Danish Artists Books. Danske Kunstnerbøger. Edited by Thomas Hvid Kromann, Louise Hold Sidenius Maria Kjær Themsen & Marianne Vierø

Transkript

1 Danske Kunstnerbøger Danish Artists Books Edited by Thomas Hvid Kromann, Louise Hold Sidenius Maria Kjær Themsen & Marianne Vierø Møller & Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König

2 9 Forord Preface Indhold Table of Contents Artikler Articles 15 Thomas Hvid Kromann En tradition af danske kunstnerbøger. Definition, historie, reception A tradition of Danish artists books. Definition, history, reception 61 Anne Mœglin-Delcroix Hvad mere kan der siges om kunstnerbøger? Anything more to say about artists books? 73 Tania Ørum Den danske tresseravantgarde og kunstnerbogen The Danish avant-garde of the 1960s and the artist s book 89 Thomas Hvid Kromann Bog, objekt, bogobjekt. Vedr. visse excentriske materielle afvigelser fra normalbogen Book, object, book-object. Regarding certain eccentric material deviations from the ordinary book 101 Birgitte Anderberg En anden historie. Kvindelige kunstnere, feminisme og kunstnerbogen i 1970 erne An other story. Female artists, feminism and the artist s book in the 1970s 113 Mikkel Bolt Udfald, kollaps og implosion. Fire bemærkninger om kunstnerbogens kritiske potentiale Fall-out, collapse and implosion. Four observations on the critical potential of the artist s book 123 Maria Kjær Themsen Papirpassioner. Eksempler på kontemporære kunstnerbøger Paper passions. Examples of contemporary artists books 133 Johanna Drucker Materiel og/eller virtuel: kunstnerbøger i hybridform Material and/or virtual: hybrid forms of artists books Lister Lists 148 A Kassen Søren Andreasen 149 Zven Balslev Vibe Bredahl 150 Jacob Fabricius Jan S. Hansen 151 Kasper Hesselbjerg Kristofer Hultenberg 152 Marie Kølbæk Iversen Jakob Jakobsen 153 Joachim Koester Daniel Milan 154 Lea Porsager Jasper Sebastian Stürup 157 Jeanette Sætre Svend-Allan Sørensen 158 Evren Tekinoktay TTC (Telefon til Chefen) 159 Melou Vanggaard Anni s (Anni Vestergaard) 160 Mette Winckelmann Ebbe Stub Wittrup

3 Œuvres Œuvres 163 Helle Brøns Asger Jorn bøger, der ridser og rækker tunge Asger Jorn books that scratch and stick their tongues out 169 Cecilie Høgsbro Østergaard Albert Mertz bogsiden som et hug i rummet Albert Mertz the book as a cleft in space 175 Tue Løkkegaard Sven Dalsgaard at tegne en situation Sven Dalsgaard to draw a situation 181 Ane Hejlskov Larsen Per Kirkeby gentagelsens og forvandlingens kredsløb Per Kirkeby the cycle of repetition and transformation 187 Tania Ørum Stig Brøgger en tværæstetisk eksperimentator Stig Brøgger an intermedial experimenter 193 Kristina Ask Lene Adler Petersen tingen, lyden, tonen Lene Adler Petersen the thing, the sound, the tone 199 Thomas Hvid Kromann Henrik Have proces, koncept, løsbladssystem Henrik Have process, concept, loose-leaf system 205 Theis Vallø Madsen Mogens Otto Nielsen bogen som objekt Mogens Otto Nielsen the book as object 211 Maria Kjær Themsen Jens Birkemose breve, bondage og vilde dyr Jens Birkemose letters, bondage and wild animals 217 Thomas Hvid Kromann Claus Carstensen arkivaren, idiosynkrasien, genlæsningerne Claus Carstensen the archivist, the idiosyncrasy, the re-readings 223 Mette Sandbye Jesper Fabricius formaliseret demokratisk sentimentalitet Jesper Fabricius formalised democratic sentimentality 229 Frederikke Rahbek Juncker Tal R skralde- og genbrugsæstetik Tal R the aesthetics of refuse and recycling 235 Jacob Fabricius Henriette Heise lommer, skuffer og poetiske sætninger Henriette Heise pockets, drawers and poetic sentences 241 Mathias Kokholm Lasse Krog Møller indsamling, forskning og dokumentation Lasse Krog Møller collection, research and documentation

4 247 Anna Holm Christian Vind arkivfeber i lommeformat Christian Vind archive fever in pocket format Samlere Collectors 255 Claus Carstensen Mnemosyne Mnemosyne 259 Åse Eg Jørgensen At tænke metaforisk med kroppen Thinking metaphorically with the body 261 Niels Starck Kunstnerbøger og billedkunstnere Artists books and visual artists 265 Christian Vind Reolens Rorschach The shelves Rorschach Appendiks Appendix 270 Om bidragyderne About the contributors 274 Udstillinger af danske kunstnerbøger Exhibitions of Danish artists books 278 Bibliografi Bibliography 294 Indeks Index

5 9 Forord Preface Denne ny bog er ikke alene en rent teknisk fornyelse. Den har også en litterær tyngde ( ) som tillader os at opnå en litterær-kunstnerisk virkning, der vil udløse et lille jordskælv her i Paris. Jeg ved ikke, om I forstår, i hvor høj grad vi er ved at nærme os en ny opfattelse af bogen. De to bøger, vi her får lavet i fællesskab, vil komme til at stå i centrum for denne fornyelse. Således skriver Asger Jorn i et brev fra 1958 til trykkerne Permild og Rosengreen hjemme i København. Bøgerne, som Jorn skriver om, er Fin de Copenhague (1957) og Mémoires (1959), som han lavede sammen med Guy Debord. Disse to bøger er nogle af de første danske kunstnerbøger. Til trods for at der er blevet udgivet kunstnerbøger i Danmark siden slutningen af 1950 erne, mens nogle pionerindsatser endda kan spores så langt tilbage som til 1930 erne, har begrebet kunstnerbøger, svarende til den etablerede engelske term artists books, kun fundet meget begrænset anvendelse. Oftest skelnes der ikke mellem kunst- og kunstnerbøger, men der er væsentlige forskelle: En kunstnerbog er et kunstværk i bogform, det vil sige en bog som kunst, hvorimod kunstbogen er en bog om kunst. Kunstnerbogen har sin egen rige og forskelligartede tradition, og som kunstform har den et potentiale, der adskiller den fra medier som maleriet, skulpturen, installationen, happenings etc. Kunstnerbogen var fra begyndelsen nem at håndtere, billig at producere og ikke mindst let at distribuere, og selv i vores egen informationsdistribuerende tidsalder har digitaliseringen af skriften og det visuelle ikke udraderet interessen for at anvende bogmediet, hvis taktile kvaliteter og afgrænsede værkkarakter stadig viser sig relevant. Historisk set foregår den danske udvikling af kunstnerbøger parallelt med den internationale, hvorfor der ikke er tale om en særlig dansk genre eller et nationalt karakteristika. Dog er danske kunstnerbøger ikke tidligere blevet underlagt en samlet undersøgelse, og det er netop intentionen med denne bog: dels at skabe en samlet præsentation af feltet fra et dansk udgangspunkt, dels at gøre dette felt synligt i en international kontekst hvorfor nærværende bog er forfattet på både dansk og engelsk. Et udvalg af værker kan altid diskuteres og vil utvivlsomt blive det. Gennem de to år, der er blevet arbejdet på Danske kunstnerbøger har vi, ud over redaktionens egne møder, haft en løbende dialog med kunstnere, kritikere og samlere, samt besøgt samlinger, biblioteker og arkiver. Der vil dog utvivlsomt være interessante kunstnerbøger, som vi ikke har fundet frem til, ligesom der er værker, vi desværre ikke har fundet plads til. Bogens struktur Danske kunstnerbøger indledes med en række artikler, der handler om den danske tradition i sin helhed: 1960 ernes avantgardeeksperimenter; 1970 ernes feministiske forvandling af den konceptuelle kunstnerbog; den komplekse forbindelse mel- This new book does not just represent a piece of technical innovation. It also has a literary significance ( ) that allows us to achieve a literary-artistic effect that will cause a small earthquake here in Paris. I do not know if you fully realise how close we are getting to a whole new perception of the book. The two books we are creating together here will stand at the very heart of this reinvention. Asger Jorn wrote these words in 1958, in a letter to the printers Permild and Rosengreen back in Copenhagen. The books to which Jorn are referring are Fin de Copenhague (1957) and Mémoires (1959), which he created with Guy Debord. These two books are among the very first Danish artists books. Even though artists books have been published in Denmark since the late 1950s and certain pioneering efforts even date as far back as the 1930s the concept of kunsterbøger, the Danish counterpart to the much more firmly established English term artists books, has only found very limited usage. In Denmark, many do not distinguish between art books and artists books, but there are major differences between the two: an artist s book (kunstnerbog) is a work of art in a book format i.e., a book as art whereas an art book (kunstbog) is simply a book about art. The artist s book has its own rich and distinctive tradition, and as an art form it possesses special potential that sets it apart from media such as painting, sculpture, installation art, happenings and so on. Artists books have from their very outset been easy to handle, inexpensive to produce and, very importantly, easy to distribute, and even in our present information-disseminating age the digitization of the written word and of visual culture has not eliminated the desire to use the book medium; its tactile qualities and distinctly delimited nature still feel relevant today. Historically, the Danish evolution of artists books took place concurrently with the international development of the format, which means that the genre cannot claim any particularly Danish traits. However, Danish artists books have never before been the subject of a comprehensive study, and this book sets out to remedy this: to offer an overall presentation of the field as viewed from a Danish point of departure, and to raise the profile of the area in an international context which is why the book is presented in both Danish and English. Any selection of art works can be made the subject of discussion and will undoubtedly be so. Over the course of the two years of labour on Danish Artists Books the editors own meetings have been supplemented by ongoing dialogue with artists, critics and collectors, as well as by visits to collections, libraries and archives. Even so, there will certainly be interesting artists books out there that we have not yet discovered, just as there are works we found ourselves unable to include due to space restrictions. Structure of the book Danish Artists Books begins by presenting a number of articles that address the Danish tradition as a whole: the avant-garde

6 10 11 experiments of the 1960s; the feminist transformation of the conceptual artist s book seen in the 1970s; the complex link between pioneering artists books and present-day practices; the critical potential of artists books; and finally how internet-based media will change indeed may already have changed the artist s book in various and radical ways. In the second part of the book we have elected to supplement the contemporary aspects offered in some of the articles by including a number of external contributions and angles. We invited a number of younger artists and publishers who collect, publish or simply take a special interest in artists books to offer their suggestions for relevant and recommended recent publications. Their lists are reproduced unedited here and may be taken as a call for action, encouraging all interested parties to explore the subject in more detail. The third part of the book presents a total of fifteen œuvres. The editors have selected artists for whom artists books constitute a separate and distinctive aspect of their overall work and who are also leading exponents of the field: Asger Jorn, Albert Mertz, Sven Dalsgaard, Per Kirkeby, Stig Brøgger, Lene Adler Petersen, Henrik Have, Mogens Otto Nielsen, Jens Birkemose, Claus Carstensen, Jesper Fabricius, Tal R, Henriette Heise, Lasse Krog Møller and Christian Vind. Texts and images run in parallel, and all the art works are reproduced to the same scale. The fourth section consists of contributions from collectors of artists books. Their approaches range from passionate collecting to artists book collections that serve as an integral part of a wider artistic practice. The fifth and final part, the appendix, includes information about the contributors, a list of exhibitions of artists books in Denmark, a bibliography, and an index. Acknowledgements First of all we wish to thank all the authors, including our two contributors from abroad, Anne Mœglin-Delcroix and Johanna Drucker, who are among the pre-eminent scholars in the field. We are grateful to the artists and publishers who were so enthusiastic in contributing lists of artists books. We also wish to thank the many individuals who have helped procure a book or information on a book, or who discussed the concept and contents of this present book while it was still a work in progress. We also wish to thank the people who have shown such effort and care in helping us obtain artists books to be photographed: Claus Carstensen, Jesper Fabricius, Niels Starck, Christian Vind, Mogens Otto Nielsen, Lone Mertz, Andreas Brøgger and Stig Brøgger. You have all demonstrated great trust and faith in us by lending us such an extensive number of works, many of them rare and irreplaceable. We wish to thank the staff at Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art for their assistance in connection with the two exhibitions curated by us, Art+Text (May 2011) and Danish Artists Books The Exhibition (May 2013), which marked the beginning and end of the two years of labour on this book. In conclusion we wish to give warm thanks to the Danish Arts Council International Art Committee, the Danish Arts lem pionerværker inden for kunstnerbogen og den nutidige praksis; kunstnerbogens kritiske potentiale; og endelig om, hvordan internetbaserede medier på forskellig og radikal vis vil ændre og måske allerede har ændret kunstnerbogen. I anden del suppleres de kontemporære aspekter, der er indeholdt i nogle af artiklerne, med en række bud udefra. Vi inviterede en række yngre kunstnere og forlæggere, der samler, udgiver eller har en særlig interesse for kunstnerbogen, til at komme med deres bud på relevante, anbefalelsesværdige udgivelser af nyere dato. Listerne er trykt i uredigeret form og kan læses som en opfordring til videre udforskning af emnet. I tredje del følger i alt 15 œuvre-præsentationer. Redaktionen har udvalgt kunstnere, i hvis produktion kunstnerbogen udgør et selvstændigt spor, og som samtidig er hovednavne inden for feltet: Asger Jorn, Albert Mertz, Sven Dalsgaard, Per Kirkeby, Stig Brøgger, Lene Adler Petersen, Henrik Have, Mogens Otto Nielsen, Jens Birkemose, Claus Carstensen, Jesper Fabricius, Tal R, Henriette Heise, Lasse Krog Møller og Christian Vind. Tekst og billede løber parallelt, og værkerne er gengivet i samme indbyrdes skalaforhold. Fjerde del består af bidrag fra samlere af kunstnerbøger. Deres respektive tilgange går fra passioneret samleraktivitet til kunstnerbogssamlinger som en integreret del af en kunstnerisk praksis. Femte og sidste del, appendikset, rummer informationer om bidragyderne, en optegnelse over udstillinger af kunstnerbøger i Danmark, bibliografi og indeks. Tak Først og fremmest tak til alle bogens skribenter, herunder tak til vores udenlandske bidragydere, to af feltets væsentligste forskere: Anne Mœglin-Delcroix og Johanna Drucker. Tak til de kunstnere og forlæggere, der med stor entusiasme bidrog med lister over kunstnerbøger. Derudover skal der lyde en tak til de talrige enkeltpersoner, der har hjulpet med at tilvejebringe en bog, oplysninger om en bog eller har diskuteret nærværende bogs koncept og konkrete indhold med os, mens det endnu var i sin vorden. Dernæst en stor tak til de personer, der med megen omhu har hjulpet os med at tilvejebringe kunstnerbøger i forbindelse med fotograferingen af værker, nemlig Claus Carstensen, Jesper Fabricius, Niels Starck, Christian Vind, Mogens Otto Nielsen, Lone Mertz, Andreas Brøgger og Stig Brøgger. I har alle vist os stor tillid ved at låne os talrige, ofte sjældne og uerstattelige, værker. Tak til personalet på Overgaden Institut for Samtidskunst for assistance i forbindelse med de to udstillinger, som vi kuraterede, Art+Text (maj 2011) og Danish Artists Books The Exhibition (maj 2013), der markerede henholdsvis begyndelse og afslutning på de to års arbejde med denne bog. Afslutningsvis skal lyde en stor tak til Statens Kunstråds Internationale Billedkunstudvalg, Statens Kunstråds Billedkunstudvalg (De generelle midler), Toyota-Fonden, Lillian og Dan Finks Fond, Overretssagfører L. Zeuthens Mindelegat, Forskningsrådet for Kultur og Kommunikation samt Novo Nordisk Fonden. Uden disse midler kunne denne bog ikke være blevet udgivet. Thomas Hvid Kromann, Louise Hold Sidenius, Maria Kjær Themsen & Marianne Vierø Council Art Committee, the Toyota Foundation, Lillian og Dan Finks Fond, The Memorial Trust for Barrister L. Zeuthen, the Danish Council for Independent Research Humanities and the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Without their generous support this book would never have seen the light of day. Thomas Hvid Kromann, Louise Hold Sidenius, Maria Kjær Themsen & Marianne Vierø

7 Artikler Articles Om 1960 ernes avantgardeeksperimenter; 1970 ernes feministiske forvandling af den konceptuelle kunstnerbog; den komplekse forbindelse mellem pionerværker inden for kunstnerbogen og den nutidige praksis; kunstnerbogens kritiske potentiale; og om hvordan internetbaserede medier på forskellig og radikal vis vil ændre og måske allerede har ændret kunstnerbogen About the avant-garde experiments of the 1960s; the feminist transformation of the conceptual artist s book seen in the 1970s; the complex link between pioneering artists books and present-day practices; the critical potential of artists books; and how internet-based media will change indeed may already have changed the artist s book in various and radical ways

8 15 Thomas Hvid Kromann En tradition af danske kunstnerbøger. Definition, historie, reception Thomas Hvid Kromann A tradition of Danish artists books. Definition, history, reception I 1980 udkom det svenske tidsskrift Kalejdoskop nr. 1 & 2 med et temanummer om kunstnerbøger. Temanummeret var en teoretisk oprustning i forhold til feltet af kunstnerbøger i Norden. Et felt, der indtil da havde været præget af en kunstnerisk praksis, men ikke en teoretisk refleksion over denne. Ud over introduktioner og oversatte teoretiske bidrag indeholdt Kalejdoskop en enquete, hvis bidrag for størstedelens vedkommende havde stået i det amerikanske kunstnertidsskrift Art-Rite nr. 14, 1976, et tilsvarende (og for den nordamerikanske diskussion helt centralt) nummer om artists books. Seks af de 16 svar fra enqueten i Kalejdoskop var nyskrevne bidrag af nordiske kunstnere (Peter Andersson, Jim Axén, Leif Eriksson, Henrik Have, Per Kirkeby og Mats B.), der af redaktøren Sune Nordgren var blevet bedt om kort at komme med deres personlige opfattelse af fænomenet. Jeg vil ganske kort kommentere tre af disse svar, da de forholder sig til definitionsproblematikken i forhold til kunstnerbøger. Henrik Have (f. 1946) og Per Kirkeby (f. 1938) havde en udpræget skepsis i forhold til termen kunstnerbøger. Have, hvis egen praksis var formet af en særdeles udvidet forestilling om, hvad en bog (og dermed en kunstnerbog) kunne være f.eks. løsark med sløjfer om ville hellere anvende ordet bogobjekter. Have tillagde, som han skrev, ordet objekt i bogobjekter større vægt end ordet bog i kunstnerbog. Kirkeby afviste også begrebet, ja han skrev, at han hader kunstnerbøger, idet han mente, at det var en term, der var opfundet af kunstformidlerne, og at kunstnere har da altid lavet bøger. Kirkeby havde ret i, at kunstnere altid (i hvert fald siden William Blake og William Morris) har lavet bøger, men er der nu også tale om den samme type bøger? Det ville være sært, hvis relationen mellem kunstnere og bøger var en historisk konstant. I modsætning til Kirkeby betragter jeg begrebet kunstnerbog som et nyttigt værktøj til at lægge nogle andre snit i forhold til materialet og se nogle interne forbindelser; se det som et samlet felt og undersøge dets forbindelser til et internationalt ditto. Ikke at differentiere slører præcisionen. Svenskeren Leif Erikssons bidrag var nonverbalt, nemlig en tom kasse, dvs. markeringen af et mulighedsfelt, et potentiale, ikke en udtømmende og begrænsende definition. Eller formuleret med ord: En kunstnerbog kan have en hvilken som helst form og et hvilket som helst indhold. 1 Jeg vil læse den tomme kasse anderle- Leif Eriksson: 1 Med detta svar ville jag markera att en artists book är ett alternativt utrymme, ett inmutat område och möjlighet som endast begränsas av den egna förmågan att gestalta. Med andra ord: artists books kan se ut hursomhelst. (Leif Eriksson: Grafikk-nytt nr. 5, 1984, p. 11). Kunstneren Leif Erikssons svar på enquetespørgsmålet i Kalejdoskop nr. 1/ om hvad kunstnerbøger er. The artist Leif Eriksson s reply to the survey question asked in Kalejdoskop no. 1/ on the nature of artists books. In 1980 the Swedish magazine Kalejdoskop, nos. 1 & 2, produced a feature issue about artists books. This special edition laid a theoretical groundwork for the field of artists books in Scandinavia, a field which had until then been characterised by artistic practice but no theoretical reflection. In addition to introductions and translated theoretical contributions, Kalejdoskop included a survey whose contributions for the most part had been in the American artists magazine Art-Rite, no. 14 (1976), a similar (and, for the North American discussion, crucial) edition about artists books. Six of the sixteen answers from the survey in Kalejdoskop were original contributions by Nordic artists (Peter Andersson, Jim Axén, Leif Eriksson, Henrik Have, Per Kirkeby and Mats B.), whom the editor Sune Nordgren had asked to briefly give their personal opinion on the phenomenon of artists books. I will comment briefly on three of those answers as they relate to the issues of definition in regard to artists books. Henrik Have (b. 1946) and Per Kirkeby (b. 1938) had a pronounced scepticism in relation to the term artists books. Have, whose own practice was shaped by a greatly expanded conception of what a book (and thus an artist s book) could be for example, loose-leaf and bound with ribbons would rather use the term book-object. According to Have, greater weight should be attached to the word object in bookobject than to the word book in artist s book. Kirkeby also rejected the term. Indeed he wrote that he hates artists books, because he perceived the term as having been invented by art intermediaries and argued that artists have always made books. Kirkeby was right that artists have always (at least since William Blake and William Morris) made books, but are we really talking about the same kind of books? It would be strange if the relationship between artists and books was a historical constant. Unlike Kirkeby, I consider the concept of artist s book to be a useful tool for approaching the material in alternative ways and seeing some internal relations; seeing it as a collective field and examining its connections to its international counterpart. Not to differentiate would blunt the precision. The Swede Leif Eriksson s contribution was non-verbal, namely an empty box marking out a field of possibility, a potential, not a comprehensive and restrictive definition Or, formulated in words: an artist s book can take any form and have any content. 1 I would read this empty box differently from Eriksson himself: namely, as a free, undefined content within a frame. The 1 With this response, I wanted to highlight that an artist s book is an alternative space, a claimed area and an opportunity that is limited only by our own ability to shape things. In other words, artists books can look however we want them to (Leif Eriksson: Grafikk-nytt, no. 5 (1984), p. 11).

9 16 17 content has not been established, but there is, however, a frame. Framing is necessary in order to be able to talk about something, at least from a theoretical perspective. But what does this frame consist of? This is a good question, and one that has yet to be answered in a Danish context (nor has an answer even been attempted), as the term artists books has never really gained a foothold in Denmark in spite of all practice. In this article I will analyse the development and reception history of Danish artists books, which is to say I will establish a framework for artists books and outline how they have evolved historically. What is an artist s book? The print media s role in twentieth-century art, both in the early avant-garde movements of the 1910s and 1920s but also more broadly from the 1960s to the current day, has been marked; a stream of pamphlets, experimental catalogues, flyers, zines, multiples, posters and other paper-based formats have emerged. 2 One of the central forms within this broad field of artistic printed works is the artist s book. An artist s book is not an art book. An artist s book is a book as art, whereas an art book is a book about art. Unlike the art book, which through its depictions of such things as paintings or sculptures simply reproduces works of art, an artist s book is a work in itself, a conceptual whole. When the artist Tal R s (b. 1967) paintings are photographed and supplemented by information about the work, captions, foreword, afterword etc., written by art historians and art critics in, for example, The Sum (2007), which was published in conjunction with an exhibition at the art museum Louisiana, we are dealing with an ordinary catalogue or monograph. We have a quite different situation, however, in the collection of appropriated photographs by the same artist in the artist s book Everybody Please Go Home (1997). The reproduced photographs go to the edges of the page, and there is no white border marking the edges, no title or date, which would normally mark separate works which lie outside the book. Everybody Please Go Home is the work itself, and not simply an ever so beautifully executed substitute for the actual work. 3 There are also examples of catalogues that are in reality artists books, either as independent exhibitions (the artist s book as a portable exhibition) or as a transformation of the catalogue. These include Græsset malker koens ben ( The Grass Milks the Cow s Legs, 1983), Reol ( Bookcase, 2001) and Bibliotheca Benjaminata (2005). Although the term artist s book 4 has today become the most commonly used term, there has nevertheless, since the concept des, end Eriksson selv gør, nemlig som et frit, ikke-defineret indhold inden for en ramme. Indholdet er ikke fastlagt, men der er dog en ramme. En rammesætning er nødvendig for at kunne tale om noget, i hvert fald fra teoretisk hold. Men hvad består denne ramme af? Det er et godt spørgsmål og ét, der ikke er blevet besvaret (eller bare forsøgt besvaret) i en dansk kontekst endnu, idet termen kunstnerbøger ikke for alvor har fundet fodfæste på dansk grund al praksis til trods. I denne artikel vil jeg analysere danske kunstnerbøgers udviklings- og receptionshistorie, dvs. etablere en ramme for kunstnerbøgerne og skitsere, hvordan de historisk set har udviklet sig. Hvad er en kunstnerbog? De trykte mediers rolle i det 20. århundredes kunst, både hos de tidlige avantgardebevægelser i 1910 erne og 1920 erne, men også mere bredt fra 1960 erne og frem til i dag, har været markant: En strøm af pamfletter, eksperimentelle kataloger, flyers, zines, multiples, plakater og andre papirbaserede formater har set dagens lys. 2 En af de væsentligste former inden for dette brede felt af kunstneriske tryksager er kunstnerbogen. En kunstnerbog er ikke en kunstbog. En kunstnerbog er en bog som kunst, hvorimod en kunstbog er en bog om kunst. Modsat kunstbogen, der via sine afbildninger af for eksempel malerier eller skulpturer udelukkende reproducerer kunstværkerne, så er kunstnerbogen et værk i sig selv, en konceptuel helhed. Når billedkunstneren Tal R s (f. 1967) malerier affotograferes og suppleres med værkoplysninger, billedtekster, forord, efterskrifter etc. skrevet af kunsthistorikere og -kritikere, f.eks. i The Sum (2007), der udkom i forbindelse med en udstilling på Louisiana, så er der tale om et almindeligt katalog eller en monografi. Anderledes forholder det sig med samme kunstners samling af approprierede fotografier i kunstnerbogen Everybody Please Go Home (1997). De reproducerede fotografier går til kanten af siden, og der markeres ikke med en hvid kant, en titel og et årstal, at der er tale om separate værker, der befinder sig uden for bogen. Everybody Please Go Home er selve værket og ikke blot en, det være sig nok så smukt udført, erstatning for det egentlige værk. 3 Der findes også eksempler på kataloger, der i realiteten er kunstnerbøger, enten som selvstændige udstillinger (kunstnerbogen som bærbar udstilling) eller som en transformation af kataloget, bl.a. Græsset malker koens ben (1983), Reol (2001) og Bibliotheca Benjaminata (2005). Betegnelsen kunstnerbog, der i denne artikel anvendes som den danske betegnelse, svarer til den amerikanske term 2 For artists publications, see Sigrid Schade & Anne Thurmann-Jajes (ed.): Artists Publications. Ein Genre und seine Erschließung (Cologne: Salon Verlag, 2009) and Deborah Wye and Wendy Weitman (ed.): Eye on Europe. Prints, Books & Multiples, 1960 to now (New York: MoMA, 2006), as well as Isabelle Schwarz: Archive für Künstlerpublikationen der 1960er bis 1980er Jahre (Bremen: Salon Verlag, 2006). For cataloguing of artists publications, see Anne Thurmann-Jajes and Susanne Vögtle: Manual for Artists Publications (MAP). Cataloging Rules, Definitions, and Descriptions (Bremen: Museum Weserburg, 2010). 3 The fact that some artists books can include reproductions of their own or others works of art complicates any clear definition. Tal R, for example, smuggles his paintings into the book as they are included in some of the photographs where people, whose faces are hidden behind the canvas, hold paintings in their hands. 4 In Danish the designations kunstnerbøger, bogobjekter, bogværker, and artist s books are used, cf. my PhD dissertation Appropriering, system, bogobjekt. Den danske tresseravantgardes litterære afpersonaliseringsstrategier (Appropriation, System, Book Object. Literary Depersonalisation Strategies among the Danish 1960s Avant-Garde), Roskilde: Roskilde University, 2009, p For kunstnerpublikationer, se Sigrid Schade & Anne Thurmann-Jajes (red.): Artists Publications. Ein Genre und seine Erschließung, Köln: Salon Verlag, 2009, og Deborah Wye & Wendy Weitman (red.): Eye on Europe. Prints, Books & Multiples, 1960 to now, New York: MoMA, 2006, samt Isabelle Schwarz: Archive für Künstlerpublikationen der 1960er bis 1980er Jahre, Bremen: Salon Verlag, For katalogisering af kunstnerpublikationer, se Anne Thurmann-Jajes & Susanne Vögtle: Manual for Artists Publications (MAP). Cataloging Rules, Definitions, and Descriptions, Bremen: Museum Weserburg, At der i nogle kunstnerbøger kan indgå reproduktioner af egne eller andres kunstværker, komplicerer en klar definition, f.eks. smugler Tal R sine malerier med i bogen, idet disse indgår på nogle af fotografierne, hvor personer, hvis ansigter skjules bag lærredet, holder malerierne i hænderne. Hulda Lütken Moderen og Sønnen. Moderne Nutidsroman En slægtsroman 1-2 The Mother and the Son. Modern Contemporary Novel A Family Cronicle 1-2 (1933) Konkurrenceforlaget 15,8x11x3,5 cm, 16 sider/pages

10 18 19 artist s book. 4 Om end artist s book i dag er blevet den mest almindeligt anvendte betegnelse, så har det, siden begrebet blev lanceret i 1973, været et stridspunkt, hvad termen præcist dækker over. 5 Det er især de præcise grænsedragninger i forhold til beslægtede papirbaserede kunstformer, der er uklarhed om. Det er næppe muligt eller ønskværdigt at konstruere en helt præcis definition, der omfatter alle kunstnerbøgers specifikke karakteristika, men jeg vil forsøge at indkredse et felt, der Tal R: Everybody Please Go Home (1997) 24x17 cm muliggør en differentiering i forhold til beslægtede, men dog forskellige former. Ordet kunstner i kunstnerbøger er en ikke-specialiseret betegnelse, dvs. kunstner dækker ikke kun billedkunstnere (selvom det hyppigst er dem, der laver kunstnerbøger), men også for eksempel forfattere og komponister, der anvender bogmediet til et kunstnerisk projekt. Der kan således være tale om et visuelt og/eller verbalt indhold i kunstnerbogen. Kunstnerbøgerne deler kendetegn med det almindelige bogmedie, som de ofte ligner: den relativt lave pris (ofte trykt i et oplag af en vis størrelse), den fysiske fleksibilitet (kan modsat kunstværker på galleri udforskes hvor som helst og, principielt, købes hvor som helst), den institutionelle frihed (uafhængighed i forhold til gallerierne og museerne) samt bogmediets kronologiske struktur (hvilket muliggør serielle eller narrative forløb). I mange kunstnerbøger anvendes fotografisk materiale af forskellig art. Et oplagt spørgsmål er derfor: Hvornår er noget en fotobog, og hvornår er det en kunstnerbog? I 28 danske fotobøger/28 Danish Photographic Books (2006), der blev udgivet i forbindelse med Hasselblad-udstillingen The Open Book på Det Nationale Fotomuseum på Det Kongelige Bibliotek, var de danske eksempler endda udvalgt ud fra det kriterium, at bogen skal opleves som et hele, både som medium og kunstnerisk udtryk. 6 Alligevel er der for mig at se en Jytte Rex: Jeg har ikke lukket et øje (1978) 24x17 cm åbenlys forskel mellem kunstnerne i denne bog, dvs. de professionelle fotografer, der præsenterer deres egne fotografiske 4 På dansk kan observeres en brug af betegnelserne kunstnerbøger, bogobjekter, bogværker og artist s books, jf. min ph.d.-afhandling Appropriering, system, bogobjekt. Den danske tresseravantgardes litterære afpersonaliseringsstrategier , Roskilde: Roskilde Universitet, 2009, p Jf. Stefan Klima: Artists Books. A Critical Survey of the Literature, New York: Granary, Ingrid Fischer Jonge: Forord i: 28 danske fotobøger/28 Danish Photographic Books, København: Det Nationale Fotomuseum, 2006, p. 8. was first coined in 1973, been contention about what the term actually covers. 5 It is the precise demarcation in relation to paper-based art forms that there is a particular lack of clarity about. It is hardly possible, or desirable, to construct a completely precise definition that encapsulates the specific characteristics of all artists books, but I will attempt to identify a field that allows for a differentiation in relation to related, though different, forms. The word artist in artists books is a non-specialist designation: i.e., artist covers not only visual artists (although it is frequently this group who make artists books) but also, for example, writers and composers who use the book medium for an artistic project. There can therefore be a visual and/or verbal content in the artist s book. Artists books share characteristics with the ordinary book media: the relatively low price (often printed in an edition of a certain size), the physical flexibility (unlike art works at the gallery, they can be experienced anywhere and, in principle, be purchased anywhere), the institutional freedom (independence from galleries and museums) and the chronological structure of the book medium (which allows serial or narrative sequences). In many artists books photographic material of various kinds is used. Thus, an obvious question is: when is something a photobook, and when is it an artist s book? In 28 danske fotobøger/28 Danish Photographic Books (2006), which was published in conjunction with the Hasselblad exhibition The Open Book at the National Museum of Photography at the Danish Royal Library, the Danish examples were selected based on the criterion that the book must be experienced as a whole, both as a medium and as an artistic expression. 6 Yet, in my view there is an obvious difference between the artists in this book i.e., the professional photographers who present their own individual photographic works in a book (with or without captions, composed more or less as a sequence), such as Tove Kurtzweil (Moment, 1998) and the artists, often visual artists, who use photography, and not necessarily photography alone but also, for example, handwriting, drawings, appropriated material in a collective art work such as Per Kirkeby (the Roman-trilogien ( Novel Trilogy ), ) and Jytte Rex (Jeg har ikke lukket et øje. En billedroman ( I Haven t Slept a Wink. A Picture Novel, 1978). 5 Cf. Stefan Klima: Artists Books. A Critical Survey of the Literature (New York: Granary, 1998). 6 Ingrid Fischer Jonge: Forord in: 28 danske fotobøger/28 Danish Photographic Books (Copenhagen: Det Nationale Fotomuseum, 2006), p. 8.

11 20 21 Most artists books are widely published, but we ought to work from a broad material definition since many artists books can be unique and/or modified in various ways. The main differences are, of course, the size of circulation, which can play a role in setting the price, and the possibilities for variations that a limited edition offers, for example, the gluing in of different materials. Albert Mertz ( ) worked with unique books, such as , from 1969, and mass-produced books, such as La Maison Albert Mertz: (1969) 22x17 cm Rouge+Bleu, from There are also books that use all sorts of materials, including materials that are far from those one would normally associate with a book (metal, wax, glued pieces of paper, wood, glass). Often these works are a reflection on what a book is or can be, through an arrangement of the book s cover and pages. How should we distinguish between works that are artists books and works that are a kind of book sculpture? I have already mentioned the distinction between the book about art and the book as art. Among these books as art one can, I would argue, distinguish between an art work in book form (an artistic project that takes place within the framework of the book medium: i.e., the artist s book) and the book as an art work (an artistic project where there is a reworking of concrete books or where we are dealing with a more metaphorical use of the word book ). The former are artists books. In the latter, the book as an art work, we may actually be dealing with book sculptures that can, only in a metaphorical sense, be considered to be a book : for example, the Fluxus artist Alison Knowles s metre-high book installation The Big Book ( ), which was exhibited in 1967 in the Art Library in the former Nikolaj Church at Nikolaj Plads in the centre of Copenhagen. These book installations are easy enough to distinguish from artists books. But what about unique objects, where a book is reworked, as in Arthur Köpcke s Lenin: Materialismus und Empiriokritizismus, from 1961, the German translation of Lenin s book ( Materialism and Empirio-Criticism ), in which Köpcke ( ) had glued the pages of the book together, apart from three spreads into which he had pasted miscellaneous scraps of paper and objects? Köpcke s unique work is a modified book, and by virtue of its conceptual whole also an artist s book. Unique, but not a book sculpture. Or what about Henrik Have s Sun after Lunch (1972), an accumulation of sheets held together by a red ribbon, not unique, but printed only in small numbers? From a material basis Have s book is organised quite differently from the conventional book; the linearity is gone, but it is nevertheless still an artist s book (unlike, for example, his stone book, which would more correctly be described as a book sculpture). 7 Another diligent practitioner is Mogens Otto Nielsen (b. 1945), whose large production of books falls within a broad spectrum, covering both regular artists books and book sculptures. Of Mogens Otto Nielsen s 7 The stone book, which bears the title ISBN udg. (1995), is a book-sculpture, albeit with its own ISBN number. enkeltværker i en bog (med eller uden billedtekst, mere eller mindre komponeret i et forløb), som f.eks. Tove Kurtzweil (Moment, 1998), og de kunstnere, ofte billedkunstnere, der bruger fotografiet, og ikke nødvendigvis kun fotografiet, men også for eksempel håndskrift, tegninger, approprieret materiale i et samlet kunstværk, såsom f.eks. Per Kirkeby (Roman-trilogien, ) og Jytte Rex (Jeg har ikke lukket et øje. En billedroman, 1978). De fleste kunstnerbøger er almindeligt trykt, men man bør operere med en bred materiel definition, idet mange kunstnerbøger kan være unika og/eller være modificeret på forskellig vis. De væsentligste forskelle er selvfølgelig oplagets størrelse, hvilket kan spille en rolle for prissætningen, og de muligheder for variationer et begrænset oplag giver, f.eks. indklæbninger af forskelligt materiale. Albert Mertz ( ) arbejdede med unikabøger som fra 1969 og masseproducerede bøger som La Maison Rouge+Bleu fra Der eksisterer også bøger, hvori der anvendes alle mulige materialer, endog visse, der ligger særdeles langt væk fra, hvad der normalt forbindes med en bog (metal, voks, påklistrede stykker papir, træ, glas). Ofte er disse værker en refleksion over, hvad en bog er eller kan være, gennem en bearbejdning af bogens omslag og sider. Hvordan skelner man mellem værker, der er kunstnerbøger, og værker, der er en slags bogskulpturer? Jeg nævnte distinktionen en bog om kunst kontra en bog som kunst. Blandt disse bøger som kunst kan man, vil jeg hævde, skelne mellem et kunstværk i bogform (et kunstnerisk projekt, der finder sted inden for bogmediets rammer, dvs. kunstnerbogen) og bogen som kunstværk (et kunstnerisk projekt, hvor det er bearbejdningen af konkrete bøger eller en mere metaforisk anvendelse af ordet bog, der er tale om). Førstnævnte er kunstnerbøger. I sidstnævnte, bogen som kunstværk, kan der være tale om egentlige bogskulpturer, hvor der kun i metaforisk forstand kan tales om en bog, f.eks. fluxuskunstneren Alison Knowles meterhøje boginstallation The Big Book ( ), der i 1967 blev udstillet i Kunstbiblioteket i Nikolaj Kirke i København. Disse boginstallationer er lette nok at adskille fra kunstnerbøgerne. Men hvad med unikaobjekterne, hvor en bog bearbejdes, såsom Arthur Köpckes Lenin: Materialismus und Empiriokritizismus fra 1961, den tyske oversættelse af Lenins bog, hvor Köpcke ( ) havde limet siderne i bogen sammen, bortset fra tre opslag, hvor han havde indklæbet diverse papirlapper og genstande? Köpckes unikaværk er en modificeret bog, og i kraft af sin konceptuelle helhed en kunstnerbog. Unik, men ikke en bogskulptur. Eller hvad med Henrik Haves Sun after Lunch (1972), denne ophobning af ark, sammenholdt med et rødt bånd, ikke unika, men trykt i et mindre oplag? Haves bog er materielt set organiseret anderledes end den konventionelle bog, idet lineariteten er forsvundet, men udgør dog stadig væk en kunstnerbog (mod- sat f.eks. hans stenbog, som må betegnes som bogskulptur). 7 En anden flittig praktiker er Mogens Otto Nielsen (f. 1945), hvis store bogproduktion falder inden for et bredt spektrum, der både dækker regulære kunstnerbøger og bogskulpturer. Hos Mogens Otto Nielsen (f. 1945) er for eksempel værket Book-Ball fra 1996, bestående af sammenkrøllet papir, der er holdt sammen af gummibånd, 8 ikke en kunstnerbog, ja knap nok en bog i andet end en overført betydning, en informationsophobning, der kun er delvist læselig. 9 Man bør, har flere forskere, bl.a. den tyske kunsthistoriker Anne Thurmann-Jajes, påpeget, 10 ikke forveksle kunstnerbogen med andre af de bogtyper, som kunstnere historisk set har arbejdet med: malerbøger og illustrerede bøger. Malerbøgerne 11 betegner et møde mellem to kunstarter, typisk en malers værk og en forfatters tekst. Der er tale om et ligeværdigt forhold mellem kunstarterne, hvorfor billede og tekst har en selvstændig eksistens og belyser hinanden, selvom teksten nogle gange fungerer som en forklaring af det visuelle materiale. Typisk er der tale om et kvalitetsprodukt i forhold til valg af materialer, tilrettelæggelse og trykketeknik. Oplagene er begrænsede, prisen er høj, og der er ofte ingen intention om en stor udbredelse. De illustrerede bøger 12 har i modsætning til malerbøgerne teksten i centrum. Thurmann-Jajes nævner Biblen som den hyppigst illustrerede bog. Hun understreger, at der både formelt og indholdsmæssigt ikke er den store forskel mellem disse to første former, men forskellen er, om der er tale om et samarbejde eller en illustrering af en på forhånd given tekst. Et eksempel kunne være Pierre Bonnards billedside til Paul Verlaines digte i værket, der bar den sigende titel Parallèlement (1900). Kunstnerbogen kommer historisk senere til end den illustrerede bog og malerbogen, men man kan ikke tale om, at den afløser dem. Disse forskellige former sameksisterer, men i forskellige lejre af kunstmarkedet. De traditionelle bibliofile samlere har sjældent nogen interesse i kunstnerbøgerne kunstnerbøgerne er materielt set for ordinære og trykt i for store oplag. Kunstnerne har altid, hvis man skal vende tilbage til Kirkeby, lavet bøger, men en differentiering er ikke desto mindre nødvendig. Fra hvornår kan vi snakke om kunstnerbøgerne som en kunstnerisk praksis? Det er der delte meninger om. Her indtager to af hovedteoretikerne inden for dette felt, Johanna Drucker og Anne Mœglin-Delcroix forskellige positioner, der kan resumeres som henholdsvist kunstnerbøger som del af en større boghistorisk udvikling og kunstnerbøger som et separat felt. Drucker opererer i The Century of Artists Books (1995) med en længere kunst- og litteraturhistorisk optik, hvor tidlige typografiske eksperimenter på bogsiden langsomt forskydes til at omfatte 7 Stenbogen, der bærer titlen ISBN udg. (1995), er en bogskulptur, om end med eget ISBN-nummer. 8 Værket er gengivet i Bog Objekt, Til betegnelsen bogobjekt knytter sig en terminologisk problematik, fordi termen bogobjekt både anvendes som betegnelse for egentlige bogskulpturer, men også for kunstnerbøger, hvor der er foretaget ændringer i eller fremhævelser af bogmediets materielle substans. Der er med andre ord ingen stringens eller konsekvens i anvendelsen af termen. 10 Anne Thurmann-Jajes: Die Bücher der Künstler i: Malerbücher Künstlerbücher. Die Vielseitigkeit eines Mediums in der Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, Bremen: Neues Museum Weserburg, 2001, pp Malerbücher eller livres de peintre på hhv. tysk og fransk. 12 Illustrierte Bücher eller livres illustrés. works, the work Book-Ball from 1996, for example, consisting of crumpled paper held together by rubber bands, 8 is not an artist s book, indeed hardly even a book, in anything more than a figurative sense. It is an accumulation of information that is only partially readable. 9 Several researchers, including the German art historian Anne Thurmann-Jajes, 10 have pointed out that one should not confuse the artist s book with the other book types that artists have historically worked with: livres de peintre and illustrated books. The livre de peintre 11 constitutes a meeting of two art forms: typically, a painter s work and an author s text. Here we have an equality of art forms, where text and image have an independent existence supporting one another, although the text does sometimes serve as an explanation of the visual material. Typically, this would be a quality product, in respect of choice of materials, arrangement and printing technique. The print run is limited, the price is high, and there is often no intention of a large distribution. Illustrated books, 12 unlike livres de peintre, place the text at the centre. Thurmann-Jajes names the Bible as the most frequently illustrated book. She stresses that, in both form and content, there is no great difference between these first two types, but the difference lies in whether it is a collaboration or an illustration of an already existing text. An example would be Pierre Bonnard s illustrated pages for Paul Verlaine s poems in the work that bore the telling title Parallèlement (1900). Historically, the artist s book emerged after the illustrated book and the livre de peintre, but we cannot say that it served as a replacement for them. These different forms coexist, but in different parts of the art market. Traditional bibliophile collectors rarely have much interest in artists books artists books are materially too ordinary and printed in numbers that are too large. To return to Kirkeby s quote, artists have always, made books, but a differentiation is nevertheless necessary. At what point, then, can we speak of artists books as an artistic practice? There are mixed opinions about this. Two of the principal theoreticians in the field, Johanna Drucker and Anne Mœglin-Delcroix, occupy different positions on this, which can be summarised, respectively, as artists books, as part of a larger development in the history of books and artists books as a separate field. In The Century of Artists Books (1995) Drucker approaches the subject from a broader perspective of the history of art and literature, where early typographic experiments on the book page slowly shifted to include the entire book from William Blake through Stéphane Mallarmé and on to the Russian futurists. For Drucker, these form the beginning of the boom in artists books that occurred in the 1960s, although for Drucker there are no founding fathers but rather a field that has multiple origins from which the artist s book emerges. Anne Mœglin-Delcroix, for her part, does not deny that certain works from the first half of the century may have 8 The work is reproduced in Bog Objekt (1998). 9 There is a terminological issue associated with the term book-object, because the term is used to denote both actual book-sculptures and artists books, where changes have been made to, or emphasis placed on, the book medium s material substance. In other words, there is no rigour or consistency in the application of the term. 10 Anne Thurmann-Jajes: Die Bücher der Künstler, in Malerbücher Künstlerbücher. Die Vielseitigkeit eines Mediums in der Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts (Bremen: Neues Museum Weserburg, 2001), pp Malerbücher or livres de peintre, in German and French respectively. 12 Illustrierte Bücher or livres illustrés.

12 22 23 anticipated the developments of the 1960s, but she stresses, in Esthétique du livre d artiste (1997/2012), that only few of these can reasonably be described as artists books rather than simply typographical experiments on individual pages of books. Neither does this small number of works form what one could call a tradition. Thus it is not until the 1960s that artists books become a truly artistic practice. In an article from 2004, 1962 et après. Une autre idée de l art, 13 Mœglin-Delcroix further demonstrated how 1962 was a central year, as it saw the appearance of four notable artists books that ploughed quite different furrows for the artist s book: American Ed Ruscha s Twentysix Gasoline Stations, French Ben Vautier s Moi, Ben, je signe, Swiss-Romanian Daniel Spoerri s Topographie anecdotée du hasard and the Swiss Dieter Roth s Dagblegt Bull. Hence, Mœglin-Delcroix stresses that the emergence of artists books, far from being linked only to conceptual art, also has connections to pop art, Nouveau Réalisme and Fluxus. Mœglin-Delcroix also takes issue with the widespread notion of Ed Ruscha being the founding father and paradigm creator of artists books. One has to be careful not to automatically define artists books in terms of the 1960s avant-garde practice, which would be a perfectly plausible mistake to make as the artist s book did emerge during this period. The artist s book does not have one single aesthetic or one aesthetic spectrum that is inextricably linked to movements such as Fluxus, conceptual art, minimalism etc., but it has, of course, been influenced by the changes and shifts that have been taking place in art history. On the other hand, we should note that some art forms interact better with artists books than others: conceptual art has, historically, made much use of artists books, as the dematerialisation of art, the prioritisation of writing and the idea required some form of material basis, and for this the book medium was eminently suitable and was sufficiently ordinary and without ostentation. Furthermore, one should not extend the concept of artist s book to something devoid of meaning. Sometimes a given book does fall outside this severely stretched framework; then we are talking about, for example, a catalogue, a livre de peintre, a book sculpture or something completely different. The artist s book and the national element Today, contemporary art is almost by definition international. One can point to a general internationalisation by virtue of such things as the technological paradigm shifts of the 1990s and 2000s (not least the emergence of the internet, broadband, smartphones and social media), but educational and organisational aspects have also clearly played a role. (Visual) artists are often educated abroad, and often in the homelands of foreign teachers. Artists often live and/or exhibit abroad, and often in collaboration with foreign colleagues etc. Unlike with fiction, there is usually no need for any laborious and costly translation process, as the imagery of artists books can immediately be read by viewers from outside the country s borders, although perhaps not with quite all of its cultural and semantic implications. No (Western) contemporary art is tied to a single nation. As the Danish curator and art historian Lars Bang Larsen has expressed it, the nation acts only by virtue 13 Anne Mœglin-Delcroix et al. (ed.): Looking. Telling. Thinking. Collecting. Four Directions of the Artist s Book from the Sixties to the Present (Mantua: Casa del Mantegna & Edizioni Corraini, 2004). hele bogen fra William Blake over Stéphane Mallarmé til de russiske futurister. Dette er for Drucker begyndelsen til det boom af kunstnerbøger, der kommer i 1960 erne, om end der for Drucker ikke eksisterer nogen founding fathers, men derimod et felt, der ikke har ét, men mange steder, hvorfra kunstnerbøgerne opstår. Anne Mœglin-Delcroix, på sin side, nægter ikke, at visse værker fra århundredets første halvdel kan have foregrebet udviklingen i 1960 erne, men hun understreger i Esthétique du livre d artiste (1997/2012), at kun et fåtal af disse med en vis rimelighed kan betegnes som kunstnerbøger og ikke blot typografiske eksperimenter på den enkelte bogside. Dette fåtal af værker danner heller ikke en tradition, og det er først i 1960 erne, at kunstnerbøgerne bliver en egentlig kunstnerisk praksis. I en artikel fra 2004, 1962 et après. Une autre idée de l art, 13 demonstrerer Mœglin-Delcroix endvidere, at 1962 var et centralt år, idet der udkom fire markante kunstnerbøger, der udstak vidt forskellige veje for kunstnerbøgerne: amerikaneren Ed Ruschas Twentysix Gasoline Stations; franske Ben Vautiers Moi, Ben, je signe; schweizisk-rumænske Daniel Spoerris Topographie anecdotée du hasard; og schweiziske Dieter Roths Dagblegt Bull. Mœglin-Delcroix understreger dermed også, at kunstnerbøgernes opkomst så langtfra kun er knyttet til den konceptuelle kunst, men også til popkunst, nouveau réalisme og fluxus. Mœglin-Delcroix gør også op med den udbredte forestilling om Ed Ruscha som kunstnerbøgernes founding father og paradigmeskaber. Man skal være varsom med ikke per automatik at definere kunstnerbogen ud fra 1960 er-avantgardens praksis, hvilket ellers vil være en ret oplagt fejlslutning, idet kunstnerbogen netop opstår i denne periode. Kunstnerbogen har ikke én æstetik eller ét æstetisk spektrum, der uløseligt knytter sig til retninger såsom fluxus, konceptuel kunst, minimalisme m.m., men kunstnerbogen bliver naturligvis præget af de ændringer og forskydninger, der sker i kunsthistorien. Dog må man konstatere, at nogle kunstformer interagerer bedre med kunstnerbøger end andre: Den konceptuelle kunst har historisk set i høj grad benyttet sig af kunstnerbøger, idet den dematerialiserede kunst, privilegeringen af skriften og idéen, skulle have en eller anden form for materiel basis, og her egnede bogmediet sig fortrinligt og var tilstrækkeligt almindeligt og prunkløst. Endvidere skal man ikke udvide begrebet kunstnerbog til meningsløshed. Nogle gange falder en given bog uden for en nok så hårdt udspændt ramme: Så er der tale om for eksempel et katalog, en malerbog, en bogskulptur, noget andet. Kunstnerbogen og det nationale I dag er samtidskunsten næsten per se international: Man kan pege på en generel internationalisering i kraft af bl.a ernes og 2000 ernes teknologiske paradigmeskift (ikke mindst internettets fremkomst, bredbåndsforbindelser, smartphones og sociale medier), men de uddannelsesmæssige og organisatoriske aspekter spiller selvsagt også en rolle: (Billed)kunst- 13 Anne Mœglin-Delcroix et al. (red.): Looking. Telling. Thinking. Collecting. Four Directions of the Artist s Book from the Sixties to the Present, Mantova: Casa del Mantegna & Edizioni Corraini, nere uddannes ofte i udlandet eller i hjemlandet af udenlandske undervisere. Kunstnere bor og/eller udstiller ofte i udlandet, tit sammen med udenlandske kolleger etc. Modsat skønlitteraturen er der som oftest ikke tale om en møjsommelig og kostbar oversættelsesproces, idet billedmaterialet i kunstnerbøgerne umiddelbart, om end ikke nødvendigvis med alle dets kulturelle og betydningsmæssige implikationer, kan aflæses uden for landets grænser. Ingen (vestlig) samtidskunst er bundet til det nationale. Det nationale optræder kun, som den danske kurator og kunsthistoriker Lars Bang Larsen har udtrykt det, i kraft af dets ikke-definerede forskel til det internationale, dvs. det nationale anvendes som kategori, der adskiller sig fra det internationale, men uden at der opereres med et klart begreb om, hvad det nationale så rent faktisk består af. 14 I Anne Mœglin-Delcroixs Esthétique du livre d artiste vælger forfatteren at anvende kunstretningerne (fluxus, konceptuel kunst m.fl.) som organisatorisk princip på bekostning af nationale markører. Tilsvarende skeles der i Johanna Druckers indflydelsesrige The Century of Artists Books (1995) heller ikke til værkernes ophavsland, selvom en betydelig del af Druckers eksempelmateriale stammer fra USA. 16 Druckers og Mœglin-Delcroixs overflyvninger er centrale, også som forløbere for mere specialiserede studier. Herved etableres kunstnerbøger som afgrænset felt, og opmærksomheden rettes mod væsentlige værker herindenfor. Men helt at se bort fra det nationale aspekt rummer dog potentielt den fare, at det nationale bliver et blindt punkt: Hos Drucker farves fremstillingen naturligt nok af, hvordan fænomenet kunstnerbøger har udviklet sig i Nordamerika. 17 Drucker bemærker godt nok den geografiske fordeling i sit forord, men spørgsmålet er, om ikke et udvidet eksempelmateriale fra flere nationer kunne have udvidet eller ændret de kategorier, som Drucker strukturerer sit materiale inden for? Men hvorfor overhovedet anlægge et nationalt perspektiv? Kunsthistorikeren Michael Glasmeier skriver i Die Bücher der Künstler. Publikationen und Editionen seit den sechziger Jahren in Deutschland (1994), at det ikke giver mening at indføre selvstændige kategorier for forskellige lande i en tidsalder, der er præget af kunstnerisk nomadisme og global interaktion. Vurderingen optræder interessant nok i Glasmeiers egen bog om tyske kunstnerpublikationer. I bogen er der ingen overvejelser 14 Jf. Lars Bang Larsen: Boundary Effects. The Popularization of Danish Art since the 1990s (endnu upubliceret). At der samtidig er sket et forsøg på monopoliseringen af danskheden hos en xenofobisk dansk regering, understøttet af et fremmedfjendsk støtteparti, fra 2001 til 2011, har næppe gjort lysten til et nationalt tilhørsforhold større blandt kunstnerne. 15 Værket har siden udgivelsen været det helt centrale værk om emnet, om end dette fransksprogede værk ikke tilnærmelsesvis har fået den receptionsmæssige status, som det fortjener i en forskningskultur, der i stadig stigende grad er monosproglig (læs: engelsk). I 2012 genudgivet i en revideret og udvidet version under titlen Esthétique du livre d artiste. Une introduction à l art contemporain Et manglende blik for landene fra periferien finder man også i nyere værker som Anne Mœglin-Delcroix et al. (red.): Looking. Telling. Thinking. Collecting. Four Directions of the Artist s Book from the Sixties to the Present, Mantova: Casa del Mantegna & Edizioni Corraini, 2004; Anne Mœglin-Delcroix: Sur le livre d artiste, Marseille: Le mot et le reste, 2006, og Leszek Brogowskis: Éditer l art: le livre d artiste et l histoire du livre, Chatou: Les Éditions de la transparence, Der synes generelt set at være en tendens til amerikansk nærsynethed, hvorimod man i europæiske fremstillinger finder en mere ligelig fordeling af tyske, franske, engelske og amerikanske kunstnerbøger. of its undefined difference from the international; in other words, the national is used as a category that is distinct from the international but without being limited by any clear concept of what the national actually consists of. 14 In Anne Mœglin-Delcroix s Esthétique du livre d artiste the author chooses to use art movements (Fluxus, conceptual art etc.) as organising principles rather than any national markers. Similarly, in Johanna Drucker s influential The Century of Artists Books (1995) no specific attention is paid to the nationalities of the works, despite a significant portion of Drucker s example material originating in the USA. 16 Drucker and Mœglin-Delcroix s surveys are essential, also as precursors for more specialised studies. Here artists books are established as a defined field, and the attention is directed towards the important works that exist within the field. But to ignore the national aspect completely would raise the potential danger of the national becoming a blind spot. In Drucker, the representation is naturally coloured by how the phenomenon of artists books has evolved in North America. 17 Drucker does, it has to be said, draw attention to the geographical division in her foreword, but the question is whether or not extending the example material from a broader range of nations might also have extended or altered the categories that Drucker used to structure her material. But why introduce a national perspective at all? The art historian Michael Glasmeier writes in Die Bücher der Künstler. Publikationen und Editionen seit den sechziger Jahren in Deutschland (1994) that it makes no sense to introduce independent categories for different countries in an era marked by artistic nomadism and global interaction. This assessment appears, interestingly enough, in Glasmeier s own book on German artists publications. In the book no consideration is given to the idea of an independent German field, or to what form the development has taken. Nevertheless, the book indirectly bears witness to the need to make differentiations dependent on geography and nationality. The focus in Die Bücher der Künstler is on the books that have been published in Germany, and these are mostly made by German artists (this, at least, is the impression that Die Bücher der Künstler, justifiably gives) Cf. Lars Bang Larsen: Boundary Effects. The Popularization of Danish Art since the 1990s (forthcoming). That there has also been an attempt at a monopolisation of Danishness by a xenophobic Danish government, supported by a xenophobic supporting party, from 2001 to 2011, has hardly made the desire for any national affiliations greater among artists. 15 The work has, since its publication, been the key work on the subject, although this Frenchlanguage work has not nearly had the reception status it deserves in a research culture that is increasingly monolingual (read: English). In 2012, reissued in a revised and expanded edition under the title Esthétique du livre d artiste. Une introduction à l art contemporain A lack of attention paid to countries from the periphery can also be witnessed in more recent works such as Anne Mœglin-Delcroix et al. (ed.): Looking. Telling. Thinking. Collecting. Four Directions of the Artist s Book from the Sixties to the Present (Mantua: Casa del Mantegna & Edizioni Corraini, 2004); Anne Mœglin-Delcroix: Sur le livre d artiste (Marseille: Le mot et le reste, 2006); and Leszek Brogowski s Éditer l art: le livre d artiste et l histoire du livre (Chatou: Les Éditions de la Transparence, 2010) 17 There seems to be a general tendency towards an American narrow-mindedness, whereas European representations display a more equitable distribution of German, French, English and American artists books. 18 Neither in works such as Eva Hanebutt-Benz (ed.): Going Out Artists Books from Korea (Mainz: Gutenberg-Museum, 2005), or Alex Selenitsch (ed.): Australian Artists Books (Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2008) is there any reflection of these circumstances.

13 24 25 Specialised studies on the artist s book do show that there are distinctions, historically, between Western Europe and the USA, 19 between Western 20 and Eastern Europe 21 and between the European countries internally: yes, even from country to country. This applies not only to artists books but to art in general. Differences in geography, culture and language are obvious markers (many of the artists books are non-verbal or consist largely of imagery, but they do not thereby become detached from their origins). Ed Ruscha s artist s book Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1962), which helped define the American artist s book in particular, despite the author s intention to present absolutely neutral materials (which consisted of snapshot photographs without any other text than the name and location of each gas station), appears as a distinctly American work whose matter-of-fact, indeed consciously expressionless, documentation of gas stations along Route 66, which connects Los Angeles to Oklahoma City (and connects his residence and his childhood home), could not have been made on the old continent. Moreover, the history of artists books, as already suggested, has been different in the USA from Europe. Where artists in Europe have to a greater extent worked in cooperation with galleries and also made unique or small print runs, artists books in the USA have existed as a corrective to the established art institutions and have insisted on the mass-produced book a democratisation of art, an offensive directed against the established art world. Art should exist in book form (cheap, mass-produced, easy to distribute and store) and be available to the largest possible number of people. The differences are especially clear when compared with Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe cannot be considered as a single entity, since, for example, Yugoslavia and Poland were not subject to exactly the same restrictions, but generally speaking censorship, publication bans and paper shortages have been pervading issues that have resulted in the artists books often being hand-made and unique. The political realities also meant that artistic experimentation was not limited to an internal art discussion but took the form, indeed was almost born out of, a critique of society itself, as artists books, for example in conceptual art, were partly in conflict with the existing social-realist ideals of art and literature, and partly constituted an illegal publishing practice. 22 The national and local manifestations of conceptual art were documented at the exhibition Global Conceptualism in New York in And in recent years the exhibition Les promesses du passé. Une historie discontinue de l art dans l ex-europe de L est at the 19 Artur Brall s Künstlerbücher. Artists Books. Book as Art: Ausstellungen, Dokumentationen, Kataloge, Kritiken, Frankfurt am Main: Kretschmer & Großmann, 1986, and Betty Bright: No longer Innocent. Book Art in America , New York: Granary Books, On this point see also José Arturo Rodríguez (ed.): Hojeando Cuatro décadas de libros y revistas de artistas en España (Barcelona: Sociedad Estatal para la Acción Cultural Exterior, SEACEX, 2008); Anne Thurmann-Jajes et al. (ed): Printed in Spain (Bremen: Museum Weserburg, 2001); Thomas Günther: Essential aspects of subculture periodicals in the GDR and their place in cultural history, in Journal of Artists Books, no. 1 (1994), pp ; and Leif Eriksson: Svenska konstnärsböcker, in Paletten, no. 4 (1981), pp On this point see also Wolfgang Schlott: Vom Avantgardebuch zum Künstlerbuch Anmerkungen zur Genese eines polnischen Mediums, Arbeitspapiere und Materialien (no. 35) der Forschungsstelle Osteuropa Bremen (2002), pp. 1-37; and Piotr Rypson: Books and Pages. Polish Avant-garde and Artists Books in the 20th Century (Warsaw: Centre for Contemporary Art, 2000). 22 Piotr Rypson: Books and Pages. Polish Avant-Garde and Artists Books in the 20th Century (Warsaw: Centre for Contemporary Art, 2000). 23 Luis Camnitzer, Jane Farver and Rachel Weiss: Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin 1950s-1980 (New York: Queens Museum of Art, 1999). omkring et selvstændigt tysk felt, eller om hvordan udviklingen har været. Alligevel vidner bogen indirekte om behovet for at foretage differentieringer, der er geografisk-nationalt betinget. Fokus i Die Bücher der Künstler ligger på bøger, der er udgivet i Tyskland, og disse er for størstedelen lavet af tyske kunstnere (det er i hvert fald det indtryk, som Die Bücher der Künstler giver). 18 Specialiserede studier i kunstnerbogen viser, at der historisk set kan skelnes mellem Vesteuropa og USA; 19 mellem Vest- 20 og Østeuropa; 21 og mellem de europæiske lande internt, ja i det hele taget fra land til land. Dette gælder ikke kun for kunstnerbøger, men for kunst generelt. Forskelle i geografi, kultur og sprog er oplagte markører (mange af kunstnerbøgerne er dog nonverbale eller består i overvejende grad af billedmateriale, men har ikke af den grund løsrevet sig fra deres herkomst). Ed Ruschas kunstnerbog Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1962), der har været med til at definere især den amerikanske kunstnerbog, fremstår, på trods af ophavsmandens intention om at præsentere absolutely neutral materials (dvs. snapshotfotografier uden anden tekst end navn og placering på den enkelte tankstation), som et udpræget amerikansk værk, hvis nøgterne, ja intenderede udtryksløse dokumentering af tankstationer langs Route 66, der forbinder Los Angeles med Oklahoma City (og forbinder hans residens og hans barndomshjem), ikke kunne være taget på det gamle kontinent. Endvidere har kunstnerbøgernes historie som tidligere antydet været forskellig i USA og Europa. Hvor kunstnerne i Europa i højere grad har samarbejdet med gallerier og også lavet unika eller mindre oplag, har kunstnerbøgerne i USA eksisteret som et korrektiv til den etablerede kunstinstitution og insisteret på den masseproducerede bog en demokratisering af kunsten, en offensiv vendt mod den etablerede kunstverden: Kunsten skulle eksistere i bogform (billig, masseproduceret, let at distribuere og opbevare) og være tilgængelig for flest mulig mennesker. Især i forhold til Østeuropa står forskellene tydeligt frem. Østeuropa kan ikke behandles under ét, eftersom f.eks. Jugoslavien og Polen ikke var underlagt præcis de samme restriktioner, men generelt har der været tale om censur, publikationsforbud og papirmangel, hvilket har resulteret i, at kunstnerbøgerne ofte var håndlavede og unika. De politiske realiteter betød også, at det kunstneriske eksperiment ikke var begrænset til en kunstintern diskussion, men formede sig, ja nærmest var født som en kritik af selve samfundet, eftersom 18 Heller ikke i værker som Eva Hanebutt-Benz (red.): Going Out Artists Books from Korea, Mainz: Gutenberg-Museum, 2005, eller Alex Selenitsch (red.): Australian Artists Books, Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2008, reflekteres der over dette forhold. 19 Artur Bralls Künstlerbücher. Artists Books. Book as Art: Ausstellungen, Dokumentationen, Kataloge, Kritiken, Frankfurt am Main: Kretschmer & Großmann, 1986, og Betty Bright: No longer Innocent. Book Art in America , New York: Granary Books, Se hertil bl.a. José Arturo Rodríguez (red.): Hojeando Cuatro décadas de libros y revistas de artistas en España, Barcelona: Sociedad Estatal para la Acción Cultural Exterior, SEACEX, 2008; Anne Thurmann-Jajes et al. (red): Printed in Spain, Bremen: Museum Weserburg, 2001; Thomas Günther: Essential aspects of subculture periodicals in the GDR and their place in cultural history i: Journal of Artists Books nr. 1, 1994, pp , og Leif Eriksson: Svenska konstnärsböcker i: Paletten nr. 4, 1981, pp Se hertil bl.a. Wolfgang Schlott: Vom Avantgardebuch zum Künstlerbuch Anmerkungen zur Genese eines polnischen Mediums, Arbeitspapiere und Materialien (nr. 35) der Forschungsstelle Osteuropa Bremen, pp. 1-37, 2002 og Piotr Rypson: Books and Pages. Polish Avant-garde and Artists Books in the 20th Century, Warszawa: Center for Contemporary Art, kunstnerbøger, f.eks. med konceptuel kunst, dels var i strid med de gældende socialrealistiske idealer for kunsten og litteraturen, dels udgjorde en ulovlig publiceringspraksis. 22 De nationale og lokale udformninger af den konceptuelle kunst blev dokumenteret på udstillingen Global Conceptualism i New York i 1999, 23 og inden for de seneste par år har blandt andet udstillingen Les promesses du passé. Une historie discontinue de l art dans l ex-europe de L est på Centre Pompidou i Paris i ligeledes dokumenteret, at den konceptuelle kunst udviklede sig i en selvstændig retning i Østeuropa, hvor den var mere simpel og rå i materiel henseende, men også fundamentalt politisk. Har det nationale relevans eller ej? Jeg vil argumentere for, at man skal anlægge et dobbeltperspektiv. På den ene side findes kunstnerbøgerne som en kunstnerisk form, der ikke bør relativeres af de nationale særudviklinger. På den anden side bør man dog analysere et afgrænset nationalt felt, der ofte har sin egen institutionelle logik (men ikke nødvendigvis en særlig national, i det her tilfælde: dansk, essens), dvs. aspekter af kulturel, sproglig, geografisk, økonomisk og juridisk karakter. Eksempelvis er det nationalstatsligt funderede kunststøttesystem vigtigt for kunstnerbøgernes rammebetingelser i Danmark. Den nationale historie konvergerer endvidere kun delvist med den internationale historie, hvorfor man skal have blik for forskellene, uden dog at ende med en ren national narrativ, der ser bort fra påvirkningen fra udlandet. Ikke for at påvise det nationalt unikke, men det nationalt specifikke, 25 som når for eksempel tidsskriftet Journal of Artists Books i to temanumre har analyseret kunstnerbøger og det netværk af kunstnere og småforlag, disse indgår i, i hhv. Brasilien og Portugal (JAB forår 2011 og efterår 2012). Den nationale historie inkluderer også de udenlandske kunstnere, der har valgt at bosætte sig og arbejde i et givent land (som når schweiziske Dieter Roth bosatte sig i Island). Danske fluxuskunstnere i 1960 erne var i tæt kontakt med det internationale miljø, og det ville derfor være naivt at analysere for eksempel Per Kirkebys blå bøger fra 1960 erne uden at skele til de minimalistiske tendenser i 1960 erne, om end en national vinkel ville vise, at der ikke kun var tale om en inspiration fra USA. Vigtig i denne visuelle reduktionsproces i Danmark er Troels Andersens (f. 1940) forelæsninger på Den Eksperimenterende Kunstskole ( ) i København. Andersen havde som en af de første vestlige kunsthistorikere været i Sovjetunionens arkiver med russisk avantgardekunst. 26 At der ikke kan tales om en national specificitet, betyder imidlertid ikke, at det lokale er uden betydning, tværtimod spiller det jo ofte en afgørende rolle for stedsspecifik kunst. En mulighed kunne i visse tilfælde være at erstatte det nationale med det lokale, mere præcist: erstatte landet med hovedstæderne 22 Piotr Rypson: Books and Pages. Polish Avant-garde and Artists Books in the 20th Century, Warszawa: Center for Contemporary Art, Luis Camnitzer, Jane Farver & Rachel Weiss: Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin 1950s-1980, New York: Queens Museum of Art, Christine Macel et al.: Les promesses du passé: une histoire discontinue de l art dans l ex-europe de l Est, Paris: Centre Pompidou, For nu at bruge en formulering fra Rune Gade og Camilla Jalvings Nybrud dansk kunst i halvfemserne, København: Aschehoug, Jf. Tania Ørum: Minimal Requirements of the Post-War Avant-Garde of the 1960s i: Avant-Garde Critical Studies nr. 20, 2006, pp Pompidou Centre in Paris in 2010, 24 among others, have also documented how conceptual art developed in an independent direction in Eastern Europe, where it was materially more simple and crude but also fundamentally political. Does the nation have relevance or not? I would argue that there should be a dual perspective. On the one hand, we have artists books as an art form that should not be relativised by nationspecific developments. On the other hand, however, we ought to analyse a defined national field that often has its own institutional logic (but not necessarily a specific national, in this case Danish, essence): i.e., aspects of a cultural, linguistic, geographical, economic and legal nature. The Danish national government-funded arts support system is, for example, important to the framework conditions for artists books in Denmark. Moreover, national history converges only partially with international history, which is why one should be aware of the differences without submerging oneself in a purely national narrative that ignores influences from abroad. Not in order to point out the nationally unique, but the nationally specific, 25 as, for example, the Journal of Artists Books did in two special editions when it analysed artists books and the network of artists and small publishers they form a part of in, respectively, Brazil and Portugal (JAB, spring 2011 and autumn 2012). The national history also includes those foreign artists who have chosen to live and work in any given country (as when Swiss Dieter Roth settled in Iceland). Danish Fluxus artists in the 1960s were in close contact with the international milieu, and it would be naive to analyse Per Kirkeby s blue books of the 1960s, for example, without reference to the minimalist trends of the 1960s, although a national perspective would demonstrate that inspiration did not only come from the USA. Important in this visual reduction process in Denmark were Troels Andersen s (b. 1940) lectures at Den Eksperimenterende Kunstskole (The Experimental Art School, ) in Copenhagen. Andersen was one of the first Western art historians to have been given access to the Soviet Union s archives of Russian avant-garde art. 26 That we cannot talk about a national specificity does not mean that the local is irrelevant; on the contrary, it has often played a crucial role in site-specific art. One possibility could be, in certain cases, to replace the national with the local or, to be more precise, to replace the country by the capitals and/or the important cultural centres. A national focus can act as a corrective to the international canon, most evident in the large so-called international exhibitions, which rarely contain any names from the geographic periphery, including the Nordic countries. But it requires some basic archiving and documentation work to be carried out first. Danish artists books The Danish tradition of artists books began, if we disregard certain early pioneering efforts, in the late 1950s and has developed into a 24 Christine Macel et al.: Les promesses du passé: une histoire discontinue de l art dans l ex-europe de l Est (Paris: Centre Pompidou, 2010). 25 To use a phrase from Rune Gade and Camilla Jalving s Nybrud dansk kunst i halvfemserne (Copenhagen: Aschehoug, 2006). 26 Cf. Tania Ørum: Minimal Requirements of the Post-War Avant-Garde of the 1960s, in Avant- Garde Critical Studies, no. 20 (2006), pp

14 26 27 rich and varied field. But the lack of reception means that a lot of basic questions have not yet been discussed in a Danish context. Danish artists books fall within frameworks of both a geographic and a civic character. Artists books by Danish artists published in Denmark are obviously the most common type. Artists books by Danish artists published abroad are more limited in number, but an illustrative example is Stig Brøgger s (b. 1941) To Lady Victoria Welby, which appeared in 1968 via the artist Åke Hodell s publishing venture Kerberos, in Stockholm, but entered into a local context marked by discussions at Den Eksperimenterende Kunstskole. In more recent times Danish artists books have been published by the Revolver publishing house in Berlin and Lubok in Leipzig. Finally, foreign resident artists ought to be counted within the national context if they operate as a part of it. The German Arthur Köpcke is considered part of the Danish context since his artistic endeavours were performed here. Köpcke moved to Denmark in 1953, and between the years of 1958 and 1963 managed the small, short-lived, but retrospectively seen as immensely influential Galerie Köpcke in Copenhagen, a gallery where the Nouveaux Réalistes, Group Zero and Fluxus were introduced to a pretty limited audience, but more importantly to a number of Danish artists. Subsequently, Köpcke lived the rest of his life in Denmark and in a Danish art context. 27 So where does the story of the Danish artist s book really begin? On the one hand, one should include some works that, all things being equal, might be considered pioneering works (as artists books that is, not as typographic experiments). On the other hand, this previous history should not be given too great a significance for the field s formation and development decades later, as these works were often unknown by their successors, and the line of development has sometimes been established only retrospectively. If we were to tell the story in brief, it might sound something like this: the avant-garde movement s experiments in the 1960s, both Danish and international, can be viewed as a rediscovery and reactualisation of the avant-garde of the 1910s and 1920s (which had largely been forgotten), but there is also clearly an independent development occurring here as a result of the transformed media-related, social and artistic circumstances. In the 1970s examples were more haphazard, but among other things there were interesting changes in the artist s book in relation to mail art and feminist art. The artists books of the 1980s often lay closer to the catalogue, in that the painting was the focus, but the artist s book also saw interesting transformations when it merged with performance art, etc. During the 1990s there was a rediscovery of the avant-garde tradition and the artist s book as a form, while the tendencies of the 2000s revitalisation of the field can be seen through the increased frequency of artists books, exhibitions and publications. An obvious problem when attempting a survey of the field of Danish artists books is that the individual artist s book s visibility is most readily observable if it is made by an artist whose other artistic practice is generally well known by the (art) public. Practical circumstances can therefore play a role, since many of the works that exist in single or relatively few copies are virtually invisible 27 Köpcke was included, for example, in the group of Danish artists in the catalogue for the large exhibition of Nordic experimental art: Nordiskt 60-tal: uppbrott och konfrontation (Helsinki: Nordiskt Konstcentrum, 1990). og/eller vigtige kulturelle centre. Et nationalt fokus kan fungere som et korrektiv til den internationale kanon, der, tydeligst i de store såkaldt internationale udstillinger, sjældent indeholder nogen navne fra den geografiske periferi, herunder de nordiske lande. Men det kræver, at et grundlæggende arkiverings- og dokumentationsarbejde er blevet foretaget først. Danske kunstnerbøger Den danske tradition for kunstnerbøger begynder, hvis man ser bort fra visse tidlige pionerindsatser, i slutningen af 1950 erne og har udviklet sig til et både rigt og varieret felt. Men den manglende reception betyder, at en masse grundlæggende spørgsmål slet ikke er blevet diskuteret i en dansk kontekst endnu. Danske kunstnerbøger udgør her en ramme af både geografisk og statsborgerlig karakter. Kunstnerbøger af danske kunstnere udkommet i Danmark er selvsagt den hyppigste type. Kunstnerbøger af danske kunstnere udkommet i udlandet er mere begrænsede i antal, men et illustrativt eksempel herpå er Stig Brøggers (f. 1941) To Lady Victoria Welby, der udkom i 1968 på kunstneren Åke Hodells forlag Kerberos i Stockholm, men indgår i en lokal kontekst markeret af diskussionerne i Den Eksperimenterende Kunstskole. I nyere tid er danske kunstnerbøger udkommet på Revolver Verlag i Berlin og Lubok i Leipzig. Endelig bør herboende udenlandske kunstnere regnes med til den nationale kontekst, såfremt de indgår i den. Tyskeren Arthur Köpcke betragtes som en del af den danske kontekst, idet hans kunstneriske indsats udøves her. Köpcke flyttede i 1953 til Danmark, hvor han i årene bestyrede det lille, kortlivede, men retrospektivt set uhyre indflydelsesrige Galerie Köpcke i København, et galleri, hvor både Les Nouveaux Réalistes, Gruppe Zero og fluxus blev introduceret til et godt nok begrænset publikum, men vigtigere: til en række danske kunstnere. Efterfølgende levede Köpcke resten af sit liv i Danmark og i en dansk kunstkontekst. 27 Hvornår tager de danske kunstnerbøgers historie egentlig sin begyndelse? På den ene side bør man inkludere nogle værker, der alt andet lige er pionerværker (vel at mærke som kunstnerbøger, ikke som typografiske eksperimenter), på den anden side bør denne forhistorie ikke tilskrives en afgørende betydning for feltets opståen og udvikling nogle årtier senere, da disse værker ofte har været ukendte for deres efterfølgere, og da udviklingslinjerne nogle gange først har kunnet etableres retrospektivt. Hvis historien skal fortælles kort, så kunne den lyde sådan her: Avantgardebevægelsernes eksperimenter i 1960 erne, både danske og internationale, kan anskues som en genopdagelse og reaktualisering af avantgarderne i 1910 erne og 1920 erne (der i vidt omfang var gået i glemmebogen), men der er i høj grad også tale om en selvstændig udvikling, der sker som resultat af ændrede mediemæssige, samfundsmæssige og kunstneriske vilkår. I 1970 erne var der tale om en mere spredt fægtning, men blandt andet med interessante ændringer af kunstnerbogen i forhold til mail art og feministisk kunst. 27 Köpcke henregnes eksempelvis til gruppen af danske kunstnere i kataloget til den store udstilling om nordisk eksperimentalkunst: Nordiskt 60-tal: uppbrott och konfrontation, Helsinki: Nordiskt Konstcentrum, Kunstnerbøgerne i 1980 erne lå ofte tættere på kataloget, idet maleriet var i højsædet, men kunstnerbogen oplevede også interessante transformationer, når den fusionerede med blandt andet performancekunsten. I løbet af 1990 erne kom en genopdagelse af avantgardetraditionen og kunstnerbogen som form, hvor ansatserne til 00 ernes revitalisering af feltet kan iagttages i den øgede frekvens af kunstnerbøger, messer og publikationer. Et oplagt problem i forhold til en overflyvning af feltet af danske kunstnerbøger er, at den enkelte kunstnerbogs synlighed lettest lader sig opdage, hvis den er lavet af en kunstner, hvis øvrige kunstneriske praksis i øvrigt er velkendt i (kunst)offentligheden. Praktiske omstændigheder kan derfor spille en rolle, idet mange af værkerne i et eller relativt få eksemplarer er så godt som usynlige og meget sjældent indgår i kunstneres udstillinger. Unikaværker, der er i privateje, såsom Albert Mertz Per Højholt: Volumen (1974) 24x22 cm talrige unikaværker fra 1960 erne og 1970 erne, har vanskeligt ved at blive opdaget, medmindre de (som det kun i begrænset omfang er sket i Mertz tilfælde) 28 bliver gjort tilgængelige via for eksempel et udstillingskatalog eller en monografi. Et andet problem er de eksisterende grænser mellem kunstarterne, der tilsyneladende gør, at det er et kors for tanken for både litteraterne og kunsthistorikerne, at en bog af forfatteren Per Højholt ( ), nemlig Volumen fra 1974 med sine tekst- og fotocollager, der prioriterer det visuelle og værkets enhed frem for enkelttekster, ikke tilhører skønlitteraturen, men at der er tale om noget andet, en kunstnerbog eller i det mindste et værk, der har et dobbelt statsborgerskab og at dets væsen først for alvor kan forstås gennem denne dobbelte identitet. De første En dansk pioner inden for kunstnerbøger er den autodidakte maler og tegner Karl Johan Almqvist ( ), der udgiver sine talrige bøger i perioden Det er uvist, præcis hvor mange bøger Almqvist har udgivet, men det oplyses i en artikel af samleren John Hunov, at Vera Almqvist, hans enke, mente, at Almqvist skulle have udgivet omkring 200 bøger ved store afsavn og helt ved egen hjælp. 30 De fleste af bøgerne udkommer på Almqvists egne private forlag, hvis navne skifter gennem tiden, bl.a. almqvists forlag og k. j. a. presse. De færreste af Almqvists bøger er kunstnerbøger, langt hovedparten falder i kategorierne skønlitteratur (især digte), mapper eller bøger med linoleums- eller træsnit, hyldestbøger og et par pamfletter om kiropraktikkens muligheder. I seks 28 Jf. Cecilie Høgsbro Østergaard (red.): Mertz om Mertz, København: Vandkunsten, Almqvist staver konsekvent sit navn med små bogstaver, k.j. almqvist. 30 John Hunov: K.J. Almqvist i: Cras. Tidsskrift for kunst og kultur, nr. XXIV, 1980, Silkeborg: Kunstmuseums Forlag, p. 86. and very rarely included in the artist s exhibitions. Unique works that are in private ownership, such as Albert Mertz s numerous unique works from the 1960s and 1970s, are difficult to discover unless (as has occurred in Mertz s case to a limited extent) 28 they are made available via, for example, an exhibition catalogue or a monograph. Another problem is the existing boundaries between the art forms, which on the face of it means that there is cause for speculation by both literary and art historians, that a book by the author Per Højholt ( ), namely Volumen ( The Volume ) from 1974, with its text and photo-collages that prioritise the visual and the work s unity over any individual texts, cannot be classified as a work of fiction but must be classified rather as something else an artist s book, or at least a work that has dual citizenship and that its essence can only really be understood via this dual identity. The first A Danish pioneer of artists books is the self-taught painter and illustrator Karl Johan Almqvist ( ), who published his numerous books during the period It is not known exactly how many books Almqvist published, but it was revealed in an article by the collector John Hunov that Vera Almqvist, his widow, thought that Almqvist must have published around 200 books at great sacrifice and completely unaided. 30 The majority of these books were published by Almqvist s own private publishing enterprise, whose name changed over time but included Almqvist s publishers and k. j. a. press. A few of Almqvist s books are artists books, but the vast majority fall under the categories of fiction (especially poetry), folders or books with linocuts or woodcuts, tribute books and a few pamphlets on the potential of chiropractic. Six of the works appear to be artists books, five of which are proto-conceptual explorations of emptiness: Den store Sandhed ( The Great Truth, 1933), Tomhed ( Emptiness, 1933), Visdom. Selvbiografi ( Wisdom. Autobiography, 1934), et ord i al evighed ( a word for all eternity, 1945) and Demokrati ( Democracy, 1951). These are, to varying degrees, empty books. In Tomhed the emptiness is demonstrated via the very word emptiness, which occurs once on each page in varying font size (small or large) but in the same font type. In Den store Sandhed Almqvist, according to the preface, expounds on what truth is in relation to almqvistism (a playful and humorous pseudo-spiritual conception that appears in a number of Almqvist s books). The answer is: nothing but empty pages. Another empty work is Visdom (1934), which bears the subtitle selvbiografi. Here Almqvist, in connection with his thirty-fifth birthday, over the course of eighteen (blank) pages, cancels out 28 Cf. Cecilie Høgsbro Østergaard (ed.): Mertz om Mertz (Copenhagen: Vandkunsten, 2012). 29 Almqvist always spells his name in lower case: k.j. almqvist. 30 John Hunov: K. J. Almqvist, in Cras. Tidsskrift for kunst og kultur, no. XXIV (Silkeborg: Kunstmuseums Forlag, 1980), p. 86.

15 28 29 his autobiography! In 1945 he published the miniature book, et ord i al evighed, which handed pages 4-52 to the reader. In the book s foreword the readers are asked if anything should come to mind about something or other in relation/ to the/ blank pages / the author. (author s italics). Finally, to cap it all, came the book Demokrati in 1951, which contained 246 blank pages, including an insert whose entire text consisted of: and when/ they asked me / what is/ democracy/ / I gave / them this book, signed, with the name of the author in lower-case letters: k.j. almqvist. An empty book is not just an empty book, but the emptiness can be a demonstration of the word emptiness, a tabula rasa, an object of reflection, a notebook, a field of possibilities. The sixth work is Filosofi, from 1934, which Almqvist intended (although probably did not actually submit) as his doctoral thesis, where the eight pages of text with nonsensical arrangements of letters, numbers and two exclamation marks for example, 90BXj / YmIZe / m!efm K.J. Almqvist: Filosofi (1934) 18,3x13,7 cm K.J. Almqvist: Demokrati (1951) 20,5x15 cm / 0t N Æ are flanked by a short foreword and an even shorter afterword, in which Almqvist criticises philosophy for being ambitionless, empty words on development s decline. Here it is not a matter of early concrete literature but rather an artistic concept in book form. Almqvist s empty books do not form a tradition, and the focus on the empty, by the avant-garde artists of the 1960s, relates more closely to John Cage, Yves Klein, the American minimalists etc. In a review of Per Kirkeby s completely blue book blå, tid ( blue, time, 1968) in the broadsheet newspaper Information (14 May 1968), the author and literary critic Hans-Jørgen Nielsen ( ) mentions that the work Tomhed was written a long time ago by a Norwegian. In an interview I conducted with Per Kirkeby in 2007, when asked directly, he mentioned that he had read Almqvist in the 1960s but that Almqvist was no role model. 31 Almqvist is fairly unknown, and his cultivation of himself as a genius, and the publication of the book Adolf Hitler. Hymne til Menneskehedens sande Beskytter ( Adolf Hitler. Hymn to Humanity s True Protector ) in 1942 has hardly contributed to a strengthening of his position. (Almqvist was subjected to the disapprobation of the Danish Writers Association s court of honour after the war for this poem of tribute.) 31 Interview with Kirkeby, August værker er der tale om kunstnerbøger, fem af dem er proto-konceptuelle udforskninger af tomheden: Den store Sandhed (1933), Tomhed (1933), Visdom. Selvbiografi (1934), et ord i al evighed (1945) samt Demokrati (1951). Der er i varierende grad tale om tomme bøger. I Tomhed demonstreres tomheden ved ordet tomhed, der optræder én gang pr. side, trykt i varierende størrelse (lille eller stor), men med den samme skrifttype. I Den store Sandhed beretter Almqvist, ifølge forordet, om hvad sandhed er i forhold til almqvistismen (en spøgefuld og studentikos pseudo-spirituel konception, der optræder i en del af Almqvists bøger). Svaret er: lutter tomme sider. Et andet tomt værk er Visdom (1934), der bærer undertitlen selvbiografi. Her annullerer Almqvist i forbindelse med sin 35-års fødselsdag over fulde atten (blanke) sider sin selvbiografi! I 1945 udkommer miniature-bogen et ord i al evighed, der overlader siderne 4-52 til læseren. I bogens forord spørges læseren, om ikke denne kommer i tanke om et eller andet i forbindelse / med de/ ubeskrevne blade / forf. (forfatterens kursivering). Endelig, som kronen på værket, kommer bogen Demokrati i 1951, der indeholder 246 blanke sider, hvortil hører et bilag, hvis fulde ordlyd er følgende: og da/ de spurgte mig / hvad er/ demokrati/ /gav jeg/dem denne bog signeret med forfatterens navn i minuskler: k.j. almqvist. En tom bog er ikke bare en tom bog, men tomheden kan være en demonstration af ordet tomhed, en tabula rasa, en refleksionsgenstand, et kladdehæfte, et mulighedsfelt. Det sjette værk er Filosofi fra 1934, som Almqvist tænker (men vist nok ikke indleverer) som doktorafhandling, hvor de otte siders tekst med nonsensiske opstillinger af bogstaver, tal og to udråbstegn, f.eks. 90BXj / YmIZe / m!efm / 0t N Æ, er flankeret af et kort forord og et endnu kortere efterskrift, hvor Almqvist kritiserer filosofi for at være horisontsvag intetsigende for udviklingens tilbagegang. Her er ikke tale om tidlig konkret litteratur, men om et kunstnerisk koncept i bogform. Almqvists tomme bøger danner ikke nogen tradition, og tresseravantgardens kunstneres fokus på det tomme er i højere grad beslægtet med John Cage, Yves Klein, de amerikanske minimalister m.fl. I en anmeldelse af Per Kirkebys helt blå bog blå, tid (1968) i Information den 14. maj 1968 nævner forfatteren og litteraturkritikeren Hans-Jørgen Nielsen ( ), at værket Tomhed for længe siden blev skrevet af en nordmand. I et interview, jeg lavede med Per Kirkeby i 2007, nævnte han dog Vilhelm Bjerke Petersen: Mindernes Virksomhed (1935) 20x14,5 cm Hulda Lütken: Moderen og Sønnen (1933) 15,5x11x3,5 cm direkte adspurgt, at han læste Almqvist i 1960 erne, men at Almqvist ikke var noget forbillede. 31 Almqvist er temmelig ukendt, og hans dyrkelse af sig selv som geni og udgivelsen af bogen Adolf Hitler. Hymne til Menneskehedens sande Beskytter i 1942 har næppe bidraget til styrkelsen af hans position. (Almqvist blev tildelt misbilligelse af Dansk Forfatterforenings æresret efter krigen for dette hyldestdigt.) Almqvist er nok den mest ivrige praktiker i århundredets første halvdel, men ikke den eneste. Man kan pege på maleren Vilhelm Bjerke Petersens ( ) Mindernes Virksomhed (1935), der er en fragmenteret, surrealistisk fortælling om en ung mand: det kom til ham dels som virkelighed, dels som drømme. I tidens løb smæltede drøm og virkelighed sammen i en række billeder, hvortil der knytter sig enkelte løsrevne ord. En anden bog er forfatterinden Hulda Lütkens ( ) bogobjekt Moderen og Sønnen (1933), en såkaldt Mammutudgave udgivet i 20 eksemplarer af konkurrenceforlaget uden forfatterindens samtykke. Bogens to kapitler består af to små avisudklip, der er sat ind, og alle dele af bogtrykningsprocessen synes varetaget af sære instanser, f.eks. Sværvægtstrykkeriet. Kendetegnende for både Almqvist og Lütken er værkernes parodiske natur. Her er tale om kunstnerbøger avant la lettre. Hvad med andre kunstnere, der eksperimenterede radikalt med formen i samme periode? Et værk som Rudolf Broby-Johansens ( ) digtsamling Blod (1922) er al sproglig og visuel radikalitet til trods ikke et værk, der medtænker den overordnede materielle ramme, hvilket måske kunne have tvunget bogen ud af det litterære felt og gjort den til kunstnerbog. Heller ikke Broby-Johansens pamflet Kunst fra kan siges at være en kunstnerbog, på trods af pamflettens moderne typografi og en asymmetrisk opstilling af ord og billede (samt dens vertikale bladring lig en almanak eller kalender), der snarere fusionerer det illustrerede manifest og historiografien. 33 En anden avantgardekunstner fra perioden, forfatteren Emil Bønnelycke ( ), arbejder også kun på bog- 31 Interview med Kirkeby, august Rudolf Broby-Johansen: Kunst: En introduktion. De udenlandske Kunstværker fra S-t-u-r-m, København: DNSS, Tak til Torben Jelsbak for at have gjort mig opmærksom på dette værk. Jelsbak peger på ligheder mellem Broby-Johansens Kunst og Lajos Kassáks Buch neuer Künstler (1921) og El Lissitzky og Hans Arps Die Kunstismen (1925). Almqvist was perhaps the most active practitioner in the first half of the century, but not the only one. One can point to the painter Vilhelm Bjerke Petersen s ( ) Mindernes Virksomhed ( The Activities of the Memories, 1935), which is a fragmented, surreal tale about a young man: it came to him partly as reality, partly as a dream. Over the course of time, dream and reality melded together into a series of images to which individual snatches of words are linked. Another book is the author Hulda Lütken s ( ) book-object Moderen og Sønnen ( The Mother and the Son, 1933), a so-called Mammoth edition published in 20 copies by the Competition publisher without the consent of the author. The book s two chapters consist of two small newspaper clippings that have been inserted, and every aspect of the book printing process seems to involve odd characters such as the Sværvægtstrykkeriet ( Heavyweight printing house ). Characteristic of both Almqvist and Lütken is the parodic nature of their works. Here we have artists books avant la lettre. What of the other artists who experimented radically with the form in the same period? Despite all linguistic and visual radicalism, a work such as Rudolf Broby-Johansen s ( ) poetry collection Blod ( Blood, 1922) is not a work that incorporates the overall material framework that could perhaps have forced the book out of the literary field and turned it into an artist s book. Nor can Broby-Johansen s pamphlet Kunst ( Art ) 32 from 1924 be said to be an artist s book, despite the pamphlet s modern typography and an asymmetrical arrangement of words and images (and its vertical page layout, suggestive of the almanac or calendar); rather, it is a fusion of the illustrated manifesto and the historiography. 33 Another avant-garde artist from the period, the author Emil Bønnelycke ( ), also works solely with the book s pages, for example in the visual poem Berlin from 1918, but does not expand the experiment to apply to the entire book medium. One cannot, however, exclude the existence of some artists books, which, like some of the Russian avant-garde books, have been made as unique works and therefore have a less visible existence. Perhaps a more visible tradition of Danish artists books could wrest some works free from oblivion. 32 Rudolf Broby-Johansen: Kunst: En introduktion. De udenlandske Kunstværker fra S-t-u-r-m (Copenhagen: DNSS, 1924). 33 Thanks go to Torben Jelsbak for having brought this work to my attention. Jelsbak points out the similarities between Broby-Johansen s Kunst and Lajos Kassák s Buch neuer Künstler (1921) and El Lissitzky and Hans Arps Die Kunstismen (1925).

16 30 31 One might perhaps have thought that the artist group Linien II ( ), which counted among its members Ib Geertsen ( ), Bamse Kragh-Jacobsen ( ), Niels Macholm ( ), Albert Mertz and Richard Winther ( ), would have experimented with artists books. The group s intermedial approach did not, however, include experiments with the book medium or work with the art work in book form. For example, Richard Winther s den nøgenfrøede ( the bare-seeds ), published under the pseudonym Gro Vive from 1949, is regarded as an illustrated collection of poems. Neither are the Cobra books, 34 published in the Bibliothèque de Cobra (1950), 35 artists books, but simply reproductions of art works. Sven Dalsgaard s ( ) det blå rum ( the blue room, 1950), drawn and written by hand is, however, an artist s book, but nearly a decade was to pass before the genre really took hold in the country. The establishment of the field in the 1960s Richard Winther: Tableau-vivant (1980) 20x14 cm Sven Dalsgaard: Det blå rum (1950) 24,5x16,5 cm Some of the earliest works from the time during which the field was being established are also, from an international viewpoint, some of the most famous Danish works: namely, Asger Jorn s collaboration with the French Situationist Guy Debord ( ), which resulted in Fin de Copenhague (1957) and Mémoires (1959), where Debord s appropriated text fragments merged with Jorn s volatile drips of colour that parodied abstract-expressionist gestures and aesthetics. Two other works, where the Situationistic détournement ( turnabout of a prefabricated material) was also used, although without quite the same intensity, were Jorn s collaboration with his brother Jørgen Nash ( ) in the artist s book Stavrim, sonetter ( Alliteration, Sonnets, 1960), and the author Klaus Rifbjerg s (b. 1931) media scrapbook Boi-i-ing 64 (1964). One can also highlight the previously mentioned Lenin: Materialismus und Empiriokritizismus from 1961 (another glued-together book, Køpcke Treatment, appeared in the same year) by Arthur Köpcke, Sven Dalsgaard s hand-made books from 1959 (Mit barn ( My Child ), Uden titel ( Untitled ), Et hurra ( A Cheer ) and Solen i ansigtet ( The 34 Cf. Cobra Prints Cobra Books (New York: Franklin Furnace, 1986). 35 Bibliothèque de Cobra. Première série: Les artistes libres (Copenhagen: Edition Ejnar Munksgaard, 1950). Small booklets of sixteen pages, each with presentations of the respective artist s works, including Pierre Alechinsky, Else Alfelt, Karel Appel, Jean Atlan, Ejler Bille, Constant, Corneille, Jacques Doucet, Sonja Ferlov, Gilbert, Svavar Gudnason, Henry Heerup, Egill Jacobsen, Asger Jorn and Carl-Henning Pedersen. siden, f.eks. i det visuelle digt Berlin fra 1918, men udvider ikke eksperimentet til at gælde hele bogmediet. Man kan imidlertid ikke udelukke eksistensen af nogle kunstnerbøger, der, lig visse af den russiskes avantgardes bøger, er blevet lavet som unikaværker og derfor har haft en mere usynlig eksistens. Måske vil en mere synlig tradition af danske kunstnerbøger kunne vriste visse værker fri fra glemslen. Man kunne måske have troet, at kunstnergruppen Linien II ( ), der talte medlemmer som Ib Geertsen ( ), Bamse Kragh-Jacobsen ( ), Niels Macholm ( ), Albert Mertz og Richard Winther ( ), ville eksperimentere med kunstnerbøger. Gruppens tværæstetiske tilgang inkluderede imidlertid ikke eksperimenter med bogmediet eller arbejde med kunstværket i bogform. For eksempel er Richard Winthers den nøgenfrøede, udgivet under pseudonymet Gro Vive fra 1949, at regne for en illustreret digtsamling. Heller ikke Cobra-bøgerne, 34 der udkom i Bibliothèque de Cobra (1950) 35 er kunstnerbøger, men udelukkende reproduktioner af kunstværker. Sven Dalsgaards ( ) det blå rum (1950), tegnet og skrevet i hånden, er derimod en kunstnerbog, men der går et lille årti, førend bølgen for alvor tager land. Etableringen af feltet i 1960 erne Nogle af de tidligste værker fra tiden omkring etableringen af feltet er også internationalt set nogle af de mest kendte danske værker, nemlig Asger Jorns samarbejde med den franske situationist Guy Debord ( ), hvilket resulterede i Fin de Copenhague (1957) og Mémoires (1959), hvor Debords approprierede tekstfragmenter smelter sammen med Jorns hidsige farvedryp, der parodierede den abstrakt-ekspressionistiske gestik og æstetik. To andre værker, hvor også det situationistiske détournement ( fordrejning af et præfabrikeret materiale) anvendtes, om end uden nær samme heftighed, var Jorns sam- 34 Jf. Cobra Prints Cobra Books, New York: Franklin Furnace, Bibliothèque de Cobra. Première série: Les artistes libres. København: Edition Ejnar Munksgaard, Små hæfter på 16 sider hver med præsentationer af den respektive kunstners værker, inklusive Pierre Alechinsky, Else Alfelt, Karel Appel, Jean Atlan, Ejler Bille, Constant, Corneille, Jacques Doucet, Sonja Ferlov, Gilbert, Svavar Gudnason, Henry Heerup, Egill Jacobsen, Asger Jorn og Carl-Henning Pedersen. arbejde med sin bror Jørgen Nash ( ) i kunstnerbogen Stavrim, sonetter (1960), og forfatteren Klaus Rifbjergs (f. 1931) mediescrapbog Boi-i-ing 64 (1964). Man kan også fremhæve Arthur Köpckes tidligere nævnte Lenin: Materialismus und Empiriokritizismus fra 1961 (en anden sammenlimet bog, Køpcke Treatment, findes fra samme år), Sven Dalsgaards håndlavede bøger fra 1959 (Mit barn, Uden titel, Et hurra samt Solen i ansigtet) og Erik Hagens håndlavede bogfortolkninger af tekster af Ole Sarvig og Gustaf Munch-Petersen (Sommeren fra 1961 og Se! fra 1962). I en fotobog som Jesper Høms Say Cheese and Cry fra 1959, der af kunstneren selv betegnes som et photographic essay, iscenesættes en række sort-hvide fotografier i en sådan grad, at der også her kunne tales om en kunstnerbog. Allerede fra begyndelsen stikker kunstnerbogen i mange retninger erne var et vigtigt årti for kunstnerbøgerne, både på dansk og international grund. Mange af kunstnerbøgerne opstod inden for rammerne af tresseravantgardernes forskellige netværk. Væsentlige knudepunkter i disse netværk i Danmark var bl.a. Den Asger Jorn & Guy Debord: Fin de Copenhague (1957) 24x16 cm Klaus Rifbjerg: Boi-i-ing 64 (1964) 23x15,5 cm Eksperimenterende Kunstskole, fluxusgrupperingerne, det lille forlag Panel 13, eksperimentelle tidsskrifter som ta ( ) og assembling-tidsskriftet ta BOX ( ). De væsentligste kunstnerbøger produceredes i dette netværk, på små køkkenbordsforlag som Panel 13, men enkelte også på etablerede litterære forlag som f.eks. Borgen. Kunstnerbøgernes fremvækst i Danmark i denne periode skal ses som led i 1960 ernes anti-institutionelle do-it-yourselfattitude og demokratisering af kunsten, en tendens, der blev understøttet af en generel tilgængeliggørelse af trykkemaskiner (stencilduplikatorer, kopimaskiner, offsetmaskiner), hvilket muliggjorde en billig og hurtig produktion og diffusion af bøger. Et eksempel er Festival 200 på Charlottenborg i Festivalen, der blev arrangeret af kunsthistorikeren Troels Andersen, var en form for arbejdende værksted, et forsøg på at bryde grænserne mellem liv og kunst ned, herunder gennem en spredning af skriftligt materiale. Ud over bulletiner blev blandt andet Stig Brøgger og Mogens Møllers (f. 1934) kunstnerbog Midway trykt på festivalens mobile trykkeri, Folkets Presse. Sun in the Face )) and Erik Hagen s hand-made book interpretations of texts by Ole Sarvig and Gustaf Munch-Petersen (Sommeren ( The Summer ) from 1961 and Se! ( See! ) from 1962). In a photo book such as Jesper Høm s Say Cheese and Cry, from 1959, which is described by the artist himself as a photographic essay, a series of black-and-white photographs are presented in such a way that here too one could talk of an artist s book. Already, right from the outset, the artist s book struck out in many directions. The 1960s was an important decade for artists books, both in Denmark and internationally. Many of the artists books emerged within the framework of the 1960s avantgarde s different networks. Important hubs for these networks in Denmark were, among others, Den Eksperimenterende Kunstskole, the Fluxus grouping, the small publishers Panel 13, experimental magazines such as ta (1967-8) and the assembling magazine ta BOX ( ). The most significant artists books were produced in this network, at small kitchen-table publishers such as Panel 13, but some also emerged from established literary publishers such as, for example, Borgen. The emergence of the artist s book in Denmark during this period should be seen as part of the 1960s anti-institutional do-it-yourself attitude and democratisation of art, a trend that was supported by the general accessibility of printing machines (mimeographs, photocopiers, offset machines), permitting the cheap and quick production and distribution of books. One example is the Festival 200 at Charlottenborg in The festival, which was organised by the art historian Troels Andersen, was a kind of workshop in operation, an attempt to break down the boundaries between life and art. This included the dissemination of written material. In addition to bulletins, among other things, Stig Brøgger and Mogens Møller s (b. 1934) artist s book Midway was also printed at the festival s mobile print works, Folkets Presse (The People s Press). Artists books had no special status, however, in Denmark in the intermedial environment of the 1960s, where happenings, paintings, compositions, concrete poetry, sound poetry etc. were also a part of the daily agenda. 36 A few theoretical considerations were aired in the reviews of artists books. Because of the profession of the works creators, they were 36 For a detailed description of these activities see Tania Ørum s De eksperimenterende tressere. Kunst i en opbrudstid (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2009). For Hans-Jørgen Nielsen s articles and essays, see Tania Ørum, Morten Thing and Thomas Hvid Kromann (ed.): Nye sprog, nye verdener. Udvalgte artikler om kunst og kultur (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2006).

17 32 33 often reviewed somewhat confusedly and misleadingly in the context of the literary institution, in newspapers and magazines. Hans- Jørgen Nielsen, however, who in this period played an influential dual role as both critic and author i.e., he was simultaneously a part of the 1960s avant-garde inner circles as well as having an external role as critic for the broadsheet newspaper Information did have a fine eye for artist s book projects. The art librarian Jane Pedersen, who was in close contact with Den Eksperimenterende Kunstskole and Poul Gernes in particular, argued in an article that, among other things, Per Kirkeby s empty book blå, tid (1968) should be placed in a Danish and international tradition of empty books and empty works. 37 But it was the words book and object that were most used about works such as these, not artist s book or bookobject, which is unsurprising, given that the term artist s book first appeared in Stig Brøgger & Mogens Møller: Midway (1969) 30x21 cm Poul Pedersen: Linien er en tegning af tingenes fødsel (1972) 15x15,5 cm In the 1960s we find artists books loosely categorised as minimalist works, conceptual works and Fluxus books. Among the minimalist works are, for example, Henning Christiansen and Hans-Jørgen Nielsen s informations (1965), Hans-Jørgen Nielsen s vedr. visse foreteelser/en hvidbog ( concerning certain phenomena/a white book, 1967), Per Kirkeby s blue trilogy blå, 5 ( blue, 5, 1965), blå, tid ( blue, time, 1968) and blå, ornament ( blue, ornament, 1969) and Vagn Steen s (b. 1928) Skriv selv ( Write, 1965), where emptiness is practised in different ways: as binary language surface, as empty pamphlet with Zen-like text snippets hidden behind white paper strips, as monochrome books, as well as books intended as notepads for the reader. 38 As an example of a minimalist work we could also highlight Poul Pedersen s (b. 1933) examination of constructivist forms in Linien er en tegning af tingenes fødsel ( The Line is a Drawing of the Birth of Things, 1972). Minimalist is used here in a broad sense, not to mean directly derived from minimalist art (though certainly not without an affinity with it), but as a reduction, a depersonalisation, of the artistic expression. Among the conceptual works we find Arthur Köpcke s Byggeprojekt ( Building Project, 1968), which he published along with American George Brecht ( ) and the Dane Eric Andersen (b. 1943). The book was a documentation of three artistic projects: Köpcke s mirror experiments, Brecht s mobile love-rooms and Eric Andersen s peculiar pseudo-scientific project, where, from such things as electromagnets and transistors, one had to create a 37 Jane Pedersen: Det tomme, in Billedkunst, no. 3 (1968), pp For a detailed analysis of these empty works, see my thesis, pp Kunstnerbøgerne havde imidlertid ingen særstatus i Danmark i 1960 ernes tværæstetiske miljø, hvor også happenings, malerier, kompositioner, konkretpoesi, lydpoesi m.m. var en del af dagsordenen. 36 Nogle få teoretiske overvejelser blev luftet i anmeldelser af kunstnerbøger. På grund af ophavsmændenes profession blev de ofte anmeldt noget forvirret og misvisende inden for rammerne af den litterære institution, i dagblade og tidsskrifter. Hans- Jørgen Nielsen, der i perioden spillede en indflydelsesrig dobbeltrolle som både kritiker og forfatter, det vil sige på en gang en del af tresseravantgardens indercirkler og i en udadvendt kritikerrolle på dagbladet Information, havde dog et fint blik for kunstnerbøgernes projekter. Kunstbibliotekaren Jane Pedersen, der var i tæt kontakt med Den Eksperimenterende Kunstskole og særligt Poul Gernes, argumenterede i en artikel for, at blandt andet Per Kirkebys tomme bog blå, tid (1968) skulle placeres i en dansk og international tradition for tomme bøger og tomme værker. 37 Men det var ordene bog og objekt, der anvendtes om værker som disse, ikke kunstnerbog eller bogobjekt, hvilket ikke kan undre, eftersom betegnelsen artist s book som nævnt først dukker op i I 1960 erne finder man kunstnerbøger, der løseligt kan kategoriseres som minimalistiske værker, konceptuelle værker og fluxusbøger. Blandt de minimalistiske værker finder man f.eks. Henning Christiansens og Hans-Jørgen Nielsens informations (1965), Hans-Jørgen Nielsens vedr. visse foreteelser/en hvidbog (1967), Per Kirkebys blå trilogi blå, 5 (1965), blå, tid (1968) og blå, ornament (1969) samt Vagn Steens (f. 1928) Skriv selv (1965), hvor tomheden praktiseres på forskellig vis: som binær sprogflade, som tom pamflet med zen-agtige tekststumper skjult bag hvide papirstrimler, som monokrome bøger, samt som bøger, der var tænkt som notesblokke til læseren. 38 Som eksempel på et minimalistisk værk kunne man også fremdrage Poul Pedersens (f. 1933) leg med konstruktivistiske former i Linien er en tegning af tingenes fødsel (1972). Minimalistisk skal her forstås i en bredere betydning, ikke som direkte afledt af den minimalistiske billedkunst (om end bestemt ikke uden affinitet til denne), men som en reduktion, en afpersonalisering, af det kunstneriske udtryk. 36 For en udførlig beskrivelse af disse aktiviteter, se Tania Ørums De eksperimenterende tressere. Kunst i en opbrudstid, København: Gyldendal, For Hans-Jørgen Nielsens artikler og essays, se Tania Ørum, Morten Thing og Thomas Hvid Kromann (red.): Nye sprog, nye verdener. Udvalgte artikler om kunst og kultur, København: Gyldendal, Jane Pedersen: Det tomme i: Billedkunst nr. 3, 1968, pp For udførlige analyser af disse tomme værker, se min afhandling pp Blandt de konceptuelle værker finder man Arthur Köpckes Byggeprojekt (1968), som han udgav sammen med amerikanske George Brecht ( ) og danske Eric Andersen (f. 1943). Bogen var en dokumentation af tre kunstneriske projekter: Köpckes spejleksperimenter, Brechts mobile elskovsrum og Eric Andersens sære pseudovidenskabelige projekt, hvor man med udgangspunkt i blandt andet elektromagneter og transistorer skulle skabe en konstruktion, der kan antage enhver form og få en hvilken som helst udstrækning og være reflekterende eller absorberende over lys og lyd, der ville dække København. Projekterne i bogen (trykt på dansk og engelsk) ville sammenlagt koste de seks milliarder og 59 millioner kroner (i 1968-valuta), som en bankkonto med 100 kroner ville generere i løbet af 284 år og 201 dage. En anden konceptuelt arbejdende kunstner var Sven Dalsgaaard, der efter sine kunstnerbøger i slutningen af 1950 erne udgiver Ord (1970), Portræt (1972) og Itinerary (1972) og begynder på den række af såkaldte SituaSDtioner, der for alvor kommer til udfoldelse efter Navnet, med Dalsgaards initialer i midten, peger blandt andet på kunstnerbogens mulighed for at dokumentere kunstneriske situationer (happenings, forløb af forskellig, også umiddelbart ikke-kunstnerisk, karakter). Blandt fluxusværker kan medregnes Arthur Köpckes Continue (1975), et værk, hvis titel fint indfanger fluxusbevægelsens forestilling om værket som processuelt og den implicitte opfordring til betragteren Arthur Köpcke, George Brecht & Eric Andersen: Byggeprojekt (1968) 21x21 cm om at deltage og gerne nedbryde grænsen mellem kunst og liv. 39 Men der er et væld af tilgange i anden halvdel af 1960 erne og første halvdel af 1970 erne. For eksempel Bjørn Nørgaards (f. 1947) anti-institutionelle kritik af især det danske kongehus i den manipulerede offsetbog I anledning af Det Kgl. Kunstakade- 39 Fra Köpckes hånd finder man også Treatment (1961), What s the Time. Køpcke Piece np. 63 (1963), Køpcke Copenhagen Denmark (1961), Composition of Reading Pieces (54 Reading/Work-Pieces) (1965), No. 68. Series of the Reading/Work-Pieces (ca. 1965), Realize This np. 127 (1965), 4 Pieces by Arthur Köpcke (1968), Continue (1972) og Piece 39 (1950) (1974). Bjørn Nørgaard: I anledning af Det Kgl. Kunstakademis konkurrence om Den lille Guldmedalje 1969 (1969) 31x22 cm Vagn Steen: Et godt bogøje/a Hole Book (1969) 14,8x9 cm construction which can take any shape and have any extent and be reflective or absorbing of the light and sound that would cover Copenhagen. The projects in the book (published in Danish and English) would cost a total of 6 billion and 59 million Danish Kroner (in 1968 currency), which a bank account with 100 Danish Kroner would generate over 284 years and 201 days. Another artist working conceptually was Sven Dalsgaard, who, after his artists books in the late 1950s published Ord ( Words, 1970), Portræt ( Portrait, 1972) and Itinerary (1972), began the series of so-called SituaSDtioner that really came to fruition after The name, with Dalsgaard s initials in the middle, points, among other things, to the potential of the artist s book to document artistic situations (happenings, sequences of differing natures including non-artistic ones). Among the Fluxus works we can include Arthur Köpcke s Continue (1975), a work whose title captures well the Fluxus movement s conception of the work as process and the implicit invitation to the viewer to participate and help break down the boundaries between art and life. 39 But there were a multitude of approaches in the second half of the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s. For example, Bjørn Nørgaard s (b. 1947) anti-institutional critique of, in particular, the Danish royal family in the manipulated offset book I anledning af Det Kgl. Kunstakademis konkurrence om Den lille Guldmedalje 1969 ( On the Occasion of the Royal Academy s Competition for the Small Gold Medal 1969 ), Or Per Kirkeby s novel trilogy, composed mainly of appropriated photographic material ( ). Or Stig Brøgger s pop art-inspired Veruschka Thinks (1968), where the German model Veruschka von Lehndorff s beautiful likeness is printed in offset and on paper of differing colours, whereby the repetitive and coloured structure transforms her into a piece of iconic pop art. Or Vagn Steen s Et godt bogøje/a Hole Book (1969), where the 39 By Köpcke we also have Treatment (1961), What s the Time. Køpcke Piece np. 63 (1963), Køpcke Copenhagen Denmark (1961), Composition of Reading Pieces (54 Reading/Work-Pieces) (1965), No. 68. Series of the Reading/Work-Pieces (c. 1965), Realize This np. 127 (1965), 4 Pieces by Arthur Köpcke (1968), Continue (1972) and Piece 39 (1950) (1974).

18 34 35 book, with a punched hole in the centre, suggests a phenomenological play on the reading environment. Or Knud Holten and Morten Bo s poetic narrative in Findes der en ridder i orange? ( Is There a Knight in Orange?, 1968). Or Henrik Have s loose-leaf works, for example, Pferde ( Horses, 1972), where disparate content is linked together by a white fabric glove. Or John Davidsen s ( ) Official Coloring Book, with Davidsen himself as an iconographic figure to be coloured-in (published 1974, but made in 1966), which formed part of a larger performative project with Davidson at the centre. Other artists books were made as unique works and have thus evaded (art) public awareness. Two figures, in particular, worked intensively with artists books as oneoffs alongside their other artistic activities: namely, Stig Brøgger and Albert Mertz, whose works (mostly from the 1960s and 1970s) can be found today at, respectively, Henie-Onstad Kunstsenter in Oslo, Norway, and in private ownership with Albert Mertz s widow. The 1970s and 1980s Knud Holten & Morten Bo: Findes der en ridder i orange? (1968) 19,5x29 cm John Davidsen: Official Coloring Book (1966/1974) 29,7x21 cm Sven Dalsgaard: Between 8-9 (1979) 15,5x10,5 cm Most of those who published artists books in the 1960s abandoned the book medium again (or at least artists books) when the energy of the intermedial 1960s petered out around Artists such as Stig Brøgger, Bjørn Nørgaard, Arthur Köpcke etc. stopped this part of their artistic practice. But some continued, including Sven Dalsgaard, who published numerous artists books, including Time 8,4 8,17 22/ (1975), 601 Millimeter Blue (1979) and Between 8-9 (1979). These works were examples of a practice where, to a greater extent, it was the concept or ideas in the work that were the controlling elements, and not the traditional aesthetic or material elements. The artist s book Between 8-9 documents, as it was called, an international communication event, where the artist, on 2 February, 1977 between 8 and 9 p.m., could be located in the culture house, Huset, in Copenhagen. The artist sits with his back to the viewer/photographer, facing a clock on a wall. The black-andwhite photographs document the passage of time, which is seen concretely via the movement of the clock s hands and the small mis konkurrence om Den lille Guldmedalje 1969 (1969). Eller Per Kirkebys roman -trilogi, der overvejende består af approprieret fotografisk materiale ( ). Eller Stig Brøggers pop art-inspirerede Veruschka Thinks (1968), hvor den tyske model Veruschka von Lehndorffs smukke kontrafej er trykt i offset og på papir i forskellige farver, hvorved den repetitive og kulørte struktur forvandler hende til et stykke ikonisk popkunst. Eller Vagn Steens Et godt bogøje (1969), hvor bogen med det udstansede hul i midten lægger op til en fænomenologisk leg med læsningens omgivelser. Eller Knud Holten og Morten Bos poetiske narrativ i Findes der en ridder i orange? (1968). Eller Henrik Haves løsarksværker, f.eks. Pferde (1972), hvis disparate indhold er bundet sammen af en hvid stofhandske. Eller John Davidsens ( ) malebog Official Coloring Book med Davidsen selv som ikonografisk figur, der skulle farvelægges (udgivet 1974, men lavet i 1966), som indgik i et større performativt projekt med Davidsen i centrum. Andre kunstnerbøger igen blev lavet som unikaværker og har derfor unddraget sig (kunst)offentlighedens opmærksomhed. Især to navne arbejdede sideløbende med deres øvrige kunstneriske aktiviteter intensivt med kunstnerbøger som unika, nemlig Stig Brøgger og Albert Mertz, hvis værker (hvoraf størstedelen stammer fra 1960 erne og 1970 erne) i dag befinder sig på henholdsvis Henie- Onstad Kunstsenter i Oslo i Norge samt i privateje hos Albert Mertz enke erne og 1980 erne De fleste, der udgav kunstnerbøger i 1960 erne, forlod bogmediet (eller i hvert fald kunstnerbøgerne) igen, da energien fra de tværæstetiske tressere ebbede ud omkring Kunstnere som Stig Brøgger, Bjørn Nørgaard, Arthur Köpcke m.fl. stoppede denne del af deres kunstneriske praksis. Men nogle fortsatte, bl.a. Sven Dalsgaard, der udgav en lang række kunstnerbøger, herunder Time 8,4 8,17 22/ (1975), 601 Millimeter

19 36 37 Bjørn Nørgaard I anledning af Det Kgl. Kunstakademi s konkurrence om Den lille Guldmedalje 1969 On the Occasion of the Royal Academy s Competition for the Small Gold Medal 1969 (1969) Dansk Tidsskrifts Tryk 30,8x22,3 cm, 52 sider/pages

20 38 39 Blue (1979) og Between 8-9 (1979). Disse værker var eksempler på en praksis, hvor det i højere grad var konceptet eller idéerne i værket, der var styrende, og ikke det traditionelt æstetiske eller materielle. Kunstnerbogen Between 8-9 dokumenterer, som det hedder, en international kommunikationsbegivenhed, hvor kunstneren den 2. februar 1977 fra klokken befinder sig i kulturhuset Huset i København. Kunstneren sidder med ryggen til beskueren/fotografen med front mod et ur på en væg. De sort-hvide fotografier dokumenterer tidens gang, der konkret ses ved visernes bevægelse på uret og de små papirlapper, som kunstneren løbende smider på gulvet. Bogen er en af de såkaldte SituaSDtioner, hvor han dokumenterer et interval, der inkluderer en eller flere handlinger, der ikke nødvendigvis har kunstnerisk karakter, men gennem rammesætningen får det. For de fleste af Dalsgaards kunstnerbøger gælder det, at en rest af malerbogen det begrænsede oplag, nummereringen og signeringen blev bibeholdt. Henrik Have udgav fire kunstnerbøger i anden halvdel af 1970 erne, men han bevægede sig væk fra bogobjektet, bortset fra TWICE (Bookobject) fra 1977, til fordel for konceptuelle værker af mere sprogligt orienteret karakter i An Open Text about Logic as Symbol (1977), Hands Difference (1978) samt det kollektive værk Reception (1977), for siden hen at koncentrere sig særskilt om maleriet og lyrikken. Flere væsentlige forlag, der udgiver kunstnerbøger, blev grundlagt i perioden: After Hand (1973-, Henrik Have), Atmosphere Controlled (1975-, Mogens Otto Nielsen), og Lomholt Formular Press ( , Niels Lomholt). Forlagene Atmosphere Controlled og Lomholt Formular Press opererede inden for rammerne af det internationale netværk af mail artkunstnere, som Mogens Otto Nielsen og Niels Lomholt (f. 1943) var i kontakt med. 40 Mogens Otto Nielsen skabte endvidere en række kunstnerbøger og bogobjekter 41 i perioden og helt frem til slutningen af 1990 erne. After Hands bidrag var, ud over Haves egne værker, især at udgive de såkaldte Edition After Hand-mapper, der kom i perioden med materiale af bl.a. Mogens Otto Nielsen, Anne Behrndt (f. 1942), Sven Dalsgaard, William Louis Sørensen ( ) og den amerikanske fluxuskunstner Alison Knowles. På Lomholt Formular Press udkom en række værker, der måske nok kunne betegnes som en art kollektive kunstnerbøger og bærbare udstillinger, men samtidig var resultater af typiske træk ved mail art: den inklusive karakter (alle interesserede kunne være med, alt var kunst), aversionen mod feticheringen af kunstobjektet og kapitaliseringen af dette (efemere former og gaveøkonomi/potlatch). Kunstnerbøgerne var ophobninger af udvekslinger, ofte fremkommet ved, at en formular blev sendt ud til en række internationale deltagere og returneret igen med en kunstnerisk intervention. Det bureaukratiske hjælpemiddel formularen blev fordrejet, og resultatet i denne anti-kuraterede praksis var uforudsigeligt. Langtfra alle projekter, der udgik fra Lomholt Formular Press, endte som egentlige bøger, nogle gjorde, bl.a. Two-Circle Formular (1976), Exchangeable Photo (1977), Mr. Klein. The Yellow Book (1977) og Kunst og kunstnere (1979), andre var blot bunker. 40 Se bl.a. Niels Lomholt: Lomholt Mail Art Archive, Fotowerke and Video Work, Søby: Lomholt Formular Press, Jf. Bog Objekt (1998). scraps of paper that the artist continually throws on the floor. The book is one of the so-called SituaSDtioner, in which he documents an interval that includes one or more actions that do not necessarily have an artistic nature, but obtain one via the framing. For most of Dalsgaard s artists books residual aspects of the livre de peintre are retained the limited edition, the numbering and the signing. Henrik Have released four artists books in the second half of the 1970s, but he moved away from the book-object, with the exception of TWICE (Bookobject) from 1977, in favour of conceptual works of a more linguistically oriented nature in An Open Text about Logic as Symbol (1977), Hands Difference (1978) as well as the collective work Reception (1977), in order to concentrate separately on painting and poetry. Several important publishers of artists books were founded in the period: After Hand (1973-, Henrik Have), Atmosphere Controlled (1975-, Mogens Otto Nielsen) and Lomholt Formular Press ( , Niels Lomholt). The publishers Atmosphere Controlled and Lomholt Formular Press operated within the framework of the international network of mail art artists, with whom Mogens Otto Nielsen and Niels Lomholt (b. 1943) were in contact. 40 Mogens Otto Nielsen also created a number of artists books and book-objects 41 during the period and right up until the late 1990s. After Hand s particular contributions were, in addition to Have s own works, to publish the so-called Edition After Hand folders that appeared in the period , with material by Mogens Otto Nielsen, Anne Behrndt (b. 1942), Sven Dalsgaard, William Louis Sørensen ( ) and the American Fluxus artist Alison Knowles, among others. Lomholt Formular Press published a number of works that could perhaps be described as a form of collective artist s book and portable exhibition, but at the same time were a result of the typical features of mail art: the inclusive nature (anyone interested could join in, everything was art), the aversion to the fetishisation of the art object and its capitalisation (ephemeral forms and gift economy/potlatch). The artists books were accumulations of exchanges, often as a result of a form sent out to a number of international participants and returned with an artistic intervention. The bureaucratic aid, the form, was distorted and the result of this anti-curated practice was unpredictable. Far from all the projects that emerged from Lomholt Formular Press ended up as actual books. Some did for example, Two-Circle Formular (1976), Exchangeable Photo (1977), Mr. Klein. The Yellow Book (1977) and Kunst og kunstnere ( Art and artists, 1979) but others were simply stacks. Among the artists in the 1970s who began to work with the artist s book, one of the most diligent was Jens Birkemose (b. 1943), whose artists books consisted of sketches, collages and appropriated photographic material of an often highly erotic-pornographic nature. Birkemose published his first artist s book in 1970, the self-published Correspondances, and subsequently published a number of works in the 1970s, including Vilde dyr & frugter ( Wild Animals & Fruits, 1977). He also published artists books in the following decades, including Korrespondance together with Christian Vind (b. 1969) in 2008, although the most interesting works appeared in the 1970s. The sketchy, coloured and often handwritten 40 See, among others, Niels Lomholt: Lomholt Mail Art Archive, Fotowerke and Video Work (Søby: Lomholt Formular Press, 2010). 41 Cf. Bog Objekt (1998).