Editing Artist's book (section)

==Avant-garde production 1909–1937==
[[File:ZangTumbTumb-1914.jpg|thumb|left|140px|[[Zang Tumb Tumb]], 1914, by Marinetti]]

As Europe plunged headlong towards [[World War I]], various groups of [[avant-garde]] artists across the continent started to focus on pamphlets, posters, manifestos, and books. This was partially as a way to gain publicity within an increasingly print-dominated world, but also as a strategy to bypass traditional gallery systems. This allowed for the dissemination of new ideas and the creation of affordable work that might (theoretically) be seen by people who would not otherwise enter art galleries.<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal |last=White |first=Tony |date=September 2023 |title=artists books and After |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/731092 |journal=Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America |volume=42 |issue=2 |pages=213–230 |doi=10.1086/731092 |issn=0730-7187|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

This move toward radicalism was exemplified by the [[Futurism|Italian Futurists]], and by [[Filippo Marinetti]] (1876–1944) in particular. The publication of the "[[Futurist Manifesto]]", 1909, on the front cover of the French daily newspaper ''[[Le Figaro]]'' was an audacious [[wikt:coup de théâtre|coup de théâtre]] that resulted in international notoriety.<ref>For an English translation {{cite web |url=http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/T4PM/futurist-manifesto.html |title=The Futurist Manifesto |first=F. T. |last=Marinetti |year=1909 |publisher=cscs.umich.edu |access-date=23 November 2010| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20101126162301/http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/T4PM/futurist-manifesto.html| archive-date= 26 November 2010 | url-status= live}}</ref> Marinetti used the ensuing fame to tour Europe, kickstarting movements across the continent that all veered towards book-making and pamphleteering.

In London, for instance, Marinetti's visit directly precipitated [[Wyndham Lewis]]' founding of the [[Vorticist]] movement, whose [[literary magazine]] ''[[BLAST (magazine)|BLAST]]'' is an early example of a modernist periodical, while David Bomberg's book ''[[Russian Ballet (book)|Russian Ballet]]'' (1919), with its interspersing of a single carefully spaced text with abstract colour lithographs, is a landmark in the history of English language artists' books.{{Citation needed|date=May 2025}}

=== Russian Futurism, 1910–1917 ===
[[File:TransrationalBoog-Rozanova.jpg|thumb|right|160px|''Transrational Boog'', 1914, by [[Olga Rozanova]]]]

Regarding the creation of artists' books, the most influential offshoot of futurist principles occurred in Russia. Centered in [[Moscow]], around the [[Gileia]] Group of ''Transrational'' (''[[zaum]]'') poets [[David Burliuk|David]] and [[Nikolai Burliuk]], [[Elena Guro]], [[Vasili Kamenski]] and [[Velimir Khlebnikov]], the [[Russian futurists]] created a sustained series of artists' books that challenged every assumption of orthodox book production. Whilst some of the books created by this group would be relatively straightforward typeset editions of poetry, many others played with form, structure, materials, and content that still seems contemporary.

Key works such as ''Worldbackwards'' (1912), by Khlebnikov and [[Kruchenykh]], [[Natalia Goncharova]], [[Larionov]] [[Rogovin]] and [[Tatlin]], ''Transrational Boog'' (1915) by Aliagrov and Kruchenykh & [[Olga Rozanova]], and ''[[Universal War]]'' (1916) by Kruchenykh used hand-written text, integrated with expressive lithographs and collage elements, creating small editions with dramatic differences between individual copies. Other titles experimented with materials such as wallpaper, printing methods including carbon copying and hectographs, and binding methods including the random sequencing of pages, ensuring no two books would have the same contextual meaning.<ref>The Russian Avant-Garde Book, Rowell & Wye, MOMA, 2002</ref> Marinetti visited in 1914, proselytizing on behalf of Futurist principles of speed, danger, and cacophony.<ref>Although his visit didn't go particularly well, with key members of Cubo-Futurism feeling distinctly patronized by his pronouncements. See Collaborating on the Paradigm of the Future by Margarita Tupitsyn {{cite web |title=? |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0425/is_n4_v52/ai_14970133 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041026224557/http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0425/is_n4_v52/ai_14970133 |archive-date=2004-10-26}}</ref><ref>The Russian Avant-Garde Book, Rowell & Wye, MOMA, 2002, p11</ref>

Russian futurism gradually evolved into [[Constructivism (art)|Constructivism]] after the [[Russian Revolution (1917)|Russian Revolution]], centered on the key figures of [[Kazimir Malevich|Malevich]] and [[Tatlin]]. Attempting to create a new proletarian art for a new communist epoch, constructivist books would also have a huge impact on other European avant-gardes, with design and text-based works such as [[El Lissitzky]]'s ''For The Voice'' (1922) having a direct impact on groups inspired by or directly linked to [[communism]]. [[Dada]] in Zurich and Berlin, the [[Bauhaus]] in Weimar, and [[De Stijl]] in the Netherlands all printed numerous books, periodicals, and theoretical tracts within the newly emerging [[International modernism|International Modernist]] style. Artists' books from this era include [[Kurt Schwitters]] and Kate Steinitz's book ''The Scarecrow'' (1925), and [[Theo van Doesburg]]'s periodical ''[[De Stijl]]''.

===Dada and Surrealism===
[[Dada]] was initially started at the [[Cabaret Voltaire (Zürich)|Cabaret Voltaire]], by a group of exiled artists in neutral [[Switzerland]] during [[World War I]]. Originally influenced by the sound poetry of Wassily Kandinsky, and the [[Blaue Reiter|Blaue Reiter Almanac]] that Kandinsky had edited with [[Franz Marc|Marc]], artists' books, periodicals, manifestoes and [[absurdist theatre]] were central to each of Dada's main incarnations. Berlin Dada in particular, started by [[Richard Huelsenbeck]] after leaving Zurich in 1917, would publish a number of incendiary artists' books, such as [[George Grosz]]'s ''The Face Of The Dominant Class'' (1921), a series of politically motivated satirical lithographs about the German [[bourgeoisie]].

Whilst concerned mainly with poetry and theory, [[Surrealism]] created a number of works that continued in the French tradition of the Livre d'Artiste, whilst simultaneously subverting it. [[Max Ernst]]'s [[Une Semaine de Bonté]] (1934), collaging found images from Victorian books, is a famous example, as is [[Marcel Duchamp]]'s cover for ''Le Surréalisme''' (1947) featuring a tactile three-dimensional pink breast made of rubber.<ref>Marcel Duchamp Studies Online,{{cite web |url=http://www.toutfait.com/issues/volume2/issue_4/articles/girst/girst4.html |title=Duchamp's Window Display for André Breton's Le Surréalisme et la Peinture (1945) by Thomas Girst |publisher=toutfait.com |access-date=24 November 2010}}</ref>

One important Russian writer/artist who created artist books was [[Alexei Remizov]].<ref>[[Julia Friedman]], ''Beyond Symbolism and Surrealism: Alexei Remizov's Synthetic Art'', Northwestern University Press, 2010.</ref> Drawing on medieval Russian literature, he creatively combined dreams, reality, and pure whimsy in his artist books.