In 2020, the only US-based publication dedicated to the review of artists’ books published its last issue, leaving in its wake a void for critical discourse and exposure for contemporary practitioners. As the Journal of Artists’ Books became defunct, Corina Reynolds—Executive Director of Center for Book Arts in since 2018—collaborated with Printed Matter to plan a two-day symposium on the future of book art criticism to be held in conjunction with the first-ever PM Virtual Art Book Fair in 2021. The event will gather an international group of critics to discuss the current state of criticism within artist books, including factors that impede more expansive discourse, and identify what resources are necessary to ensure financial and job security for arts writers. The conversations at this event will be archived, made available online, and used to inform CBA’s Book Art Criticism Initiative. This multi-year project plans to develop a free educational seminar on book art criticism for emerging arts writers and, in Fall 2021, launch a new critical publication for book art, Book Arts Review (BAR), with fair remuneration for contributors and an accompanying prize for new book arts criticism. It is the goal of BAR to reflect the vast diversity of creators within the book arts community, and a long-term platform dedicated to conversations about both the history and contemporary moment in book art.
Corina Reynolds
“The terrific range of project proposals we receive each year speaks to the mobile and porous disciplinary boundaries of contemporary art practice, and to the rich and inventive ways writers approach art today. They are alert to the urgent need to expand the conventions of art history and criticism with ideas from other discourses, such as black studies, transnational and diaspora studies, gender and women’s studies, and LGBT studies. The work of lesser known and overlooked artists and art communities continues to be mined, with writers articulating new ways to counter the striking imbalances of race, class and gender that continue to affect the arts and the culture industry.”