INTRODUCING THE RESEARCH QUESTION

From the late 1960s onwards, books have been exploited as a substantial part of artistic practices. The artist’s book became a new form of expression that uses the book as a canvas for an artistic work.¹ The artist’s book is a work of art in itself especially conceived for the book format and often published by the artist him- or herself.² The content could be anything that the artist wants to express to his or her readers; there could be texts, sketches, photographs, and these could be related to one another or perceived as separate items. The artist’s book is like a portable exhibition, but differs in that there are no external curatorial opinions reflected. The book permits the artist to express purely personal reflections and avoid misrepresentation by critics or other intermediaries.³

      It was Ed Ruscha’s Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1963), followed by his Various Small Fires (1964) and Some Los Angeles Apartments (1965), that dominated the conception of artists’ books in the late 1960s. Ruscha’s books were a landmark starting point and an enormous validation of the book as a legitimate medium for visual art. His work and that of others, like Sol LeWitt, Marcel Broodthaers, Lawrence Weiner, Dieter Roth, set the tone of what would become a new genre in visual art: conceptualism.⁴ The art world took considerable notice of artists’ books in the late 1960s, when Seth Siegelaub started to create independent exhibitions in book form that had a broad scope. His catalogues – similarly to a group show – offered a number of pages to each artist instead of a wall or a number of square meters.

From a graphic design point of view, the artist’s book is a weird apparatus. The book, usually designed and typeset by the artist him- or herself, suddenly serves as a canvas for infinite artistic expression. I find myself in a field of expertise – designing books that disseminate artistic thoughts and ideas – that seems to be that of the graphic designer, but isn’t solely anymore. The canvas of the book is used for artistic expression, but the interference of the graphic designer doesn’t seem necessary today to accomplish an artist’s book. Besides different personal approaches to structuring a book, artists and graphic designers are profoundly distinct in their working methodologies. Graphic designers merely collaborate with clients and respond to a set of rules when working on a commission, while artists create from their inner selves, not necessarily taking into account the commercial or marketing interests of others. But even if an artist’s work is free from the influence of a client, it is still strongly tied to museums and galleries that are interested in exhibiting and selling. In the 1960s and 70s, this institutional attachment was felt as a lack of freedom, which pushed artists to explore other mediums in which to communicate their work. Books offered artists the possibility to operate outside the paved institutional roads of galleries and museums and produce work without the intervention of intermediaries.⁵ Conversely, Ulises Carrión – artist, author of The New Art of Making Books, and owner of Other Books, which he ran in Amsterdam from 1975 to 1979 – is unconvinced by the claim for independence through artists’ books. In his text ‘Bookworks Revisited’ he states:

If we consider the objectual production of works of art in book form, one copy of the book is not the book. The book is the whole edition; that’s why it’s nonsense to say that producing or having a book (as artwork) is cheaper than, say, a painting. … The same misunderstanding is the basis for another reason for optimism – that books would allow artists to liberate themselves from galleries and art critics. I would like to ask, what for? To fall into the hands of publishers and book critics! Let’s imagine a world without artworks, a utopian society where books are the only known possibility for a creator to embody his mental and emotional world. Now imagine that the creators of this world discover the field of the visual arts. We can imagine their enthusiasm as they think: no more literary critics, no more intermediaries between our works and the audience, no more prestigious publishing houses, no more translations, no more best-seller lists, no more handwritten originals, etc.⁶

Carrión’s opinion is rather isolated compared with those who welcome books as a tool for artistic autonomy and independence and is based on a somehow implausible hypothesis; however, he was right when he noticed the growing interference of publishers and critics in the artist’s book market.

Writing on this pull for freedom by the book as an apparatus, Arnaud Desjardin, initiator of The Everyday Press, notes:

There is now an outside to the book. Up until probably the 1960s there wasn’t an outside of the book. The book was this dominant monopolistic form for dissemination of culture and ideas. There wasn’t an outside of printed matter. Every idea that was produced would have to circulate in printed form if it wanted to circulate. … The book in a way now lost its monopoly. I think it’s the loss of that monopoly in the 1960s that created a huge amount of anxiety, because the hierarchy that was ingrained in that monopoly was also threatened and put in danger. To fetishize the thing of the book goes hand in hand with those forms of anxiety, which are vested in that monopoly.⁷

Artists in the 1960s, according to Desjardin, perhaps created anxiety among book publishers and designers by dispensing with the different tasks and opportunities in book production. This anxiety or loss of monopoly for publishers and book editors later on in the 1990s was generously fed by the rise of the Internet. These reflections make me – as a graphic designer – reflect on my position on and possible contribution to the production of artists’ books today. I fully support and applaud the existence of artists’ books, and although my practice centres on the production of printed matter, I’m not over-nostalgic when it comes to the survival of the book in general.

Books produced as art practice, containing writings and reflections, simply produced in small editions and sold for a few dollars (Twentysix Gasoline Stations by Ed Ruscha was sold for $3.50 in 1963⁸) over the years have become, in some cases, scarce objects for the elite.⁹ Ruscha, who neither signed his books nor put his name on the cover,¹⁰ formulated his intentions as follows: ‘I’m not trying to create a precious limited edition book but a mass-produced product of high order.’¹¹ The early wave of spontaneous and radical books in the 1960s and 1970s were turned into precious collectors items after art collectors and the art market became aware of them. Jérôme Dupeyrat argues: ‘Although almost always animated by the desire to make art more accessible by using the medium of the book as the means of creation in its own right, many of these publications actually had very small circulations and have now become very rare or even impossible to find because of speculative prices that contradict the original intentions.’¹² This phenomena of scarcity, generated by galleries and art dealers, clearly puts artists’ books in huge contradiction with their initial raison d’être: an independent, accessible, and inexpensive medium for autonomous artistic expression.

At the centre of the debate over the scarcity of historical titles is the increasing production of reprints and re-enactments. Since the early twenty-first century, supported by the rejuvenation of self-publishing, artist’s book fairs have increased and print-on-demand techniques have evolved in favour of artists. Relying on the possibilities of the Internet, it stimulated the overall production of artists’ books and interest in possibilities for re-enactment in particular. If artists books were originally available to everyone at low prices, Jérôme Dupeyrat wonders, ‘why are artists’ books from the 1960s and 1970s, which are almost inaccessible due to the exhaustion of the print-run and because they reach exorbitant prices when still available on the second-hand market, not re-edited? When a novel or essay is exhausted, it is customary to make them available again when there is a demand.’¹³ It is a legitimate question from a historical point of view. Michael Bracewell has something to add to Dupeyrat’s statement: when it comes to a revision or re-enactment, ‘a book or text is both being made newly available and, equally importantly, being entered into what might be described as a process of print re-enactment: a renewed engagement with the history of a work, in which the processes of publishing as much as the text itself – its authorship, context and editorial ancestry – become both media for new art-making and venues for cultural historical inquiry.’¹⁴

The term ‘re-enactment’ is primarily used to describe a historically correct recreation of a socially relevant event¹⁵ and relates most of all to performing and stage arts. As Robert Blackson, quoting Sven Lütticken, states about re-enactment, it ‘may lead to artistic acts that … create a space – a stage – for possible and as yet unthinkable performances.’ A re-enactment is very much a tool for appropriating historical content that ‘is distinctive in that it invites transformation through memory, theory and history, to generate unique and resonating results.’¹⁶ This statement by Blackson, alongside that of Lütticken, emphasises the possibility or urge for a re-enactment to end differently from the original source and have multiple possible outcomes. Re-enactments don’t necessarily follow the exact historical event. A war could end differently than it did historically. As Sven Luticken notes, ‘since the outcome of the original battle was not clear in advance either, an authentic war re-enactment must contain the elements of surprise and chance, and have an open outcome.’¹⁷

      Numerous contemporary exhibitions show that ‘re-enactment’ is not isolated to the performing arts but is a concept embraced by conceptual artists from all backgrounds.¹⁸ When applied to the realm of artists’ books, a re-enacted iconic artist’s book results in numerous reprints displaying artistic interpretations more or less loyal to the original source.¹⁹ A certain degree of acting is involved when re-enacting historical content – in any form of art whatsoever – that obliges an artist to take a position and deal with the legacy of the source in a responsible manner. Robert Blackson adds, ‘drawing personal motivation from either your past or historical references is the conventional element necessary to construct a re-enactment.’²⁰ On the other hand, the framework in which to re-enact is highly determined by the source material. Personal entanglement is therefore always limited, or has at least a strong reference point. Sven Lütticken concludes about this degree of artistic interference, ‘It is unlikely that an artistic re-enactment will prove to be “an event that unleashes a tremendous emancipatory potential”, but what contemporary art can do is investigate the modalities of re-enactment and the possibilities and problems inherent in them.’²¹

First and foremost, re-enacted artists’ books make historical titles newly accessible for a present generation – usually for a reasonable price – and offer the possibility of actually flipping through these books again, instead of treating them with gloves or being kept at a distance by a display case. Two types of re-enactment are distinguishable and key to this research. Re-enactments either aim to produce an exact copy or reproduction, as true to the original source as possible, of an old book, manuscript, map, art print, or other item of historical value, the so-called facsimile,²² or to take an iconic artist’s book as the starting point or point of departure for diversification.²³ This type of re-enactment – which in this research is referred to as a ‘bootleg’ – is the appropriation of the original content by the artist for further interpretation. The term ‘facsimile’ seems more related to the arts because the source to be reproduced is usually an object of printed matter, like a book, manuscript, or print, while the term ‘bootleg’ is mainly used in reference to the music scene or alcohol. Descriptions of ‘bootleg’ include ‘to make, transport and/or sell an illegal version or copy of a copyright product’²⁴ and ‘(of alcoholic drink or a recording) made, distributed, or sold illegally.’²⁵ Most definitions of ‘bootleg’ refer to copied objects and products that infringe copyright, and not to the specific artistic practice of ‘bootlegging’, to which later on in this article artists Eric Doeringer and Michalis Pichler strongly refer when describing their artistic practice. A definition deriving from the art scene and describing the eponymous exhibition ‘Bootleg’ at Evilson Gallery in Cape Town (South-Africa) in 2012 notes: ‘Bootleg is about acts of citation and appropriation in contemporary art practice, as well as the decentralising of production in the global economy.’²⁶ In Various Small Books: Referencing Various Small Books by Ed Ruscha, Marc Rawlinson describes numerous different forms of re-enactments of Ed Ruscha’s books as ‘straight homage or self-conscious borrowing of Ruscha-as-artistic-material’,²⁷ which is a respectful description of bootlegs regarding Ed Ruscha’s body of work. Bootlegging does require a strong – almost militant – act of appropriation. A bootleg differs from a facsimile in the way that it adds a certain amount of complexity to the original, and thereby, in creating a new proposition, argues that it can avoid infringing the original’s copyright. While the publishers discussed above obtained legal permission to republish artists’ books from the 1960s and 1970s, or at least mention the rightful copyright owners,²⁸ Eric Doeringer’s and Michalis Pichler’s books do not state anything about obtaining copyright permission. Doeringer and Pichler do mention copyrights in their books, but these cover their own artistic property. A copyright line referring to the artist or publisher of the original book is missing. The only reference to the source of Michalis Pichler’s bootleg is a mention of the original book in the bibliography.

      The frontier between a facsimile and a bootleg is a highly subjective and fragile one, in which copyright – the exclusive right to copy, licence, and exploit an artistic work²⁹ – operates right in the middle. An attempt by the College Art Association to determine the fair use of copyrighted artworks, published under the name ‘Fair Use: Code of Best Practices in Fair Use in the Visual Arts’, describes the consensus within the visual arts community in the United States on practices to which the copyright doctrine should apply and provides a practical and reliable way of applying it.³⁰ The codes on making art using another’s work state that the copying artist should cite the source, avoid any suggestion that incorporated elements are original to the copying artist, justify the artistic objective when using a pre-existing work in part or in whole, and avoid the use of existing copyrighted material that does not generate new artistic meaning.³¹ These restrictions leave much room for interpretation and are on the side of the copying artist. As long as the original work is respected and referenced, copying is generally accepted.

METHODOLOGY

To be able to compare the level of appropriation used by each actor in their publications, I need to return to the actual material – the books themselves. Graphic designers are arguably less engaged than artists, considering the social and historical questions surrounding artists’ books, but when it comes to producing books, the art of book making and treating texts, images, paper, ink, and so on, graphic designers are much more at ease. I therefore treat the question of appropriation of iconic artists’ books and the role of designers in this process from a rather technical perspective, that of the craftsperson. Major editorial choices by publishers and artists should be visible and testable through analysis of the printed books. Re-enacted artist books are the physical outcome of a further abstract and intangible reflection process of appropriation. A precise analysis of the selected actors and their books should be able to reveal their editorial choices and underlying relations between all actors in the production process. The analysis will also define the possible scope and level of interference of the graphic designer – whether received or not – in the conceptual and realisation process.

      This research will be based on the activities of four actors in the field of contemporary art who produce facsimile artists’ books. These actors can be divided into two categories: artists and publishers. Artists and publishers are the two main producers of facsimile artists’ books; it is necessary to take into account their different approaches to layout if one is to view the complete spectrum of re-enacted artists’ books. The two selected publishers are Editions Zédélé from Brest (France) and The Everyday Press from London (UK). The two artists are Michalis Pichler from Berlin (Germany) and Eric Doeringer from New York (United States). They have all been actively producing artists’ books for many years, and substantial parts of their collections are re-enactments of iconic examples from the 1960s and 1970s. Their collections provide several titles to pick from and their discourses have been shaped over the years. All four can be considered established actors in the field of the artist’s book. Two of them – Michalis Pichler and Arnaud Desjardin of The Everyday Press – I have communicated with in person, which makes it easier to access their material and acquire information about their practices and discourses.

There are many crossovers between the two categories. Both Pichler and Doeringer publish their own books, but call themselves artists in the first place. Arnaud Desjardin from The Everyday Press works as an antiquarian and artist alongside his publishing activities, and Clive Phillpot and Anne Mœglin-Delcroix of Éditions Zédélé are both academics, writers, critics, and editors. Mœglin-Delcroix is the author of the book Esthétique du livre d’artiste (1960–1980), while Phillpot was head of the Library of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) from 1977 to 1994, where he shaped the Artist Book Collection.³² There are also crossovers in the content of their bodies of work. Pichler and Doeringer both bootlegged books by Ed Ruscha. All four actors have produced a large body of re-enacted work that stresses the contemporary aspect of the subject and the pertinence for critical reflection on re-enacted artists’ books.

I have selected two examples from each actor’s recent productions and carried out detailed analyses on these works. In the analyses, two subdivisions are noticeable: a comparison between re-enactment and original, and a review of the books’ qualities as an individual character from a technical point of view. I first analyse the outer specifications of the book and the relation the facsimile has to the original. Questions about the cover, the use of paper or cardboard, and other material similarities will be questioned. In the second stage, I look in depth at the book’s interior appearance and focus more on the production of the book as an entity. Subsequently I disconnect the facsimile from its original and compare it with other titles from the same series and the overall number of reviewed books. During this stage, the facsimile is reviewed as an autonomous entity in the here and now. The technical manner of analysing books is necessary to see where the facsimile is positioned today in terms of production methods and use of material. A comparison of facsimile and original will give lots of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers that will easily tend toward nostalgia for the original. Therefore the aim of a mutual comparison between facsimiles is to position them in the realm of the artist’s book as autonomous entities that are able to earn respect for their own existence.

      Next to the analyses I use the discourses of the actors I selected. These discourses derive either from found footage or from formal interviews. The reason to integrate discourses is to see whether the book’s concept fits the given explanation by the author or if any contradictions are noticeable. The discourses will also open up connections that aren’t necessarily visible in the books, and shine a light on the future of facsimile artists’ books.

PUBLISHERS THAT PRODUCE FACSIMILE ARTISTS’ BOOKS

To review the activities of contemporary publishers that edit facsimile artists’ books I selected two actors in the field that, alongside new titles, already have a selection of facsimiles in their collections. They are Éditions Zédélé from Brest and The Everyday Press from London.

      Éditions Zédélé published the Reprint collection, curated by Anne Mœglin-Delcroix and Clive Phillpot. According to the publisher’s mission statement,³⁸ ‘the Reprint Collection is devoted to reprints of artist books published from the early 1960s on, the authors of which are now among the pioneers in the history of contemporary art.’ The collection comprises six titles so far, including books by Herman de Vries, Richard Long, and Lawrence Weiner. Zédélé positions itself right in the centre of the debate about facsimile artists’ books. Their mission statement notes: ‘Although driven by a desire to make art more accessible by using books as a pragmatic means to this end, many of these publications were not widely circulated and have now become very rare and nearly impossible to find. When they are available, the prices are usually very high, which goes against the very reason for their publication.’³⁹ Zédélé clearly states that pioneering artists’ books have become too expensive and scarce and didn’t circulate enough originally. With this statement Zédélé boldly attacks the major problems of the dissemination of artists’ books and positions itself as a possible answer to these difficulties. Although their website doesn’t give an explanation for how the artist’s book has slipped into this cramped position, they still see a bright future for artists’ books: ‘Current interest from young artists in the book medium, as shown by an abundant production, as well as public recognition of the artist’s book, proven by the many shows and other exhibitions in France and abroad, all point to a favourable climate to rerelease works to celebrate their 50th anniversary, for a public that is now attuned to books as art, and hungry to consult pioneering works.’⁴⁰ Zédélé recognises the massive increase in production of artists’ books today, and concludes that as a result of the growing attention on the medium, a new generation must be ‘hungry’ to get acquainted with pioneering artists’ books from the 1960s and 1970s. The fiftieth anniversaries of these pioneering books are seized upon as a ‘favourable climate’ in which to publish a series of reprints. According to Zédélé this period is a juncture – a set of perfect circumstances – to start such a publishing activity that wouldn’t have been possible ten or fifteen years ago. But the books that are now issued for reprint were already rare in the 1990s. And that most of the pioneering books are celebrating their fiftieth anniversaries does not mean they are suddenly free of copyright and more accessible for reproduction. There is an overwhelming interest in artists’ books by the present generation, and facsimile artists’ books certainly flourish in this context, but selection of the titles on offer is needed, as well as the possibility to educate young artists interested in artists’ books from the 1960s and 1970s.

The two reviewed books by Éditions Zédélé differ greatly in terms of content and concept, but show some similarities in their production methods. The cover paper seems the same for both books, the size of the books by Weiner and Dibbets is almost the same, and both books are assembled the same way. When I compare these two books with other titles by Zédélé, a clear visual resemblance is noticeable. They are all offset printed on a pleasant range of interior and cover papers. The colours Zédélé uses are of high contrast – black is absolutely black – and belong to a colour gamut close to primary colours. In particular, the colours used for the covers of their books help to shape the collection as an entity. The care taken in the production of their books is a pleasure for the eye. These corporate choices impede diversity within the Reprint Collection but 

help establish a clear identity for the entire collection. It is unclear whether there is a graphic designer involved in the production of the books of the Reprint Collection. Any design credit is completely absent, whether on Zédélé’s website or in the books themselves. All credits go directly to the publisher in the person of Galaad Prigent, and to the editors Anne Mœglin-Delcroix and Clive Phillpot. In his essay ‘Books, Bookworks, Book Objects, Artists’ Books’, Clive Phillpot says something that would suggest Zédélé should mention the artisans involved in their projects: ‘Few so-called artists’ books are actually the result of a single person’s labour, even though one person may be responsible for the idea. Not many artists are involved in the entire process of book making; photographers, typesetters, printers, binders, and others frequently play a part in the production of the book.’⁵⁸ As the artist does not always work alone in the production of an artist’s book, credit for the production should go to all actors involved in the project. Although this quotation derives from an article written in 1982, and the typesetters back then have changed into today’s graphic designers, who possess skills that go beyond typesetting a book, Phillpot’s argument goes partly against Zédélé’s way of crediting people, which is restricted to a mention for the editors alone. Books presented on Zédélé’s website also rarely allocate credit for the design. This may suggests that the artist or editor designed the book alone, or an in-house graphic designer was occupied with the layout and production of the books, without publicly receiving credit for it.

      The status of editors Anne Mœglin-Delcroix and Clive Phillpot is emphasised by Zédélé as being ‘Two internationally recognized specialists in the field of artist books’ who have ‘both written many studies on the subject’.⁵⁹ Anne Mœglin-Delcroix is introduced on the homepage of the Reprint collection as ‘Professor Emeritus at the University of Paris I – Sorbonne, formerly in charge of the artist book collection at the Print Department of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the author of Esthétique du livre d’artiste: une introduction à l’art contemporain (1997, revised version: Marseille: Le mot et le reste & Paris: Bnf, 2012) and Sur le livre d’artiste: articles et écrits de circonstance 1981–2005 (Marseille: Le mot et le reste, 2006).’⁶⁰ Clive Phillpot, has been an advocate for the artist’s book for more than forty years, as a critic, curator, and editor, and in his tenure as director at the library of the Museum of Modern Art in the late 1970s, where he built the library’s collection of artists’ books and mapped out the field with influential essays that traced its ancestry and distinguished it from seemingly similar genres such as the livre d’artiste.⁶¹ Both descriptions indicate that the selection of these heavyweights in the field of artists’ books should be respected. The editors are positioned at the centre of the publisher’s production chain, and function as an overseeing eye to guarantee the quality of the book. But with the emphasis on the editors, the impression arises that the curators of the Reprint Collection, Anne Mœglin-Delcroix and Clive Phillpot, are equally as important as the artists who conceived the books. Although Zédélé succeeds in showing little or no visible intervention in the facsimiles they produce and stay as close as possible to the original, the status and merits of its editors are widely communicated. The artists’ books selected by Zédélé seem to be appropriated rather through the presence of the editors and their expertise, and thereby gain authorship for the reprint. The editors’ network of artists and publishers undoubtedly opens doors to certain titles otherwise difficult to access and reprint, as is indicated by the final phrase of Zédélé’s statement: ‘No options are off the table, from facsimiles to rereleases or to French adaptations with the greatest respect for the author’s original intentions and, whenever possible, in close collaboration with the artist who is the author.’ It’s difficult for a graphic designer to manifest him- or herself in such a hierarchical editorial structure. Even when the graphic designers’ contribution is purely technical, it doesn’t seem to receive the esteem it deserves from Zédélé’s editorial board.

Further arguments by Zédélé for publishing facsimile artists’ books include the scarcity of founding artists’ books from the 1960s and 1970s and the resulting pertinence of reintroducing titles with high historical and educational value for a present generation of artists. Thereby, Zédélé aims for the bigger cause. It is the discourse of a dedicated publisher that wants to do justice to the history and patrimony of artists’ books. The choice of titles – including artists like Peter Downsbrough, Richard Long, and Herman de Vries – is somehow a safe one, but one with cohesion.

The facsimile editions of The Everyday Press are less restricted to an overarching work method applied to the entire collection. Materially there are some similarities, but in terms of subject matter all titles derive from different backgrounds and periods. Arnaud Desjardin notes in a conversation we had about a possible common denominator for his books, ‘If there is one I am not really aware of it, I hate that kind of publisher’s identity swallowing the book. That is a trope of the industrial era of book production. It might catch up with me one day but I’d rather think that each book is different and doesn’t require that sort of fake instant recognition factor.’ When you put all the books of The Everyday Press together, it is difficult to see instant external similarities in terms of size and used materials. Every project, either regular artists’ books or facsimiles, is a new and independent chapter in the total collection of The Everyday Press that entails different historical and theoretical challenges each time, conducted by Arnaud himself in collaboration with the most capable and skilled professionals in the subject. The construction of the editorial team changes for each project, but co-authors and collaborators are at least as present in the production of the book as the publisher himself. When comparing The Foundations of Judo and Re: The Fox, it is surprising to see that a publisher can leave a fingerprint through translation, on the one hand, and be completely invisible, on the other. Both examples stress the diversity of facsimile projects initiated by The Everyday Press. Arnaud Desjardin is a modest publisher who is aware of the stakes and risks of publishing facsimile artists’ books but doesn’t fear to be visible as a publisher when he feels the need to be. About the degree of appropriation he allows in his facsimile projects he states, ‘It’s important to treat the “original” material with an understanding of what it does (or did) but it may be taken in a completely different place. I tend to see it as a form of transmission where I take personal responsibility for the channel and its occasional fuck-ups. I am not interested in robotic repetition. Though my re-issuing stuff in certain settings could be seen as less than faithful.’⁶² It sounds an honest statement by a publisher who questions the pertinence and accuracy of his editorial practice and suspects possible errors in his activities. It is comparable with the doubts artists and designers may have when commencing a new project over pushing the limits of the project and questioning its pertinence. The modesty of the publisher descends to the books and makes the collection of The Everyday Press in a way less pretentious and more curious. About the increasing tendency for facsimile artists’ books, Arnaud Desjardin notes: ‘In the end some publications should be kept in print and available because they are good but that is only possible if there is a demand. … I believe good books should be kept in print and I don’t subscribe to the fetish of the first edition. Ultimately a facsimile is a form of failure of reproduction: the same but different.’ The pertinence of publishing facsimile artists’ books for The Everyday Press derives from the explicit personal interests of the publisher for certain titles. Projects are not selected because of their possible economic interest or existing historical value. The working methods of The Everyday Press resemble that of an unguided missile – in the positive sense – that responds whenever an occasion presents itself and collaborators and funding are available. One working method stands out when reviewing both facsimiles: the use of linguistic tools to appropriate and process the original content. Both The Foundation of Judo and Re: The Fox are retypeset to achieve the best possible legibility using today’s printing technologies. On top of that, The Foundation of Judo is entirely translated into English. Language therefore becomes a directive element that pushes the publisher to choose a certain printing procedure and the matching prepress techniques. With the choice of retypesetting an entire book, the role of the graphic designer suddenly becomes re-evident. Although it is not the most creative job to typeset a facsimile after its original, it is still a challenge that demands a lot of accuracy and expertise. Contrary to Zédélé Press, Arnaud Desjardin works openly together with graphic designers on titles published by The Everyday Press. By trusting the graphic designer with a task of responsibility, he or she is more likely capable to make conceptual suggestions and apply his or her full expertise to the design and production process of the facsimile. The interest even grows when the graphic designer is particularly engaged in the subject matter, as is the case for The Foundations of Judo, where designer and artist Ian Whittlesea is the carrier of a first-Dan black belt. It seems that The Everyday Press is well aware of the specific roles of the book-making process.

In an unpublished interview Arnaud Desjardin conducted with me, he adds an interesting historical reflection that helps to contextualise the present facsimile tendency among artists’ books: ‘The print run of a lot of Dada and surrealist material for example wasn’t more than a few hundred copies, the stuff wasn’t necessarily a limited edition, it just didn’t interest that many people back then. The 1960s generation got interested in that material that was forty to fifty years old to them, but was really difficult to access and find: it certainly wasn’t in any public collections or libraries, it then warranted re-releasing some of that material in a form sympathetic to the original aims.’ History repeats itself when artists and publishers today put forward similar arguments of scarcity and inaccessibility to support their facsimile projects based on books from the 1960s and 1970s. We’re right in the middle of a cycle and the time is ripe now for a new flourishing facsimile tendency. This cycle is an understandable argument for and underlying inspiration to all actors participating in the production of facsimile artists’ books. It also indicates an expiration date and tension curve for key historical artists’ books that are ready to be refreshed and reintroduced.

A second ‘greatest hit’ by Michalis Pichler is a bootleg of Seth Siegelaub’s exhibition catalogue July, August, September 1969 / Juillet, Août, Septembre 1969 / Juli, August, September 1969 titled July, August, September 2012 / Juillet, Août, Septembre 2012 / Juli, August, September 2012 (figs 19–22). Organised by Seth Siegelaub, the exhibition invited eleven artists around the world to participate with a new work especially made for the occasion. Siegelaub began his curatorial practice as a gallery owner concerned with the dissemination of conceptual art through commercial means. He worked on several editorial projects between 1968 and 1971 that explored the book as a carrier for exhibitions and as an alternative to the gallery space.⁶⁸ The trilingual catalogue July, August, September 1969 / Juillet, Août, Septembre 1969 / Juli, August, September 1969 (English, French, and German) served as a document to locate the invited artists and their work. Participating were Carl Andre in The Hague, Robert Barry in Baltimore, Daniel Buren in Paris, Jan Dibbets in Amsterdam, Douglas Huebler in Los Angeles, Joseph Kosuth in New Mexico, Sol LeWitt in Düsseldorf, Richard Long in Bristol, N.E. Thing Co. Ltd. in Vancouver, Robert Smithson in Yucatan, and Lawrence Weiner in Niagara Falls.

      The edition published by Greatest Hits follows the exact same structure as its predecessor. The major difference is the list of participating artists and their locations. The book is printed on a glossy magazine paper of about 90 grams and is staple bound. It’s entirely offset printed in black and white and has a non-specified print run. All texts in the book are set in the same typeface and size as in Siegelaub’s original. The entity feels a bit distant because of the domination of the white paper and chosen typeface, but in general it is well produced and doesn’t show any sign of bad expertise. The original is visibly shorter and wider than Pichler’s bootleg, which measures 210 × 297 mm. Another remarkable difference is the map printed on the cover. It is flipped compared with Siegelaub’s version and is printed in a low percentage of black, which makes the cover slightly pale. The image is hardly visible compared with the original cover. What sticks in the end is the heritage of Siegelaub’s ideas applied in a contemporary context with other participating artists. Pichler’s appropriation leans heavily on the original publication, partly due to the participation of Siegelaub. His inclusion seems very important and to be one of the reasons Pichler initiated the bootleg. Inviting the initial editor is a way of increasing one’s own network, and will stimulate the participation of other artists as well. Pichler’s own contribution is completely dedicated to a meeting with Seth Siegelaub in Amsterdam. It is a rather spare photograph of what must be the entrance to Siegelaub’s apartment in Amsterdam. Written next to the photo is, ‘Doing a trip to Amsterdam in the summer, trying to meet Seth Siegelaub, taking a picture.’ The double page speaks of the attempt of an apprentice trying to encounter his teacher, or a fan who wants the signature of a favourite idol. Siegelaub’s contribution to the book is an informational text about an open-ended critical research project by the Egress Foundation tucked away in an artist’s book. It is as if Siegelaub agreed to participate in return for a piece about his association. The attempt to create something specific for the occasion seems unexploited. Eric Doeringer also participated in Pichler’s book with a bootleg of Douglas Huebler’s contribution to the 1969 edition. Michalis Pichler lists the original version – as he did in Twentysix Gasoline Stations – as the only title in the bibliography and thus the sole reference for the bootleg. The line of reference is part of a bigger paragraph with credits, translated into three languages. Here all artists – and Seth Siegelaub in particular – are thanked for their participation and cooperation. Below the word of thanks, credit is given to Maria de Sande for typesetting the catalogue and to Antoine Lefebvre and Raphaëlle Lacord who worked on the French translations of the texts. It is interesting to see that Pichler collaborated with a typesetter for this catalogue. Until then, I had the impression that Michalis Pichler avoided any interference of designers in his book productions, but in this case he entrusted the typesetting of the catalogue to someone else. The credits end with the notification that a PDF of the book is available at www.stichtingegress.net [site discontinued] or www.primaryinformation.org.

The book doesn’t open that easily because the booklets are glued rather than sewn, as is the case in Ruscha’s version. The perfect binding method and relatively thick cover paper does not allow the pages to flip in a smooth and natural way. The original also had a dust jacket – a similar one to Twentysix Gasoline Stations – which is absent from Doeringer’s version. The paper used in the original is a bit thicker as well. When one looks closely at the texts printed in Doeringer’s book, it is curious that they are all rasterised, even the title on the cover. There are a few possible explanations for this but it is difficult to grasp what exactly happened. Texts were possibly set in 90 per cent grey during the typesetting process and therefore automatically rasterised for the print process. Doeringer could have done the layout of his book in Photoshop, which is unimaginable, but would explain the rasterised texts, as Photoshop is not vector-based software. Another possibility is a mixture of techniques where the street names are scanned – and thereby rasterised – and Doeringer’s images of the apartments are placed in the layout on top of those scans. It is at least unlikely that Doeringer scanned all texts, because he typeset new additions to his book, such as the title page and the copyright attribution. The rasterised outcome of texts is more likely due to the printing process, and thus out of the direct control of the artist. Images are of poor quality as well. They look slightly flat and greyish and lack contrast. The white margins around the images vary constantly, which suggests an error committed during the binding process. Ruscha’s version, on the other hand, is very well printed and has a better density than Doeringer’s book. It is clear that today’s print-on-demand techniques have opened doors, but quality is not automatically guaranteed and still depends on the expertise of the printer.

      The book contains a note allocating copyright to Doeringer himself. He says about this act, ‘My main reason for placing the copyright in the publication was to replicate Ruscha’s original books as faithfully as possible and they included a copyright within the text’s composition.’⁷³ The addition of this own copyright is as much an act of appropriation as being faithful to Ruscha’s original. There is only the cover and title that could be considered as an infringement of Ruscha’s copyright, for the rest the book exists of new shot material by Doeringer and belongs to him only.⁷⁴ It is therefore a strange justification by Doeringer, while he could simply have said that he is the rightful owner of this version of Some Los Angeles Apartments. Still, the copyright question is a persistent one when parts of the referenced work are identically adopted in the new version.

Regarding the bootleg of Arc, Grids & Circles (figs 27–33) by Sol LeWitt, Doeringer made a very clever intervention to avoid copying the exact drawings from the original. LeWitt’s work consists of line drawings of all possible combinations of arcs, grids, and circles. These combinations take into account both the type of line (arc, circle, grid) and all the possible points on the page from which an arc can derive.⁷⁵ Doeringer changed the original size of the book and therewith the interaction of the lines in the drawings. He explains: ‘Because my book is slightly smaller than LeWitt’s (7.5” square vs. 8”), the arcs, circles, and grids intersect in different places. Thus although they might appear identical, my drawing of “Arcs from one corner and two opposite sides” is completely different than the one in the original book.’⁷⁶ One may ask what the exact interest of this change is, beside making forms that are technically different from LeWitt’s. When browsing through both books one does not notice the difference immediately. I discovered the difference through Doeringer’s website, otherwise I might have overlooked it. In contrast to Some Los Angeles Apartments, Grids, Arc & Circles is extremely well made. The bootleg after Sol LeWitt’s eponymous book from 1972 is 196 pages long. It feels comfortable and flexible at first glance. For the interior, the artist used a paperback paper with little bulk of around 80 or 90 grams, which makes the book bend easily. Flipping through is a real pleasure for a bibliophile. The cover is printed on a flexible gloss cardboard of about 200 grams. It has a possible spot UV varnish on the front, but inside has been left rough. This creates a smooth transition to the more yellow paperback paper of the interior. The cover of the bootleg is much more affirmative than its predecessor because of the paper and intensity of the ink. The high-contrast title image hits the reader immediately.

      All differences between the original and the bootleg are of a linguistic nature. On the spine, the name Sol LeWitt is replaced with that of Eric Doeringer, and on the title page the preamble has been changed from ‘Sol LeWitt’ to ‘Eric Doeringer’. Added as well is ‘After Sol LeWitt’, a direct reference to the original. The publisher’s credit has been changed from ‘Kunsthalle Bern & Paul Bianchini, 1972’ to ‘Copycat Publications, New York, 2011’. On the following page there’s an imprint noting Eric Doeringer as the copyright holder and prohibiting anyone from reproducing any part of the book without the written permission of the artist. It also gives more information on the manufacturer of the book and gives the artist’s website as a reference point. The book follows the original layout very strictly. The chapter pages remain unchanged and illustrations have similar captions to before. The illustrations aren’t scans of the original book but seem to have been digitally redrawn. The lines are sharp and don’t show any characteristics of scanned illustrations, such as noise or raster dots.

Throughout the analyses, different discourses in favour of re-enacted artists’ books were investigated. The facsimile productions by Zédélé and The Everyday Press show a very accurate and precise approach that stays as loyal to the original as possible, while the bootlegs produced by artists Michalis Pichler and Eric Doeringer show precise alterations to the structure of the original books. The latter is a method of appropriation – bootlegging – where the artists’ own reflections are applied to a context defined beforehand, preserving several key elements of the original and modifying others. It seems difficult for the artist simply to reproduce the original identically. There seem to be personal added elements necessary to define a bootleg as a new artistic statement. As the reviewed examples showed, artists start to tweak, change, interpret, differentiate, and modify the selected sources eventually to aim for authorship over their work, especially when bootlegging a historical artist’s book. Artists, more than publishers, try to leave a trace in the legacy of a specific bootlegged artist’s book. The argument and search for authorship as a method of appropriation seems to predominate among artists over any possible economical interest for the new work. Even Eric Doeringer, who started bootlegging famous artists’ paintings out of economic interest before turning to bootlegging artists’ books, states that the relationship between the original and the copy is of more interest to him than the money he could earn.⁸²

      A secondary underlying human argument among artists is the admiration for a particular artist and his or her body of work. In the work of Pichler and Doeringer, admiration shines through here and there as well. Doeringer is very honest about this aspect of bootlegging: ‘My “Ruscha” books are certainly fanboy pieces. Going out to LA and visiting all of the locations in his books was like making a pilgrimage.’ It can be assumed that Michalis Pichler had Ruscha’s trip in mind when driving down the highways of Germany in search of gasoline stations. In Pichler’s bootleg July, August, September 2012 / Juillet, Août, Septembre 2012 / Juli, August, September 2012, a certain recognition and admiration for Seth Siegelaub is perceptible as well. For this reason, making a bootleg is an attractive way of showing acknowledgement for a fellow artist from an earlier period, and ensures the ‘idol’ has a presence in the here and now.

The most eminent argument drawn from the publisher’s discourse is the urge to make available again historical material that for too long has been unattainable. The interest here is the educational pertinence of reprinting rare artists’ books. The present generation of artists and designers recently discovered the medium and are eager to learn about its evolution in the second half of the twentieth century. It’s difficult to understand the mass production of artists’ books presented at book fairs without knowing the roots of these objects. One even finds some frustration bubbling up when encountering iconic artists’ books online in reviews and behind showcases, where it is impossible physically to flip through these titles. The best thing publishers achieve when they print historical facsimile artists’ books from the 1960s and 1970s is paving a foundation for contemporary and future generations of artists. The excessive number of books generates the impression that artists too often and easily seize the book for artistic expression. A reintroduction of some founding examples could recontextualise the initial artistic intentions of artists’ books from the 1960s and 1970s in today’s art scene and be a support for young artists. Feeding this curiosity is therefore elementary. That Éditions Zédélé and The Everyday Press do not focus on the same range of titles is nourishing and shows the wide spectrum of possibilities. These publishers ensure good books remain available and that the selection of titles is not restricted to only the most popular. Either by responding to a defined collection (Zédélé), or by fitting in for reasons revised at each occasion (The Everyday Press), the choice of particular facsimile titles is consciously made and depends on the available permission of an artist, an encounter with a rare book, meeting a collaborator with similar intentions, or being invited to publish a facsimile in the frame of a specific event. Furthermore, the selection of titles is issued as part of the publisher’s total body of work, each one becoming part of the global artist’s book legacy as an entity of its own, covering a certain place and time.

      The economic arguments seem secondary to the arguments for reinserting historical content. Zédélé’s website is well structured, allowing visitors to add each book to a shopping basket and purchase them, and their prices are very reasonable. The website of The Everyday Press, on the other hand, consists of a slideshow of projects, but additional purchase information or a webshop is completely absent. The only possibility to buy their titles is via the website of Anagram Books or at the art book fairs that Arnaud Desjardin occasionally attends. It is possible that both publishers finance their editorial activities through grants in addition to the sales revenue from books sold, but nowhere is any information found regarding their business models.

Reprinting historical material automatically raises questions about copyright and authorship. Publishers and artists are diametrically opposed in arguments of authorship. The reviewed books by both publishers remain very loyal to the material they reissue and cautious when it comes to interfering and appropriating original structures, while books by artists transform or modify the original content, most often in a respectful way. Of the status of appropriation, Doeringer says: ‘Although appropriation is fairly accepted in the art world, its legality is nebulous. Legally, you can appropriate if you “transform” the original material sufficiently, but there is no standard for what the minimum transformation might be.’⁸³ Appropriation is thus a delicate activity, even if it is widely accepted by the art world. It is not so much a question of whether an appropriation of an artist’s book by a contemporary artist will be accepted – this seems part of the game – but in what manner the artist adds something constructive to the legacy of a particular iconic artist’s book. A violation of copyright in the framework of the artist book is somehow in relation to a non-respectful use of the original content. I see copyright in the artist’s book realm as an enclosed and unwritten set of rules that influence and guide the practice of appropriation. These subjective and intuitive rules, composed by the College Art Association under the name ‘Fair Use: Code of Best Practices in Fair Use in the Visual Arts’,⁸⁴ should be correctly and respectfully depicted by artists when re-enacting historical artists’ books. And because regulations are blurry or left to interpretation, it is up to the artistic community to define and pronounce whether a particular re-enacted artist’s book has been made in a respectful manner. It will be interesting to see who will step up in the near future to declare the difference between a bad copy and a respectful bootleg, and whether it will be accompanied by any set of written rules for future re-enactments.

      An integral aspect when appropriating an earlier published artist’s book seems to be the preservation of the original cover. All the reviewed books demonstrated a great respect for the original book. The first signs of appropriation appeared when artists used linguistic interpretations or the original metric rhythm for the covers of their facsimiles. By following the original cover, a bootleg is assured a certain visibility and recognition in the legacy of that particular book. The cover is the ultimate reference and will be judged or recognised by this in the first place. It is therefore vital for a bootleg to have a strong visual link with the cover of its predecessor.

When we look at production methods and the materials used, it is difficult to trace a line of similarities between all the books. Each actor’s preferences are of course noticeable, as are the variety in printing techniques that occur; offset printing, digital printing, and more manual techniques such as laser and Riso printing are most common. Zédélé uses offset printing for their Reprint Collection, and Eric Doeringer mainly uses print-on-demand technology. Books that are printed in large print-runs are usually printed offset. The general standard is high. Of the books reviewed, only those produced by Michalis Pichler leave some questions over the quality of the printing process used.

      The covers of contemporary re-enacted artists’ books are in general of higher contrast than those of their predecessors, a remarkable evolution in the outer appearance, due to a combination of improved printing techniques, inks, and types of paper, or a simple preference of the artist for contrasting cover images. All the reviewed books are perfect bound – booklets are either sewn or glued – which seems an inherited habit from the 1960s and 1970s. The perfect binding technique makes the book flexible and is a cheap and modest way to assemble a book. Retypesetting is often preferred over scanning when it comes to the reproduction of texts. This reproduction method causes a huge amount of work but guarantees good legibility, which is definitely beneficial to the final result.

All these parameters belong to the toolbox of the graphic designer. But his or her position in the production of facsimile artists’ books is minimal or absent. There seems to be an occasional demand for a graphic designer in the role of typesetter, which is an important task of a highly technical nature. When working together on a re-enactment with an artist or publisher, a graphic designer is condemned to the supporting role of typesetting after an original, which is ultimately a rather monotonous activity. If the graphic designer is restricted to the production process of a facsimile or bootleg, he or she likely occupies a role as superintendent, checker, overseer, or surveyor. As Alex Gifreu notes about this restrained role of the graphic designer in artists’ publications, ‘In the publication of the artist, the artist must take the lead as she has the most specific role. The role of the designer is to place all the skills acquired in the service of the artist. To seek out the optimum solution for the reproduction of their work, be it in the selection of papers, systems of printing, or the format.’⁸⁵ There is little reason for the graphic designer to think he or she could contribute much on a conceptual level when working for an artist. Gifreu continues: ‘it [the design] has to stay on a second plane, to comply with premises that can be optimum legibility, order, composition but never, never be over and above the work of the artist.’⁸⁶ When enrolling in a team with an artist and publisher, conceptual tasks are not up for grabs, but the graphic designer is very capable of giving his or her view on editorial choices. A critical graphical eye could push the production limits of facsimile artists’ books further, and keep the discussion for appropriation vivid from a design point of view. In this way, the role of the graphic designer could expand from a technical specialist to that of a critic for the artist’s book spectrum. And when the designer or typesetter has a personal interest in the subject matter, which is the case for Ian Whittlesea in The Foundations of Judo, the interest in participating rises significantly too.

Few artists’ books are the result of a single person’s labour,⁸⁷ but it seems that Eric Doeringer and Michalis Pichler make a conscious choice to produce books by themselves, at least until the book goes to the printer. Working alone offers artists the maximum autonomy and avoids possible disagreements about design choices. It also saves production costs in the form of salary. On the other hand, is a graphic designer a collaborator to be mistrusted? Or are arguments against including a designer historically rooted? When analysing the rise of artists’ books in the 1960s it is clear that they started out ruled by artists alone. Artists in the 1960s did not embrace the book and reclaim autonomy over institutions only subsequently to share the captured ground with graphic designers.

      If a graphic designer wants to merge completely into the production of re-enacted artists’ books, he or she could propose such a work personally. It is common for graphic designers to work on self-initiated editorial projects, but the question is whether the designer is interested in re-enactment and whether such books can be called artists’ books. Besides that, I question whether it is of interest to graphic designers to stick the ‘artist’s book’ label on their editorial projects. As long as graphic designers are able to carry out editorial projects autonomously, I sense less interest and potential for them in the realm of artists’ books, and re-enactments in particular. This also raises the question whether classifying an independent book project by a designer is actually necessary. Alex Gifreu, designer and initiator of Cru Editions, has a very clear and bold statement on the matter:

The artist’s book doesn’t exist. If you look in the dictionary, the definition of a book is a collection of sheets joined with a cover. Whereas, I’d ask you the question: what is art? It’s clear that since Duchamp anything is art; and since Beuys anybody is an artist. It is impossible to define what an artist’s book is when we can’t define who is or isn’t an artist or what is or isn’t art. More than an artist’s book I like to talk about publications conceived as pieces of work. In the sense, the work doesn’t exist in any physical format other than a publication.⁸⁸

It is difficult to agree that the artist’s book doesn’t exist, but in my independent graphic design practice I do exactly what Gifreu formulates – conceiving publications as pieces of work. I communicate socially relevant information in a comprehensible way through the book format, which is the case for many artists’ books as well (Some Los Angeles Apartments and The Fox are of significant social relevance for example). I regularly encounter the question whether I position myself as an artist and label my books as such, but I refuse to call them ‘artists’ books’ and also don’t feel familiar with the title of ‘artist’. When I’m asked to identify my autonomous book projects, I prefer to call them pieces of visual research. And, once again, when it comes to re-enacted artists’ books, there is little interest of a conceptual nature for a graphic designer.