In her artist statement, Candace acknowledges the impossibility of originality. And she says that her interest in books stems from their inherent unity of text and image, “which lends books continued relevance as a trans-media hybrid.”
Artist’s books are simply works of art realized in the form of a book. They are often published in small editions, though sometimes they are produced as one-of-a-kind objects referred to as “uniques.” Artist’s books have employed a wide range of forms, including scrolls, fold-outs, concertinas, or loose items contained in a box as well as bound and printed sheets. Artists have been active in printing and book production for centuries, but the artist’s book is primarily a late 20th century form.
American artist, and highly regarded avant garde poet, Richard Kostelanetz, who is often credited with coining the term post-post modernism, discusses book art on his website in a treatise written in 1985. (Click on his name to visit an article in Scientific American about the art of Kostelanetz.) He says, “The book artist usually controls not just what will fill the pages but how they will be designed and produced and then bound and covered, and the book artist often becomes its publisher and distributor too, eliminating middle-men all along the line and perhaps creatively reconsidering their functions as well.” (Kostelantetz is a prolific writer whose work appeared in the first issue of The Journal of the Image Warehouse a decade ago. This issue is housed in his personal archives at NYU.)
Candace Hicks’ books are in many prestigious collections. These are only a few: Yale University; Deutsche National Bibliotek; Swarthmore College; Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco; University of Virginia; Stanford University; Brown University; New York University; Austin College; UC Irvine; Dartmouth College; and last but definitely not least, the Museum of Modern Art in New York. (For a more complete list of the collections Candace's work inhabits, and to see several examples of her books, click HERE.
I will close today with a slideshow of visual poetry by the aforementioned Richard Kostelanetz and an observation by Hemingway: