S. L. Bodman

Dear Reader… some contemporary books by artists

Artists’ books have evolved over the last sixty years into a significant, international contemporary arts practice. In the 1960s, the artist’s book grew in popularity as a means of bypassing dealers in high end galleries, taking artists’ works out to a wider public through self-publishing and distribution. The genre has evolved further through access to new technologies and affordable publishing tools in the twenty-first century. Many artists are engaging with the book format today, creating artworks that allow the viewer/reader to engage closely with the subject matter that they are holding in their hands. And in the digital age, hand-held can include works made for viewing on tablets and e-readers, some produced exclusively for digital platforms, and some that play on the instability of such platforms such as books created from images of broken Kindles. Some artists making books conduct the whole editioning process by hand, producing their own papers, using traditional printmaking and binding processes in celebration of the book as a timeless, physical artefact.