Based in France, Zédélé Editions prints work with a focus on visual imagery and the examination of the book form in contemporary art. Photographic works are central to their project, which includes artists’ books, monographs, pamphlets, and ephemeral media. Editor, Gilead Prigent, who began the project in 2002, has worked primarily with contemporary French artists. However, in 2012, with the curatorial direction of Anne Moeglin-Delcroix and Clive Phillpot, he began work on the Reprint collection – a re-issuing of selected artist’s books published since the 1960’s. The books in the Reprint collection, by artists such as Lawrence Weiner and Richard Long, represent important work that has become inaccessible due to institutionalization. Becoming rare and pricey, this phenomenon is often contradictory to the works original intention as a democratic art form.
Reflecting on my last post about Something Else Press, I wonder what it was that drew me to those early artists’ books. When initially encountering the work (by Georges Brecht and Robert Fillou for example) I was not thinking of their importance or rarity, but considering them as I would any other book in the collection – detached from their original publishing date they are as relevant today as the next book. Writer, librarian, curator, and artists’ book historian, Clive Phillpot gives me insight into my own thought processes in the forward to Booktrek, a collection of his essays on artists’ books:
“I was about to give a talk in Geneva some months ago when I heard myself introduced as a ‘historian of artists’ books. This gave me a jolt. I thought I was telling it how it is, but to my youthful audience I was telling it how it was! But I still haven’t let go of those artists who pioneered books as art, since even after four or five decades, their example still seems fresh. And maybe it’s not just me?”
As of this week, the Emily Carr Library’s Artists’ Book Collection, acquired a number of titles from Zédélé Editions Reprint collection which is cause for further contemplation on institutional preservation of artists’ books and how this effects the circulation of the work and intention of the artists. In the past, editioned work has assumed a tentative position between its identity as a democratic multiple and the value-generating fact of its limited availability. Now there are many more active avenues for continuing the proliferation of affordable printed matter, such as print on demand services, reprinted editions, and bootleg editons.
Highlights from Zédélé Editions Reprint collection in the Artists’ Book Collection are Jan Dibbets’ Robin redbreast’s territory: sculpture 1969 and Emmett Williams’ Soldier.
Robin redbreast’s territory by Jan Dibbets
Originally published in 1970 by Seth Sieglaub with Walter Koenig, this book is a document of a sculptural project of Dutch artist Jan Dibbets. Photographs, diagrams, and text work together to describe Dibbets’ research process which becomes the work. The Artists’ Book Collection also houses a original copy of the book.
Soldier by Emmett Williams
Soldier was originally published in 1973 with Dick Higgins at Something Else Press. Williams identifies it as one of his first works of concrete poetry, conceived in 1970 as a reaction to the Vietnam War. It is a simple yet striking feat of typography — “die” progressing through each “soldier” as the reader progresses through the pages.
BIBLIOGRAPHY of works from Zédélé Editions in the Artists’ Book Collection:
Dibbets, Jan. Roodborst territorium : sculptuur 1969 = Robin redbreast’s territory : sculpture 1969 = Domaine d’un rouge-gorge : sculpture 1969 = Rotkehlchenterritorium : Skulptur 1969. Brest, France: Zédélé Editions, 2014. Artist Book 1376
Downsbrough, Peter. Notes on Location. Brest, France: Zédélé Editions, 2012. Artist Book 1377
Nédélec, Julien. Leafing Through. Brest, France: Zédélé Editions, 2013. Artist Book 1379
Nédélec, Julien. Titrer. Brest, Frace: Zédélé Editions, 2012. Artist Book 1374
Weiner, Lawrence. And/or: Green as well as blue as well as red. Brest, France: Zédélé Edition, 2012. Artist Book 1375
Williams, Emmett. Soldier. Brest, France: Zédélé Editions, 2014. Artist Book 1378
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