Adaptation
In the same way that artists can take a familiar form - the book - and manipulate it to create something new, they can also manipulate the contents of the book - the text itself - to create a new work. Seeing a familiar title incorporated into an artist’s book can provide a reference point for the viewer within the larger artwork, while the unusual context invites fresh interpretations of the original text.
This Past Winter
Sue Huggins Leopard. This Past Winter. Rochester, N.Y.: Leopard Studio Editions, 2015.
Text includes winter-related quotations from the works of William Shakespeare, as well as articles about global warming and the artist’s own “grumblings.”
Search Results
Emily K. Larned. Search Results. [New Haven, Conn.?]: Red Charming, 2006.
“The silkscreened text is excerpted from Isaac Asimov’s ‘How did we find out about computers?’ published by Walker in 1984. The letterpress printed text is the result of searches-by-title conducted by the artist using LEO, the New York Public Library's online catalog.”--Colophon.
A Girl’s Life
Johanna Drucker & Susan Bee. A Girl’s Life. New York: Granary Books, 2002.
A collaboration between two artists that resulted in a loose adaptation of Ivanhoe in the format of a tween girls’ magazine.
Shadow of Descent
Maddy Rosenberg and Hubert Sommeraver. Shadow of Descent. [New York]: M. Rosenberg, 2003.
Intricately folded pop-up book with selected text from H.P. Lovecraft’s Pickman’s Model.
Moby-Dick: A Pop-up Book
Sam Ita. Moby-Dick: A Pop-up Book. New York, NY: Sterling Pub., c2007.
The Divine Comedy Bagel Ballet
Arnold Iger. The Divine Comedy Bagel Ballet. San Francisco, Ca.: Persona Grata Productions, Inc., 2012.
“Act one: ... immersed in a boiling watery purgatory the bagellas are cleansed of their impurities... Act Two: the descent into the inferno where the bagellas are baked to perfection... Act three: the bagellas now transformed ascend from the fiery depths of the oven to the heights of ecstasy as a toasted bagel to be enjoyed with a schmear and lox.”
Gutenberg
Edward Bateman. Gutenberg.[Salt Lake City: Book Arts Studio, 2002.]
Discs said to contain: The Odyssey, The New Testament, Tao Te Ching, The Canterbury Tales, Huckleberry Finn, A Tale of Two Cities, The Tempest, Pride and Prejudice, and Hamlet.