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The livre d'artiste in Twentieth-Century France

2009; Oxford University Press; Volume: 63; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/fs/knp061

1468-2931

Elza Adamowicz,

Visual Culture and Art Theory

A recent exhibition at the British Library, Breaking the Rules (2007-08), explored early-twentieth-century avant-garde journals and books as a space of experimentation and subversion. The exhibition highlighted the creation of a new aesthetics juxtaposing visual and verbal elements, from Guillaume Apollinaire's calligrammes and Futurist poem-paintings to Dada and constructivist journals, surrealist book objects and livres d'artistes. The term livre d'artiste will be used here to designate various forms of the twentieth-century book in France as a collaboration between poets and painters or texts and images. Given the multiple origin of the livre d'artiste, critical studies are situated at the intersection of several disciplines: the history and technique of the book, art history and criticism, literary studies and semiotics. Three key issues dominate critical debate on the livre d'artiste, relating to its definition (limits and legibility) and historical development (from the livre illustre to the livre objet); its production (the material book); and its interpretation (relations between words and imagtes).