital printing Thad Higa describes This Land is My Land as “a fictional narrative from the imagined headspace of current day white supremacists.” Artists rarely approach such a project with the required radical empathy, attempting to…
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Object Objects
Object ObjectsShana KaplowDesigned by Matthew RezacSelf-published with support from TITLE Collective2019 10.625 × 8.375 in. closed112 pagesSmyth-sewn softcover with French flapsOffset printing “I can’t unknow the impact of these massive systems,” interdisciplinary visual artist Shana Kaplow writes on the front flap of Object Objects, referring to the underpinnings of capital and exploitative labor that gird…
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Copy, Tweak, Paste: Methods of Appropriation in Re-enacted Artists’ Books
Copy, Tweak, Paste: Methods of Appropriation in Re-enacted Artists’ BooksRob van Leijsen2020 Éditions clinamen5.5 × 7.875 in. closed223 pagesPerfect-bound paperbackOffset printing Plenty of artists’ book practitioners and scholars have a background in graphic design, but for Rob van Leijsen graphic design is not merely an entry point into artists’ books; it is a place to…
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Oriental Silk
Oriental SilkXiaowen ZhuDesign by Michael Mason, CHEVAL2020Hatje Cantz 7 × 9.5 in. closed196 pagesSmyth-sewn, clothbound hardcoverOffset inside with screenprinted cover Oriental Silk is a Los Angeles import and retail company, a film, and an ever-evolving installation project by self-described “visual poet and aesthetic researcher” Xiaowen Zhu. The book Oriental Silk is a bit of each…
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Inscription, Issue 1: Beginnings
Inscription, Issue 1: BeginningsEdited by Gill Partington, Adam Smyth, Simon MorrisInformation as Material2020 Inscription journal: 12 × 12 in. offset-printed perfect-bound codex, 134 pagesSean Ashton, Living In A Land: 12 in. vinyl LPCraig Dworkin, Clock: 6.625 × 6.625 in. offset-printed, saddle-stitched pamphlet in a slipcase, 12 pagesJérémie Bennequin, An Erasure into the Maelström: 36 ×…
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The Marathon Poet
The Marathon PoetÅke HodellTranslated by Fia BackströmEdited by Kira Josefsson2020 Ugly Duckling Presse5.25 × 8.25 in. closed150 pagesPerfect bindingOffset Åke Hodell (1919–2000) was many things: poet, pacifist, anarchist, visual artist, composer, razor-sharp satirist, and one-time fighter pilot. In The Marathon Poet (Maratonpoeten in the original Swedish), first published in 1981 and newly translated into English…
Artists’ Book Reviews 