Recasting the Book: From Codex to Multimedia Performance

Publications and exhibitions regularly highlight the artist’s book—an object of multifaceted creative possibilities whose expressions often exceed the conventional codicological features of the volume. It positions itself along the boundary merging artwork and writing, or, more broadly, form, image, structure, text, and space. Giovanni Ciucci’s essay, entitled Dal libro all’arte, demonstrates an original conceptual framework compared to what is usually expected from studies dedicated to these themes. The title itself indicates the transition of the book into the artistic sphere; the discussion begins by analyzing its metamorphosis across millennia, leading up to the modern book form most familiar to us. Within this historical development, which examines the book from a structural perspective, the most recent typologies are not overlooked: the digital book, the videobook, and even books created exclusively for online consumption in their renewed capacity as multimedia devices. Finally, it is worth noting that some of the books reproduced and discussed in the publication were created by the author of the essay himself, in his dual role as both artist and art theorist.

The history of the book, retraced in its fundamental stages throughout the discussion, clearly demonstrates the succession of diverse production methods and structural forms. Some of these are remarkable for their entirely unique creative outcomes, such as figured micrography, the carmen figuratum, the ancient calligram, and grid poetry (versus intexti). These are aspects that are usually overlooked, but which the author deliberately chooses to revisit, in order to conceptualize the book as a mode of intellectual and practical labor capable of fostering a dialogue between different eras—a work, therefore, understood in its supra-individual and collective significance.

Another key point, already identified in the preface and addressed in the first chapter, concerns the re-examination of the concept of the modern book, namely the one commonly found in bookstores. According to Ciucci, this type of book can be considered a shared reference model, coinciding with the standard definition found in any ordinary dictionary. This model, identified as the “book-paradigm”, becomes the pivot of the entire analysis centered on the relationship between art and the creation of books by artists. The various thematic core areas addressed from time to time revolve around this concept, as special attention is paid to those artists—be they writers, poets, or visual artists—interested in investigating and reformulating the characteristics of this original model, through solutions that may sometimes even compromise its recognizability. Indeed, the book is not always immediately recognizable in the outcomes of certain contemporary art practices, as the book-paradigm itself is called into question for reasons that vary from case to case.

Among the artistic creations that align with the book, the essay examines the poem A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance by the French poet Stéphane Mallarmé, dedicating a close study to late-nineteenth-century poetic experimentation—perhaps suggesting that the birth of the artist's book can be traced back to this outcome, even though it is generally situated in the twentieth century. The author intends to delve into a specific number of books in order to focus more closely on the contents and motivations of the artists, including Duchamp, Art & Language, Yves Klein, Agnetti, Latham, and Robert Morris. In this respect, too, the essay departs from standard publications in the field, as it privileges the analysis of the individual book by contrasting and comparing it with the artist's overall poetics. For the purposes of investigating the concept of the book-paradigm, it becomes clear that one must focus on the artists' own motivations aimed at reformulating the conventional status of the book. Artistic experimentation thus leads to solutions that increasingly diverge from the conventional book, however varied its text and illustrations may be.

An additional theme, rarely addressed in this field, focuses on contemporary art performance dedicated to book production. Besides offering the reader an original perspective for an essay centered on the book, this approach allows the audience to follow, step by step, the reflections that guide artistic practice. The reader can thus engage with what Luigi Pareyson defines as "formativity" (formatività)—that is, the ideational and executive process usually closely guarded by the artist. Indeed, artists often limit themselves to clarifying the reasons behind the final outcome, and only sporadically dwell on the authentic creative path that underlies and generates the work.
The essay suggests important cultural links that renew, in terms of content and interpretative perspectives, the inexhaustible tapestry binding book and art together. The analysis conducted by Ciucci in Dal libro all’arte thus leads to a solid theoretical recontextualization of the book-paradigm, offering the reader an essential critical compass for navigating the most radical experimentations of the contemporary era.