The Authority of the Book: Publication Explosion
Are we at the end of the era of the printed book? Perhaps, but the explosion in self-publishing argues that the printed/made book is more potent than ever.
Increasingly, many find the screen a lifeless visual monoculture, a visual experience that homogenizes all visual content into the same bland RGB grid of pixels. The hunger for richer, more tactile experiences in reading can be demonstrated by the attendances at recent Artist Book Fairs in New York and Los Angeles, which were measured in the tens of thousands. The feverish interest in printed books of photography and the large audience for graphic novels all suggest that the audience for printed books is growing, not collapsing.
The potential of publication as a creative act is inexhaustible: this exhibition celebrates books and ephemera as distributable works of art created in multiple. We make a distinction between publication as simple replication and publication as creation—publication as replication uses the technologies of printing in a lifeless manner, inattentive to the rich material articulations inherent in all production processes. The works in this show have a variety of approaches and relationships to the idea of production, but they all share a commitment to the book as an authentic primary experience in art. The book is resolutely a material artifact, imbued with the aesthetic values and assumptions of the maker.
Clifton Meador
Philip Zimmermann
The Authority of the Book in Gallery B
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About the curators
Philip Zimmermann
BFA Cornell University; MFA SUNY Buffalo/Visual Studies Workshop
Philip Zimmermann’s primary research involves visual narrative and the time-based use of text and image. He has been creating artists books for more than 30 years. He has shown extensively nationally and internationally, and among other awards, has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and two New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships. Spaceheater Editions is a publishing press owned and operated by Philip Zimmermann. Zimmermann produces open-edition and limited-edition works that use photography, printmaking and design. The main focus of Spaceheater Editions is the editioned narrative artists’ book. Under Spaceheater Editions (and several other press imprints) Zimmermann publishes his own books and posters as well as those of a number of exceptional artists. Spaceheater Editions was born in Chicago, Illinois, grew up in New York City and upstate New York, and now calls beautiful Tucson, Arizona home.
Clifton Meador
Clifton Meador’s creative work combines writing, photography, printmaking and design to make narrative works that explore culture, history and place. His work is in many major collections, including the Library of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Yale Art of the Book collection. His work has been supported by grants from the Rubin Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, The Soros Foundation for Open Society, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Meador comes to Appalachian after serving as professor and interim chair of the Department of Interdisciplinary Arts at Columbia College Chicago. While at Columbia College Chicago, Meador directed the MFA in Book and Paper and was charged with revamping the program to bring the curriculum in line with best MFA practices in the field. As interim chair, he led his department through a challenging time of organizational change. Prior to his tenure at Columbia College Chicago, Meador taught at the State University of New York at New Paltz.
Additional resources
- Flickr: Additional Images
- Spaceheater
- philip zimmermann + spaceheater editions
- Spaceheater Editions
- Art Photo Index
- Philip B Zimmermann – Information provided by the University of Arizona School of Art.
- Clifton Meador Artist’s Books
- Clifton Meador – Information provided by the Appalachian State University Department of Art.
- Clifton Meador – Vamp & Tramp, Booksellers, LLC
- Clifton Meador – Works in progress.