Many of the artists’ books in the Smithsonian American Art & Portrait Gallery Library’s collection tell stories—from personal struggles with addiction, to pictorial descriptions of how to create a human salad, to universal stories of historical conflicts, such as Kara Walker’s book “Freedom: A Fable.”
“Where the fold should be / There is no fold” reads the entire tenth poem of Reading Red. Reading this poem is a jarring experience: the book has many folds, extra folds. Is the “fold” of the poem related to the physical construction of the book in which it is printed, or is it a statement about something outside the book? As this poem makes clear, the work is concerned with the physical form of its presentation.
For the past two summers, three art libraries, the Hirshhorn Library (HMSG), the African Art Library (NMAA), and the American Art Library/National Portrait Gallery Library (AA/PG) have hosted graduate library student interns through the Smithsonian Libraries Professional Development Internship to work on the three libraries’ artists’ book collections.
The Book Conservation Lab periodically receives artist’s books from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum Library with special housing needs.
A vintage photograph of a young woman, casually posed in front of a storefront window, which advertises the “friendly” Chesterfield cigarette, invites readers into X-Ray Magazine. This San Francisco Pneumatic Press publication can be found hiding, along with other artists’ books, in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Library collection.
Something is wrong with the corner of the page. Maybe not wrong, but strange, I think to myself. Examining Mark Wagner’s Smoke in My Dreams more closely, I realize that the bottom corner of the page opens up.
We often think of the book as a container of information. A book’s text conveys meaning through reading. However, meaning can be expressed in other ways. Typography, ink color, blank space, paper, artwork, and binding also provide information to the reader about the artist’s project. Featuring artists’ books from the Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery Library (AA/PG), this exhibit investigates the way that book artists use material and visual features to make meaning.