Around 1980, I perceived another vacuum in the art world. No one seemed to be researching the history of the contemporary artist book in any thorough-going manner, so I tried to do it in a year, hiring four guest curators/teams to tackle four 20th century time periods of The Page as Alternative Space. Clive Phillpot organized material for 1909 to 1920; Charles Henri Ford from 1921 to 1949; Barbara Moore and Jon Hendricks from 1950 to 1969; and Ingrid Sischy and Richard Flood from 1970 to 1980. After this heady year, Franklin Furnace hired a slew of guest curators to explore the history of the published artwork in even more depth, organizing usually one big exhibit per season such as Cubist Prints/Cubists Books, The Avant-Garde Book: 1900-45, Fluxus: A Conceptual Country, Books by Russian Avant-Garde Artists, as well as thematic shows such as Artists' Books: Japan, Multiples by Latin American Artists, Contemporary Russian Samizdat, Eastern European Artist Books. Taken together, the magazines and catalogues published to document these exhibits form a history that is still not available under one cover. (Illustrations: 16, 17)

 

16. "The Avant-Garde Book: 1900-1945," curator Jaroslav Andel. This exhibition, mounted in February, 1989, contained many Eastern European works. Photo by Marty Heitner

17. "The Avant-Garde Book: 1900-1945" augmented by Guillaume Apollinaire poems on the wall. Photo by Marty Heitner