1. Individuality, or: How One-of-a-kind Artists’ Books may come into being.
This text takes a closer look at one-of-a-kind books, examining the role of tradition and the influence of techniques, especially as all the book production techniques have undergone dramatic changes over the last forty years (which is a timespan I witnessed personally). Questions of concept and perception are also addressed. I think that artists’ books are exploring the possible future of the book, and this text is talking about one of these possibilities.
2. And yet another book? Thinking while drawing
This essay tells the story of how one of my one-of-a-kind books came into being. The book contains many pages with serial drawings. While drawing I thought that these drawings might appear a little boring, but on the other hand it was very clear to me that they are transporting very strong associations as well. In this text I watch myself while drawing. I make the drawings speak (without explaining them). The book was begun without having a clear concept — I just started to draw and watched the process. It could well have happened that the drawings would not want to become part of a book. Hence the title: ‚And yet another book?’ The text is trying to get as close as possible to the creative process of making a book.
Connecting the two texts:
With my artist’s books, I like to explore the limits of what can be called a book. My background as an artist and a typographer and my experience in both book design and book arts has led me to look at books as being an independent medium (just like painting or photography etc).
Both texts follow this fundamental idea of my work. The first one is looking at the special field of one-of-a-kind books; the second one gives an insight in the production of such a one-of-a-kind book. Perhaps one could say that the texts circle around the same subject, but look at it from two different perspectives. The first text gives a more general view, like looking from outside, whereas the second one gives a very individual view, like from inside.