Art Library hosted the first event in a new series of programs called the Artists’ Books Show-and-Tell. On the second Tuesday of each month, students can drop by the CWAL and browse a new collection of art books curated by Art Librarian Eugénie Fortier. This first event focused on perceptions of home: What makes a home? What memories reside in different rooms, and how do artists bind these memories into books? During the Show-and-Tell, Fortier guided students through books that explored these questions through diverse mediums.
College fourth-year Anna Wenzel attended the event upon the recommendation of a friend who works at the Art Library. She recounted her experience perusing the collection.
“There was a huge array of different books,” Wenzel said. “A lot of them were little houses. Some had little doors and windows, and a lot had cutouts in them. Some had stories, and some were just pictures.”
College fourth-year Maeve Southard-Wray described the Artists’ Books Show-and-Tell as uniquely tactile.
“The process of going through the art books feels like experiencing them as they were intended to be experienced,” she said. “Being able to touch them, turn the pages, or pull out accordion folds opened my mind more than standard printings in a museum.”
Wenzel compared the experience of flipping through art books to observing art in a museum.
“In a museum, there can be this sense of being watched or observed, even if there’s not a guard in the room or sensors in front of the pieces,” she said. “It’s a very open space. The art books were very approachable and easy to come up close to.”
Art books put in question what a book can be and do. The books in Fortier’s curation were often bound in novel ways. One book had sanded edges, whereas another was bound around its circumference so that it could never be opened. Fortier reflected on what characterizes an art book.
“The definition of an artist book is constantly evolving, but ultimately, it’s about the intent of the artist,” she said. “An artist book is anything that is a reflection on what the book is. If an artist chooses to call it an artist book, I will respect that.”
Art books can take on more traditional forms, as Wenzel noted, but they can also get strange and creative. This can pose challenges for preservation and is part of why students have such limited access to these books. Fortier brought up an example of a difficult book to preserve.
“Ben Denzer has a book called Five Ketchups, and it’s literally five packets of ketchup,” she said. “Lately, the ketchup started corroding through the foil, and so we contacted the artist. The artist was like, ‘oh, cool.’ It’s silly, but it’s these random issues that we have to think about when preserving things.”
Fortier started the Show-and-Tell series to share more of the library’s extensive collections. The CWAL has over 1,000 art books, yet students rarely get to flip through them because they cannot be borrowed like regular books.
“The only time that I get to pull out artist books is usually when we have a class visiting,” she said. “One of my projects this year is to revise the collections so that ones that are widely available can circulate to allow increased access.”
Fortier curated this exhibit based on questions that might be on the minds of many Oberlin students, who come from places all across the world.
“I chose themes that are open-ended and related to home for returning students,” she said. “You just left home, or you’re coming back home. What does that mean? How does that help you think about yourself?”
Many of the art books were created by Oberlin alumni, making the exhibit all the more relevant for current students. Southard-Wray said that the themes felt pertinent to her life, having just moved into a house with her friends.
“The collection of them together felt [like] a really nice way to start off the semester,” she said. “It feels cool to see how other people experience and think about home or how spaces can be thought about in more material forms.”
