December 4, 2014
Moderator Dr. Stephen J. Bury, Andrew W. Mellon Chief Librarian, Frick Art Reference Library, New York

10:00 a.m. Welcome, Dr. Stephanie Jacobs
Head of the German Museum of Books and Writing/Dr. Stephen J. Bury

10:15 a.m. Keynote: “Artist-run spaces”: Publishing and new art practices, David Senior, Bibliographer, The Museum of Modern Library - MoMa, New York
David Senior will propose a history of artists’ publications in the 20th and 21st centuries. There will be a few different stories about how artists and designers have used their little publications as containers for new ideas, creating lively and accessible spaces to communicate work and archive art actions. Most examples will come from the collection of books that he works with at the MoMa Library and several recent library exhibitions he has organized of artists’ books and ephemera.

11:00 a.m. Blurring the lines: Collecting artists’ books in the museum Environment, Milan R. Hughston, Chief of Library and Museum Archives, The Museum of Modern Art – MoMa, New York
Milan Hughston will discuss the history of collecting artists’ books in a museum environment, where boundaries have traditionally been distinct between what is found in a museum library and a curatorial department.
Artists’ books, however defined, have challenged those lines, and he will explore how to navigate the politics of the situation and propose constructive ways of how museum libraries and curatorial depart- ments can work together.

11:45 a.m. 1, 2, 3, 6, 6000: Building an instructional collection of artists’ Books, Doro Boehme, School of the Art Institute of Chicago - SAIC
Acquisition and collection development practices at the Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection (JFABC) are strongly guided by both its open access policies and its public programming endeavors and can therefore only be discussed in this context. The task of getting its holdings into people’s hands is the one most dear to Doro Boehme and her staff, whether they serve their own community, student groups from any of the surrounding institutions throughout the Midwest, or researchers traveling to use the collection from around the world.
Doro Boehme will outline the collection’s history of serving the general public from its first days of existence and how this mission inevitably impacts any selection of new materials, no matter if those come via donation, purchase, or trade. She will discuss making use of existing connections to the international art market that faculty members at SAIC have established, fostering physical growth of our artists’ book holdings in harmony with other library special collections.
She will further discuss JFABC’s development as an instructional collection that is closely tied to the School’s overall mission – almost embodying a physical manifestation of it – and sketch out how the library staff actively try to expand its current, and already fairly varied, user base by acquiring artists’ pub- lications in the term’s widest sense possible. She will end by describing the different strategies employed to anticipate future patron needs, closely monitor curricular interests as they emerge, and tie outreach efforts into a variety of on-campus activities by other departments, all in the spirit of cross-pollination between formats and artistic, as well as academic, disciplines.

12:30 p.m. LUNCH BREAK

1:30 p.m. And what have we got here? Cataloging and processing of artists’ books , Dr. Stephen J. Bury, Frick Art Reference Library, New York
One of the many institutional barriers to the acceptance of the artist’s book in a library (museum, educa- tional, specialist art, state or national library) is its resistance to the generalized processing, cataloging and conservation procedures. Often technical staff do not realize what an artist’s book is and that it should be accorded exceptional treatment or at least excepted from the stamping, labeling, security stripping, bin- ding etc. that libraries normally inflict on the typical book.
The artist’s book is also resistant to cataloging rules or at least require complicated workarounds to fully describe them. Yet this description, paradoxically, is perhaps the key to understanding the artist’s use of the book format. Information acquired at the point of acquisition – from the artist him or herself, or their dealer – can be extremely useful in the cataloging process.
Should artists’ books be kept in special collections or put with general book stock on the open shelves? There are philosophical and practical views on both these positions.

2:15 p.m. Artists’ books exposed: via exhibition and social media in a museum setting, Deirdre Lawrence, Principal Librarian, Libraries and Archives, Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York
Artists’ books are vibrant examples of contemporary art that present challenges in terms of exhibition and interpretation within the museum’s walls. Exhibiting artists’ books in a museum gallery setting provides opportunities for their interpretation to the public – of all ages – and allows for the display of the book as a key part of the mainstream art scene.
What are the challenges presented by displays and the space needed by artists’ books to be given their proper due in relation to other objects on view in a museum gallery setting? How is the message intended by the artist communicated via display, didactic interpretation and the larger dimension offered by social media? What about born digital e-artist books? How can curators be used to assist in this interpretation process? Are there opportunities for more active engagement with the audience?
This presentation will explore these ideas and review options for display and interpretation opportunities including the role of the artist in these decisions. Specific examples will be presented as to how the Brooklyn Museum displays artists’ books and explores their content through exhibition, didactic interpretation and social media.

3:00 p.m. COFFEE BREAK

3:30 p.m. Panel of speakers, Moderator: Dr. Stephanie Jacobs

4:30 p.m. END OF THE FIRST DAY

7:30 p.m. Dinner at Auerbachs Keller

December 5, 2014
Moderator Dr. Stephanie Jacobs, Museum of Books and Writing, Leipzig

9:00 a.m. Intuition and Presence. Artists’ Books from Europe and Beyond: The Wolfenbüttel Collection and Its Outreach, Prof. Dr. Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer, Head of the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel
The Wolfenbüttel Collection of livres d’artistes, founded by its director Erhart Kästner (1950–1968) and later developed by Sabine Solf and Werner Arnold is the first and one of the largest collections of its kind in Germany. Erhart Kästner’s main aim was to add master pieces from the so called School of Paris to the Wolfenbüttel collection of precious manuscripts and prints from medieval times until the 18th century. Embedded in a variety of special collections of the library which has been founded in 1572 AD this collection of artists’ books has been further developed by many new acquisitions. During the last decades this “Wolfenbüttel Malerbuch collection” added works by contemporary artists broadening their means of expression by a growing variety of techniques and materials.
There are unique one-of-kind books as well as copies of illustrated books with hand set texts and published in limited editions.The library mainly focused on works dealing with the literary tradition. In recent years we became especially interested in books by an artist printing from wood cuts and in books adding etchings to literary works. The library regularly arranges exhibitions with selected books from the own holdings or in cooperation with single artists who present their oeuvre in the “Malerbuchsaal”, a room installed by Erhart Kästner with the collection stored in clamshell boxes covered with decorated paper individually designed for each artist.

9:45 a.m. A Clandestine Life: Artists‘ Books in the Collections of the Bavarian State Library , Dr. Béatrice Hernad, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München
In the Bavarian State Library artists‘ books have a rather clandestine existence: their presence is disguised by Latin shelfmarks (‘Libri selecti‘) and by being held in the closed stacks of the Department of Manu- scripts and Early Printed Books. The Library’s experience with curating this special collection is typical of the challenges German research libraries face in collecting artists’ books. This paper will present a brief summary of the collection’s history and will then address the following questions: why does the Bavarian State Library collect artists‘ books?; how do we go about acquiring them?; and how are they given ongoing collection care?

10:30 a.m. COFFEE BREAK

11:00 a.m. ... a kind of a HUH? Artists’ books in the museum and in the library, Dr. Michael Lailach, Kunstbibliothek der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz
As hybrids between art and publication, artists’ books are not produced for the museum nor for the library. Their specific meaning for the collection Buchkunst at the Kunstbibliothek which has already been started at the beginning of the 20th century will be discussed regarding the impact of the archive of the Marzona Collection with its different media which has been integrated in the context of the collection Buchkunst in 2002. The new orientation is also reflected by changed procedures of acquisition, catalo- guing, documentation and the special tasks of conservation. Two exhibitions – Based on Paper and Erik Steinbrecher UBER ALLES, shown at the Kunstbibliothek in 2007 and 2013 – will be referred to as models of public relations practice for artists’ books.

11:45 a.m. The books of the artists and their appearence at the Klingspor- Museum, Dr. Stefan Soltek, Head of the Klingspor-Museum Offenbach
The Klingspor Museum is based on the activities of two branches: The typographical world of the type- foundry Gebrüder Klingspor, 1892 to 1957, and the arts of craft, especially the art of handwriting as practiced by Rudolf Koch and a couple of students in the 20s and 30s of the 20th century. We have to add Rudo Spemann, a most gifted writer of calligraphical sheets and books. Books also were written by Koch and his circle. So artists who produce books is something quite common in the twenties and thirties and therefore there is a specific base to focus on book art in the Klingspor Museum. The editorial production of English and German Presses were part of the private collection of Karl Klingspor which got imbed- ded in the collection of the museum. On from its foundation in 1953 the rare books were collected and certainly – besides of classical artist books in the aura of concept art – the young presses of the 70s, 80s in the Rhein-Main area were in the centre of interest to the following years of enlarging the collection. The Klingspor Museum tries to pay special effort in arranging exhibitions – one or two man shows, groups as well - convinced that exhibiting keeps going to be an important way to demonstrate the worth and the mission of artist books. The gallery and the showcase help to underline the approach of artist books ranging within the field of visual arts. In parallel to the exhibitions the museum kindly invites visitors into the library’s readig room to get hands on the books and their sequences of pages. The talk is going to hint at the specific situation of keeping, exhibiting, teaching and acquiring the artist book in Offenbach.

12:30 p.m. LUNCH BREAK

1:30 p.m. Artists’ Books and Performance Art, Dr. Anne Thurmann-Jajes, Head of the Centre for Artists’ Publications at the Weserburg – Museum of Modern Art, Bremen
The lecture will figure out the special relationship between artists’ books and performance art. In this context an artist’s book
• can be part of a performance
• can document a performance, or
• can conceptually be manifested as a performance itself.
That means that the definition and description of artists’ books have to take place in form and content. Both aspects should be integrated in the process of cataloging artists’ books.
This lecture is devoted to a particular aspect of the artist’s book, which can be described as perfor- mativity. It examines the different performative levels (aspects of performance), which can be seen in the context of artists’ books, and the consequential challenges for cataloging.

2:15 p.m. Artists’ Books at the German National Library, Gabriele Netsch, German Museum of Books and Writing, German National Library, Leipzig
Gabriele Netsch will report on the history of a collection of artists’ books that emerged from two collec- tions. One is the collection of art prints at the German National Library which started in the teens of the twentieth century, the other is a collection of artists’ books in the German Museum of Books and Writing. The Museum is a department of the Library – the different methods of acquisition and cataloging of artists’ books, the commonalities and differences in both collections will be reflected in the online catalog of the German National Library.

3:00 p.m. COFFEE BREAK

3:30 p.m. Artists and Books (1880-2015). Switzerland as a cultural platform, Susanne Bierii, lic.phil. I, Leiterin Graphische Sammlung, ..., Schweizerische Nationalbibliothek NB, Bern and Prof. Philippe Kaenel, Université de Lausanne
The project Artists and Books (1880–2015). Switzerland as a cultural platform, supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, is a cooperation between the department of art history at the University of Lausanne, Prof. Philippe Kaenel, and the Prints and Drawings Department at the Swiss National Library, Susanne Bieri, and has been initiated in December 2013 with a duration of three years until 2016.
Based on the National Library’s own artists’ books-collection (“livres d’art”, “livres d’artiste”, “livres
de peintres”, “Künstlerbücher”, “Malerbücher”, “libri d’artista” ...),– the largest in Switzerland – and the main regional public and private collections, the project’s main aim is to explore and define this particular medium or genre on the basis of Switzerland’s multicultural situation. The “Swiss” production of artists’ books is also largely international since it is often the result of collaborations between actors (writers, artists, publishers, printers, engravers, photographers...) from various origins. We thus intend to use this corpus or field of study to explore notions of cultural transfers, intermediality and to contribute to the complex definition of the “artists’ books” in dialogue with national and international partners (public and private collections, museums, libraries and publishers...). We plan to elaborate a collective virtual data- base (web platform), an exhibition and a publication. International conferences are also planned, starting in November 2014 with a symposium on the UNICA, the “unique” books. It will take place at the Swiss National Library in Bern and will be illustrated by an exhibition showing items from the Library’s own collection.

4:15 p.m. Panel of speakers, Moderator: David Senior

5:00 p.m. END OF COLLOQUIUM