Artist's Book Yearbook 2003-2005 - Book Arts - University of the ...

press have been freed from their literary and
imagistic constraints by the ease and access of
digital reproduction and a hungry artworld
seeking new media. Printers! - you will never
have to print another wedding invitation again!
But you may have to get a day job and work
with cranky artists late at night; every
techno-cultural transition phase comes with
plusses and minuses.
Style
Taking full advantage of the above described
new found freedom Booklyn staff and
associates interests range from traditional
bookforms to the semiotics, performative and
interactive aspects of the book. ‘Book’ can
mean arranging the planting of people in the
ground as a part of an exhibition pairing
antique and contemporary botanicals (as in the
Vegetable Mind performance of the Parallel
Botany exhibition).
Marshall Weber performing in Vegetable Mind 2000,
University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Photo: Mark Wagner
Parallel Botany exhibition at Bryn Mawr College,
Pennsylvania, 2001, showing: Valerie Wagg’s, Root and Flower
1999, Erasmus Darwin, and William Blake’s The Botanic
Garden 1791, and Balm: the Flower Folio 1999, by Kurt
Allerslev, Christopher Wilde, Marshall Weber, 1999.
Photo: Kurt Allerslev
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Or ‘book!’ can mean poet Jen Benka reading
the entire text of her A Re-visioning of the
Preamble of the Constitution of the United States.
(one poem for each of the 52 words in the
Preamble) at the book’s publishing party at the
Bowery Poetry Club in NYC.
Cover of A Re-visioning of the Preamble of the Constitution of the
United States Jen Benka, 2003, book design by Mark Wagner,
published by Booklyn.
While Booklyn has no rigid curatorial
guidelines, the staff, board and associated
artists have a vague consensus regarding
Booklyn curatorial prerogatives.
Below are nine flexible guidelines:
1. No dead people. We love dead artists and
writers, some of our best friends are dead. But
we feel that enough people in the field deal
with the dead. So it is rare that you will see art
or writing by dead people in Booklyn books.
We’re here for the living, hopefully to extend
their state of existence as long as possible.
Exceptions will be made for: recently deceased
associates (a rare and tragic but unfortunate
necessity); appropriate use of dead people’s
work in exhibitions, research, scholarship; and
with art and writing about historical subject
matter (especially with previously unpublished
material by dead people as used by living artists
and writers.)
2. Be fresh! Booklyn likes new art, books and
writing and while we are proud to be multigenerational
and loyal to associated artists,
Booklyn focuses on new work and is committed
to assisting emerging artists and writers enter
the field.