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The Unusual and Sometimes Bizarre Book
Binding - November 2007
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[Top] Vector Rev [Bottom] Fresh Cream
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The Universe (front)
Click on an image for a larger view.
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Within the collection of the Ingalls Library there are thousands of books
bound in the traditional manner, used for hundreds of years, with a text
block sewn or glued together and attached to a soft or hard cover. New
technologies in the 20th century have produced books bound in thoroughly
untraditional ways.
The evolution of the artist's book (the artist's creation in the form
of a book) has been very influential on book binding in its quest to follow
the notion that the book can be manipulated into whatever the creative
process dictates. Over the last few decades this trend has been picked
up increasingly by publishers and has become especially popular in fine
arts publishing. The examples shown are a combination of artists' books,
exhibition catalogs, museum catalogs and fine arts publications.
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The materials used throughout the centuries to cover a
binding included leather, wood, paper, parchment, textiles, metals, ivory,
tortoiseshell, Perspex and cloth, with leather, parchment, paper and cloth
used most often. Some decorative techniques included use of precious metals,
enameling, embroidery or impressing leather. Current bindings use many
of the same materials combined in different manners while others introduce
new and exotic materials such as feathers.
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Urge, by artist Fons Schobbers, is bound in faux tiger
fur with a bronze sculpture piece inscribed with the artist's name and
attached to the spine.
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Instead of bound separately or housed in a box, the multi-volume
set Murmur, published by the Fruit Market Gallery, is attached
by magnets placed in the spines. The volumes can be rearranged to view
the artist's work in any order.
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Zena Zipporah's The Universe (back) is covered
in found objects like shells, bones and feathers.
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Javier Perez's Estancias is covered in rubber.
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Cenotaph by Christine Kermaire is covered in cloth with
a metal vent coming out of the front cover.
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| Additional changes which work to reveal innovative
ways to express the author's and/or artist's individualism include the use
of shape, the content of the book reflected on the exterior and/or the absence
of an exterior binding altogether. |
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Il libromacchina (imbullonato) di Fortuanato Depero Futurista is
a book containing the works of the Futurist artist, Fortunato Depero. The
book has no spine at all and is held together by two metal bolts. The bolts
represent the philosophy of the movement's association with machinery. |
The catalog for the exhibition The Machine, as seen at the end of the
mechanical age is represented by a metal cover attached to the text
block with rivets. |
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| Schoerner's The Order of Things illustrates the photographer's
work in a circular fashion, with the images flowing one into another to
create a narrative. |
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| Vector Rev by Kevin Osborn contains movable
loose sheets bound by two elongated pieces of aluminum, referred to as "a
compressed spiral loading radii off a central point", further expressed
by its title. |
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The exhibition catalog for Gaetano Pesce is bound in the free-form shape of vinyl incorporating
a question mark reflecting the subtitle, Les temps des questions.
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This example displays a two-volume set with the smaller-sized book (titled
Actions) fitted into a larger-sized book (titled Emotions),
expressing the photographer, Lou Reed's, philosophy of living life, as "emotion
in action." |
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The Consistency of Shadows: exhibition catalogs as autonomous works of
art holds the CD-ROM in a slot which is placed through folded sheets
as opposed to the typical location in a back pocket. This creates a 3-D
effect. The unusual design demonstrates the subject of the exhibition--the
co-existence and visual art production of artists' books and exhibition
catalogs. |
Spoon's waved metal cover represents the title, which highlights
contemporary industrial designers. |
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| Marcel Duchamp is a wooden box, described
as Duchamp's "mental" chessboard and used to depict his life-long
love of the game and as subject matter for some of his important art pieces.
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| My Face for the World to See is in a diary
format and includes actual diary entries from the artist Candy Darling.
Arstist Christine Kermaire has affixed toy soldiers to the front cover to
represent the title, In memory of the unknown soldier. Mariko
Mori: wave ufo is a bound volume placed in a plastic case with three
concave grooves in the shape of an alien face to represent the subtitle. |
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| Sous les ponts, le long de la riviere...
can be used as an actual "handbag" for easy access to the exhibition
materials (map, guide, catalogs) inside while moving about town to see the
site-specific installations. |
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This publication from Kunsthaus Zurich holds loose-leaf items highlighting
museum reproductions contained in a metal box. |
| All of the illustrated items are available for your use in the Ingalls Library.
Please see a member of our reference staff if you are interested in looking at any of these unique and fascinating
bindings firsthand. |
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