No Longer Innocent: Book Art In America 1960-1980 Betty Bright
Betty Bright has put together an overview of the history of the artist book. Beginning with William Morris and moving through Duchamp before arriving at Ed Ruscha and the explosion of artist books in the late sixties and seventies. Book works, as well as Alternate spaces and site specific public art all have a interesting trajectory around this time period it would be interesting to see how this could be timelined in a way that could connect the dots of the pluralist era before the return of painting in the 80’s. Like I’ve said before I have not read this, but my credit card has been used at amazon dot com recently.
By the way, for a great book art collection check out VCU’s library (second floor special collections) – I believe they still supply the white gloves.
Verso’s “Radical Thinkers”
Not a single book per se, however RT is a new collection of theoretical writing that always is worth a second look. I really need to whore myself to the publisher to get a free copy or two but this will have to do. Check out the names; Baudrillard, Virilio, Derrida, Adorno. I will always admit to being a theory junkie and this is going to be quite a collection or at least a tasty snack treat.