By Miriam Intrator, Special Collections Librarian
Throughout the fall 2023 semester, the exhibit, Let It Burn: Artists’ Books and the Lure of the Flame was on display in Alden Library.
* artists’ book = book as art object, or, art object as book *
A video accompanying the exhibit demonstrates the books in motion. Part of the meaning and intent behind artists’ books is communicated through their materiality, form, format, and structure, how they are used and read. The video provides a glimpse into that experience.
As long as humans have been documenting information, others have sought to destroy, ban, censor, or otherwise control that information. The situation today is no different. Challenging information is increasingly obfuscated, concealed, or withheld to suit repressive forces in our society. Perhaps this long, tense history of information creation and destruction helps to explain the lure of the flame for the creators of artists’ books.
This exhibit explored the theme of the flame, of matches, burning, heat, light, and shadow, through the lens of artists’ books held in the Fine Arts Library and the Rare Book Collection. Through the inclusion of flammable elements like matches, some of the books even play with the potential means of their own destruction. It is our hope that the books on display both challenge and inspire us all to let everybody read, think, and decide for themselves.
The video remains available and any of the books can be requested via the Mahn Center’s research request form.
Alphabetical checklist of items in the exhibit:
- Tauba Auerbach, Z Helix, 2014
- Tauba Auerbach, Z Helix rolling papers, 2015
- Alisa Banks, Emergence, 2006
- Ray Bradbury, “The Fireman,” in Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine, February 1951
- Ray Bradbury, with illustrations by Ralph Steadman, Fahrenheit 451, 2005
- Maureen Cummins, Inventory: March 27, 1911, 1999
- Shannon Davis, Controlled Burn, 2022
- Matt Eich, The Invisible Yoke, 2014
- Elsi Vassdal Ellis, Al-Mutanabbi I: Memoria del tiempo, memoria del fuego, 2011
- Casey Gardner, Wonder Might Ignite, 2012
- Helen Hiebert, The Pop-Up Hand Shadow Book, 2012
- Patricia Nguyen, Book of Shadows: Building in Search of Forever, 2023
- Sara Parkel, Even the Birds Were on Fire, 2001
- Brian Queen, Matchbox Paper Mill, 2017
- Thomas Sauvin, Until Death Do Us Part, 2023
- Jaime Lynn Shaefer, 17927, 2015
- Jessica Spring, An Inflammatory Guide, 2012
- Virginia Arts of the Book Center, Notions, 2014
- Philip Zimmerman, Celsius 233, 2015