To begin, I must first say that this is one adorable essay.
When I first heard the phrase “artists’ books,” I thought that they would be a portfolio or journal of an artist’s work, like a series. However, after our time with them on Tuesday, I came to a better definition which reflects the first one given by Lorenz in her article. Artists’ books are really just another artists’ work. It is a piece of art, a stand alone piece. Though I would love to call whatever new craze as art, I was skeptical for once in my life about these books. They are not, in my opinion, works derived entirely by the artist alone. They are parodies, plays, and mutilations of former books. While I would still grant them their status as parody, the uniqueness of their creation seems blurred. Then again, that is essentially what art does. It comments on everything, including the history of art.
I found the part of the essay about punctuation to be interesting. I never thought about it that way, that when spoken, possesive qualities such as “artist’s book” or “artists’ book” are not heard. No one can tell where the apostrophie is supposed to go when you are talking.
That essay does a great job of summarizing all of my thoughts on artist books. I too thought that the possessive portion of the article was very interesting. I like how the author went about defining an artist book by what it was not. That seems to be the most logical way of defining them.
I like that the author of the essay described artist’s book as what they are not as well. It leaves the creators of artist’s books more room to be creative and innovative. It also forces us to be more open-minded, which we often have trouble doing, especially with a term like “book” that we assume we understand the definition of when, in reality, it is not a concrete idea at all.
I too really liked that the author of the essay described artist’s books as what they are not, especially before diving into the question, should they be a separate category? I think that because they are their own category, they aren’t restricted to certain limitations other categories may provide. In their own category they can more fully express the creators interpretation.