I feed and feed on the little samples they give you of all these artists' books.
But this book is evil. Because it makes you want to acquire so many of the books contained in these pages. And that's not going to happen. It's such a tease. It's art pornography in that regard.
Because so many of these books are unfindable, and the ones that happen to be findable are generally the sorts of things that go for many thousands of dollars. (I'm sure you can imagine how few copies were produced in virtually all cases.) Good luck at Sotheby's or Christie's.
A few classics have been reissued by art presses and they are affordable. But it's a very small minority of the works featured here.
Artists' books have always been like this, rare unicorns. It's part of their charm, right? Generally, you have to visit them in their museum vitrines.
Sometimes you get lucky and find someone or some cultural institution has made available/put online one of the artists' books in this resource which you want to find. I think MOMA is sometimes kind, a serendipitous stop-off, in this regard. But often I find the title I'm searching for is indeed indexed at MOMA but "not available." Often, there is just an informative gloss and cover photo. Maybe there is an extra jpeg if you're lucky.
It's surprising to find so many artists whose bodies of work I don't exactly love have produced some wonderful books that I actually do love.
And numerous books cataloged here include some stellar poetry.
I'm seduced by Dubuffet's La Lunette Farcie.
And I see it could have been mine for a mere 7,500 bivalves.
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