The following essay is the script for a presentation I gave at the College Book Art Association conference in 2010.
About my novel Good For Nothing: After receiving a strong blurb from Audrey Niffenegger I have had a string of relatively positive rejections from very good editors at very good publishers. This situation has lead to stress, depression, sleeplessness, ulcers, pimples, overeating, loss of appetite, mood swings, flat affect, irritable bowels, road rage and memory loss. And memory loss.
On the upside, I have been asked to contribute to a few cool projects including a post-modern fairy tale and supplying content for a great website.
How Low-quality Text Debases
High-Quality artist’s Books
To
begin I’d like to read a definition of Artist’s Books from Ulysses Carrion. He
uses the term Bookwork; and applies it in a specific way that refers to the art
form that is most commonly called an artist’s book.
“Book Works are books
that are conceived as an expressive unity, that is to say, where
the message is
the sum of all the materials and formal elements.”
This
definition dovetails nicely with the point I hope to make. That is, that if as
a book artist, one conceives writing as one of the elements in the “expressive
unit” one hopes to create, then that writing needs to be held to the same
standard as all other formal and expressive elements of the book. That seems simple
enough; but I believe it’s often not the case. In practice, the writing in artist’s
books is not nearly as developed as the book object, or the visual narrative.
So to be clear: by
the term LOW-QUALITY-TEXT I mean that the writing that is used in many artist’s
books is noticeably out of balance with the other element of the book. By text,
I do not mean typographic design in which letter forms are treated primarily as visual,
but instead refer to sequential writing that aspires to participates in the
characteristics of literature.
It’s been my
experience that too often the text in artist’s books is one-note, dry, and
seemly given the least amount of consideration. I have experienced artist’s
books that had impeccable craftsmanship, the paper was beautiful and handmade,
the binding was skillful, clean and precise, the page spreads were full of rich
and engaging imagery, the printing was executed with enviable mastery, the text
looked great on the page, and the structure behaved in delightfully surprising
ways. But when I began to read, the writing felt tacked on as if it was the
last thing added. When this occurs it is a big problem because it is a lost
opportunity.
Artist’s books that
use bad text create the likely scenario that instead of building a wider
audience, they drive away potential audience and in doing so make the discourse
within the field less accessible, less impactful and more marginalized within
the arts. With this as our starting point, I will be presenting a rationale for
why text is not held to as high a standard as other elements of book design, I will
discuss how bad text breaks faith with the viewer, and I will suggest on
possible alternative approach to teaching artist’s books.
The field of
book arts requires participants to occupy many roles at the same time. Most of
those roles fit comfortably in the world of visual arts. But there exists
decades old conversations within the field of literature, memoir, and more
recently video and documentary film that can shine a light on the way we
approach the writing in artist’s books.
I’d like to go back to Carrion to discuss
a long-held attitude that is typical of the complex relationship our very
visual field has with writing. A little about Carrion: in a manner that reminds
me of Malarme, his work with visual and concrete poetry explored and expanded
the use of the book as a medium for artistic expression. He is credited with
being one of the first artists to write a general theory about artists' books.
His influential essay, 'The New Art of Making Books,' written in 1975, analyzes
the form of the book in the context of its tactile, visual, and intellectual
merits. This essay was a kind of poetic prose list poem and art manifesto that
set-up a dichotomy between the “old art” of making books and the “new art” of
making books.
To put Carrion’s essay in a historical
context, in 1962 Ed Ruscha’s 26 gasoline stations was produced and the first
Fluxus Festival was held. For more than ten years there was growing excitement
about a new kind of art print culture, a lot of experimentation, and idealized
Marxist-inspired views about distributing art outside of the gallery system
directly to the viewer. In 1975 Carrion’s essay succinctly articulated many
attitudes that were in the air. The jargon and distinctions he made in this
essay are still in common use in the way our field defines the “poetics of the book.” For instance, this essay has
shaped the way artist’s think of the book as being both temporal and sequential. Along with Seth Sieglaub, Carrion
promoted the idea of the book as an “Alternative gallery Space”.
From his home in Amsterdam at his
gallery-bookshop: Other Books and So, he produced and distributed his essay three
years before Printed Matter attained not-for-profit status. One couplet from
this essay states:
In
order to understand and to appreciate a book of the old art, it is necessary to
read it
thoroughly.
In
the new art you often do NOT need to read the whole book.
The
reading may stop at the very moment you have understood the total structure of
the
book.
The point
Carrion is making is that artists’ books communicate meaning through structure,
design, and materiality, and that if all elements are functioning in concert -
the intention of a book can be realized through a visceral reaction to the book
as an object. Clearly this is true and one of the powerful things about the art
form. But he also seems to argue that an Artist’s Book reveals itself in its
structure to the point that the entirety of the text is not important. While
Carrion’s essay is provocative, it also suffers the same failures as many such
dichotomous analogies. Namely, it’s an effective tool for comparison and
contrast, but a poor tool for nuanced distinction. Carrion makes a good point
introducing the idea. But Carrion introduces here a dangerous suggestion:
Namely that the text of a book of the New Art could be deemed as non-vital to
the meaning of the book.
In the field of
Artist’s books I’ve heard it said that a book teaches the viewer how the book
is intended to be read. This is out of necessity because all artists’ books
reveal themselves differently. But it’s also a statement of a type of contract.
If a viewer opens a book and finds writing contained in its pages, there is a
reasonable expectation that text plays a role in revealing the meaning of the
book. And what Carrion seems to suggest is that it is perfectly fine to break
faith with the viewer by having text which is not that important, or at least
not Vital to the meaning of the book.
Neil Gaiman is a
writer whose first big success was the graphic novel The Sandman. Recently I
heard Gaiman promoting his new children’s novel, The Graveyard Book, with Terry Gross on Fresh Air. Terry asked
him “What is the difference in the way you approach writing a novel, a
screenplay or a graphic novel?” He said, and I am paraphrasing here, that when
he writes anything, he makes a kind a promise with the first few pages of text,
that he then has to keep meeting the terms of and re-negotiating throughout the
work. If the promise is broken, he suggested, the reader will not trust the
work and will become skeptical of what it has to say. It is exactly this type of broken promise I think occurs
when low quality text is used in an Artist’s book.
This notion of a contract between reader
and artist is common in literature and in film, video, stage…any long form in
which one thing leads to the next; any form that is sequential and
temporal. And in all these forms
a relationship is established based on how the work presents itself. Then, that relationship must be
maintained over the course of the work. Like most interpersonal relationship,
the terms of the association may shift from moment to moment or page spread to
page spread, but within the context of the initial understanding.
The first
place I remember being introduced to this idea was a book of criticism by John
Gardner. In 1978 the novelist and scholar wrote the controversial and
influential book On Moral Fiction. This book of literary criticism was a reaction to the
post-modern novel’s meta-nature, which he felt was a waste of the opportunity
to lift the human condition. By "moral" Gardner did not mean
religious or cultural "morality," but rather he argued that fiction
should explore those humanistic values that are universally sustaining. Gardner
felt that few contemporary authors were "moral" in this sense. Much
of the furor over this book was because he indicted specific novels as failing
to meet the standards he thought written art should aspire to.
For instance, Thomas
Pynchon he accused of indulging in "winking, mugging despair" and a
“trendy nihilism” in which Gardner felt Pynchon did not honestly believe. In
response to this type of “personal assault” in Gardner’s work Gore Vidal
declared On Moral Fiction sanctimonious and pedantic, and he called
Gardner the "late apostle to the lowbrow.” Gardner was generous to some.
Of the work of Italo Calvino he notes that there is beauty in the way he never
fails to successfully accomplish the challenging writing task he set for
himself. And Donald Barthelme he
recognizes as very accomplished at satirizing the anxieties and insecurities of
modern man.
Sadly the way the
message was delivered, over-shadowed the message itself. And all the subsequent name calling
drowned out an important point that Gardner made: when one creates a piece of
art that can’t be experienced in an instant, the first moments of reading (or
viewing) establishes a kind of relationship between the work and the viewer;
and the terms of that relationship should be honored. If a writer or artist
builds expectations in a viewer, then- in fairness to the viewer- those
expectations should be satisfied. Gardner did not argue that the viewer need to
feel “happy” or “good” about the resolution but that the art needs to be
resolved in a way that follows from its own beginning. And that the resolution
should do more than only entertain (though it may be entertaining), it should
wrestle with issues vital to the human condition.
While any claims that
art must have certain types of content or objectives are problematic, Gardner’s
basic notion of the agreement of internal elements of a text is hard to
dispute. Personally, I do believe that one should try to reach a viewer, and
one needs to have a point to make or else the viewer will loose interest. As it
applies to Artists’ Books, On Moral Fiction seems particularly important
because Gardner’s comments recognize that there is a relationship between the
artist and viewer; that the terms of that relationship are defined by the
artwork itself; it acknowledges an obligation (as defined by the artwork) on
the part of the artist to the viewer.
Moreover, the
“morality” of the work is self-defined. The Book object itself reveals a
promise and then it is the responsibility of the artist to recognize the
promise the work has made and find a way to satisfy the terms of that
agreement.
Beyond all of that,
Gardner’s accusation that the meta-nature of post-modern writing was often only
of interest to other writers is one and the same situation that exists in
artist’s books when we make books whose content is primarily about the process
of making books. Some times so much so that all other content is pushed into
the background. This kind of self-referential content runs the risk of
alienating an audience who has been kind enough to give their time and
attention to our books.
The idea of an
agreement that should be honored leads me to similar declaration by someone
writing specifically about autobiographical work; either documentary and
memoir, or any art that uses the first-person voice to relate to an audience.
To support the notion that I am comparing apples to apples I point to the 2001
text book: Reading Autobiography a
guide to interpreting life narration in which Sodonie Smith and Julia
Watson point out that autobiographical texts and fictional writing share the
same formal features: plot, dialogue, setting, characterization…etc. And so the
agreement that Gardner talks about as relating to literature is addressing the
exact same relationship that Philippe Lejeune is dissecting in his exploration
of Autobiographical texts.
In Chapter six (The
Autobiographical Pact) of his 1996 book On Autobiography Lejeune states
that the word “pact” implies a binding contract in which the artist and the
viewer sit down, look over a set of rules, and then-in complete agreement-sign
the pact before the viewing of the art can begin. Of course this doesn’t
happen. But it does make a distinction about the nature of the pact entered
into by a viewer and an artist; it isn’t a binding clear-cut agreement. It is
perhaps an implied agreement that operates on the honor system.
Lejeune argues that
all autobiography is participating in one of two traditions. Either the work
aspires to be “real” or the work is in the “Literary/Artistic Model” which uses
the appearance of the first model in order attach credibility to some other
agenda. Lejeune believes that if the work is perceived as “true” then it’s
received differently than if it’s perceived as “art.”
In the field of
Artist’s Books, the idea of subverting the reader’s experience is a common
strategy for delivering content. Here, Lejeune says that when art takes on the
tropes of some other form in order to surprise a viewer, and catch them
unaware, that type of work falls within his parameters of a “Loose Pact,” with
the viewer.
So contrary to the, I
think unintended implication, presented by Ulysses Carrion in The New Art of
Making Books, Neil Gaiman, John Gardner and Philippe LeJuene all acknowledge a
kind of promise between the a book artist and the viewer in which the mere
presence of writing creates an expectation in the viewer. Gaiman conversationally,
and Lejuene explicitly, recognize a kind of constant negotiation between the
artist and the viewer carried out over the course of a sequential work. And I
would argue that a book that has text on the page and looks professionally and
thoughtfully made, makes a promise to the viewer that the writing will be of a
similar quality as the book object itself. And if the writing fails to meet
that standard it breaks faith with the reader and debases the entire book
object.
Lastly,
a book that is compelling and complex in appearance, but has flat and
underdeveloped writing does not live-up to the promise it has made to a viewer.
Because of the powerful one-to-one viewing experience that is unique to the
artist’s book, I suggest that unlike the experience of film or a gallery
exhibition, a reader of an artist book has the potential to feel especially
close to the content within an aritst’s book and conversely be particularly
offended if an artist’s book does not meet expectations.
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