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From the collections of: ! The Bavarian State Library, Munich ! The Museum of Applied Art, Frankfurt am Main ! mumok Museum of Modern Art, Ludwig Foundation, Vienna ! MAK Austrian Museum of Applied Arts/Contemporary Art , Vienna ! Wulf D. and Akka von Lucius, Stuttgart ! Hubert Kretschmer, Archive Artist Publications, Munich ! The Library of the University of Applied Arts, Vienna ! The Research Centre for Artists' Publications, Weserburg | Museum of Modern Art, Bremen

Official opening ceremony: Thursday, 1 May 2014, 2.00 pm, Monastery Library Duration of the exhibition: 2 May - 2 November 2014 With exhibits by: • Judith Albert • Carl Andre • Horst Antes • Ay-O • Jeffrey Balance • Oladélé Ajiboyé Bamgboyé • Fioana Banner • Judith Barry • Robert Barry • Anselm Baumann • Joseph Beuys • stanley brouwn • Wolfgang Buchta • Angela Bulloch • Chris Burden • John Cage • Philip Corner • Meg Cranston • John Crombie • Hanne Darboven • Tacita Dean • Jim Dine • Jimmie Durham • Gerhild Ebel • Tracey Emin • Oyivind Fahlström • Robert Filliou • Monique Frydman • Heinz Gappmayr • Liam Gillick • John Giorno • Reneé Green • Eugen Gomringer • Douglas Gordon • Kristjan Gudmundsson • Al Hansen • Dick Higgins • Susan Hiller • Jenny Holzer • Douglas Huebler • Jasper Johns • Gunnar A. Kaldewey • Thomas Kapielski • Allan Kaprow • Mike Kelley • Martin Kippenberger • Alison Knowles • Joseph Kosuth • Corinna Krebber • Burgi Kühnemann • Betty Leirner • Sherrie Levine • Sol LeWitt • Paul McCarthy • George Maciunas • Tracy Mackenna • Heinz Mack • Jackson Mac Low • Peter Malutzki • Christoph Mauler • Klaus Merkel • Annette Messager • Michail Molochnikov • Robert Morris • Didier Mutel • Yoko Ono • Roman Opalka • Kveta Pacovska • Nam June Paik • Simon Patterson • A.R. Penck • Guiseppe Penone • Raymond Pettibon • Elena Peytchinska • Lari Pittmann • Serge Poliakoff • Tobias Rehberger • Dieter Roth • Jerome Rothenberg • Nancy Rubins • Ed Ruscha • Juliao Sarmento • Veronika Schäpers • Barbara Schmidt-Heins • Carolee Schneemann • Jimmy Shaw • Emil Siemeister • Dayanita Singh • Daniel Spoerri • Hiroshi Sugimoto • Yun Suzuki • Miroslava Symon • Mario Terzic • Dylan Thomas • Walasse Ting • Rirkrit Tiravanija • Rosemarie Trockel • Richard Tuttle • Günther Uecker • Wolf Vostell • Herman de Vries • Andy Warhol • Robert Watts • Lawrence Weiner • Carola Willbrand • La Monte Young • Huang Yongping • Shen Yuan • Ottfried Zielke •

KÜNSTLERBÜCHER _ ARTISTS’S BOOKS International works from 1960 to today

ADMONT GUESTS 2014

List of artists may be subject to change!

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The exhibition

In this joint exhibition, eight collections based in Germany and Austria will be presenting, from their internationally orientated holdings, their selection of artists' books created in the period 1960 to today. Each collection has its own specific approach, its own individual understanding of what constitutes an artist's book, the artwork that will be brought into sharp focus in the Museum of Contemporary Art. The overarching aims are to demonstrate that artists' books are a distinctive genre with their multi-faceted forms of expression, to provide insight into this wide-ranging art form and to generate a related artistic discourse. With the arrival of Fluxus, Happenings and Concept Art on the art scene in the 1960s, artists' books became an international phenomenon that achieved worldwide recognition. This exhibition invites visitors to embark on a journey of discovery: What were artists' books like in the 1960s and 1970s? How have subsequent social changes, the accompanying technical developments and new media influenced the forms of artists' books? What options are there for creating artists' books today? This opportunity to encounter such a range of artists' books in one place will provide a unique sensory and intellectual experience. Although artists' books as objects are at the core of the exhibition, their presentation and interpretation will also be of relevance. The exhibition will employ, alongside the 'classic' display case, multidimensional forms of display that will cross spatial barriers. These unusual book forms will both beguile visitors and encourage them to practice other ways of reading and appreciating what we call a 'book'. They will enhance the perception of what a book can actually be. The museum of Admont Monastery does not own a specific collection of artists' books although several such items have been acquired as artworks over the years and have also been commissioned. These artists´ book exhibits, by artists including Wolfgang Becksteiner, Miba Eisbraun, Maria Hahnenkamp, Eva Märzendorfer, Dieter Preisl, Emil Siemeister, Robert Zahornicky, are on display in a separate area. Also to be seen at Admont is a commissioned Bible with contributions by various artists (Siegfried Anzinger, Johannes Deutsch, Franz Graf, Julie Hayward, Maria Hahnenkamp, Judith Huemer, Ulrike Lienbacher, Rudi Molacek, Lois Renner, Kurt Ryslavy, Emil Siemeister and Norbert Trummer). Michael Braunsteiner and Barbara Eisner-B., exhibition curators Contact: Michael Braunsteiner, Künstlerischer Leiter Museum Stift Admont +43 (0)664/60 353 653 michael.braunsteiner@stiftadmont.at Barbara Eisner-B., Gastkuratorin +43 (0)664/28 24 851 poesia_doku_mentale@yahoo.com

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The Bavarian State Library, Munich Béatrice Hernad, Artists' and Painters' Books Unit

The Bavarian State Library is among Europe's most important general libraries. It forms, together with the Berlin State Library and the German National Library in Frankfurt and Leipzig, what is in essence Germany's national collection of books. It is also the regional and archive library of the State of Bavaria. It boasts more than 10 million volumes and also maintains a digitalised collection; more than one million books are available online in digitalised form through its OPACplus database. Founded in 1558 by Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria, the library now has a significant holding of valuable manuscripts and rare printed works. Among these accessions are books illustrated by graphic designers and artists, including the sketchbooks of French, English and North American artists, private press books and artists' publications - in other words, artists' books, magazines and journals, limited editions and multiples, photo editions, prints and printed artworks, ephemera, artists' recordings, audio cassettes, CDs, film/video editions and multimedia editions and far more - not forgetting zines and graphic novels. This very eclectic international collection amounts to some 12,000 items that are registered in the category 'Libri selecti'. There are also related individual works registered in other categories and these extend the collection to some 13,000 titles. When it was first decided to form this collection, the bibliophile traditions that had characterised the approach of the court-sponsored library were still firmly in place. In response to the revival of book art in Britain in the late 19th century, the category 'Libri selecti' was established in 1915. Numerous books already held by the library were recategorised as 'Libri selecti'. Subsequently acquired were mainly German volumes, predominantly the productions of the Munich private presses. The collection suffered major losses when it had to be removed and was subject to looting in the Second World War. But a fresh start was made in 1958. To mark the 400th anniversary of the library's foundation, leading Bavarian businessmen provided generous donations to the library's general director to help re-establish the collection. Among other things, the focus was on acquiring German private press books, works by Expressionist artists and the sketchbooks of French artists. The next important phase of the library's development began in 1972 and this represented a very real turning point in the history of the collection. Until the mid-1990s, the library continued to systematically acquire works in all possible areas. The library was particularly keen to obtain artists' publications associated with the contemporary art movements of the late 1950s and the 1960s. And by so doing, the collection moved away from its original bibliophile, book art-orientated approach. Its main objective today is to document the entire range of contemporary productions with a particular focus on artists' publications and thus, through this selection of works, make evident the full diversity and developments in this field.

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The Museum of Applied Art, Frankfurt am Main Eva Linhart, Head of the Book Art and Graphics Department

We see ourselves as providing space for opportunities and a platform for the consideration of “what applied art was, is and can be”. The museum was founded in 1877 to acquire art and craft articles and our collection today covers handcrafted items, applied art and artworks of European and East Asian origin together with exhibits relating to international design. The museum has had a Book Art and Graphics Department since 1921. This holds the two book art collections put together by the brothers Michael and Albert Linel together with our print collection and other more recently acquired pieces dating from the Middle Ages to today. The department's holdings consist of more than 28,000 items; included are valuable hand-painted books of hours, Bibles printed at the time of the introduction of moveable type, friendship albums from three centuries of the German search for an identity, writing manuals illustrating early calligraphy, first editions and a significant number of contemporary artists' books. Our print works range from designs for use by craftsmen, ornamental etchings, documents, collages, informative works, art prints employing various techniques to posters relating primarily to the subject of “cultural communication”. We continue to add to our already extensive collection of artists' books, often with the cooperation of the artists themselves. For us, materials and manual skills only really play a role in the context of the artistic concept, meaning we acquire not only one-offs and limited edition works, but also artists' publications that are printed in larger quantities. Artists' books, a phenomenon that first appeared in the 20th century, employ all forms of typography and calligraphy and and even older traditions of book making and their techniques. Artists who produce books are able to repeatedly redefine these and their components in terms of new forms of aesthetic and artistic expression. Artists' books should be seen as a form of fine art and a way of interpreting the concepts with which art is concerned. With the advent of the modern and its rejection of genres in favour of the abandonment of artistic boundaries, books have taken on the role of being autonomous and mobile containers of artistic endeavour. The effects of all elements of a book - paper, lettering and binding - are explored by artists, thus making a book into an interaction between object, image, text, texture, sculpture and performance. Such books demand to be viewed page by page so that their size, weight, thickness and even the associated sounds can be fully appreciated. The handling of a book, the process of actually physically touching it, also determines how it is perceived and this means that a book can thus be equated with a form of performance art. And book art is essentially a performative process that requires direct involvement of the observer/reader/spectator in order to achieve consummation. The exhibitions we stage in the Museum of Applied Art take these factors into account and offset the problems associated with the need to conserve these fragile objects by means of an extensive educational programme that enables visitors to interact with and explore our holdings.

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Mumok - Museum of Modern Art, Ludwig Foundation, Vienna Simone Moser, Library Director

"It’s an artist's book if an artist made it, or if an artist says it is." (Lucy Lippard, 1985)

The mumok Museum of Modern Art, Ludwig Foundation, in Vienna collects works of art of the 20th and 21st centuries. In addition to works of major modern artists, the collection also focusses on socially-relevant artworks from the 1960s onwards and mumok holds important examples of these. The collection on permanent loan to the museum from the Ludwig Foundation has Pop Art and Photorealism as its core themes. mumok has also obtained works of the Viennese Actionists, one of the most multilayed phenomena in modern art. Moreover, the museum has been fortunate enough to acquire the Hahn collection, thus extending its holdings to include Nouveau Réalisme, Fluxus and Happenings, so that it now has representative works of all major contemporary movements. The mumok Library also holds books that correspond with the scholarly mission of the museum; predominantly collected are publications dating to the 1960s and 1970s. A significant stock of rare printed works was acquired by the museum with the accession of the private library of the art collector Wolfgang Hahn in 2006. His devotion to his collection was such that he also acquired (artists') books, catalogues and journals, together with ephemera (with artists' personal additions when possible), in order to shed further light on the works in his possession. A glance at the items kept in the special cabinet of the library will reveal just how complex the area of artists' books can be: they can take the form of individual unique productions, limited edition publications by small presses or represent a new medium of political expression. Externally, they may often seem similar to a 'normal' book but they conceal a surprising inner life within their covers: on opening, they may reveal a small exhibition in printed form, differently coloured pages of differing paper quality, text that seems to defy interpretation, blank pages employed as a design medium and inserted materials waiting to be discovered or released as a pop-up. Then there are other books that are remarkable because of their unusual format: one book may be absolutely tiny, another may need to be read back to front, while others come in rolled or box form. The artists' books of the 1960s and 1970s were, in the words of Lawrence Weiner “a way of communicating with the world”. They need to be explored not only with the intellect, but also with the senses. “Touch, feel, flick through, turn over, regard, read, think...all these activities are necessary in order to fully appreciate an artist's book or, to put it better, to experience it.”11

The irony in the case of artists' books is thus in the way they are retained out of harm's way in museums and libraries. In order to preserve them, they are stored in special cabinets or display cases, and their potential readers do not have direct access to them. In the exhibition of artists' books, it will thus only be possible to convey certain aspects of their special aura and unique complexity.

1 Sabine Röder. In: "Sand in der Vaseline, Künstlerbücher II 1980-2022I“. p. 10 , Krefeld 2002

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MAK Austrian Museum of Applied Arts/Contemporary Art, Vienna Kathrin Pokorny-Nagel, Director of the Library and Print Collection

"An artist's book is not an art book. An artist's book is not a book about art. An artist's book is itself a work of art." (FN 1)

After being approached by Rudolf von Eitelberger, the first Professor of Art History of the University of Vienna, Emperor Franz Joseph decided on 7 March 1863 to found the 'Imperial Austrian Museum of Art and Industry' based on the example of the South Kensington Museum (today the Victoria and Albert Museum) founded in 1852. The purpose of the museum was to house a collection of specimens and prototypes for the use of artists, industrialists and the general public and to serve as a training centre for designers and craftsmen. The first state-run museum of the Austrian empire thus began its success story in the form of a 'museum for everyone'. But a fundamental question needed answering immediately after the foundation of the museum: what exactly was it to put on display? As yet, the museum had neither exhibits nor a collection. So the Emperor himself acted as patron and sponsor. He wrote to aristocrats and religious institutions asking them to provide items for the new museum, and Admont Monastery was one of the first to respond, generously loaning items that particularly benefited the library. In accordance with the concept that led to its foundation, the museum began to put together a collection of all sorts of objects that would serve as exemplars of their genre. From 1863, the library and print collection (that today with its 620,000 items is the largest art library in Austria) thus began acquiring not only textbooks on art and crafts but also graphic designs, style sheets and books designed by artists. There are also collections of bookbindings, supralibri, papers, printers' devices, bookplates, writing specimens and even a collection of illuminated initials, the objective being to represent the concept 'book' in all its aspects. Hence, outstanding examples of book design have been collected as the basis of inspiration for new creations and these have been stored in a single dedicated archive since the opening of the museum building on the Stubenring in 1871. The collection includes examples of Austrian illustrative art (such as that produced by the Wiener Werkstätte), of the internationally innovative work of the Arts and Crafts Movement, of Russian Constructivism and, as far as the financial resources of the museum allow, the collection is continuously supplemented with contemporary artists' books. This process is characterised by the subjective perception of book art of each curator and the different approaches to interpretation of the genre of artists' books. Our current focus is on the concept of 'artists' books and artworks' and we are concentrating on acquiring illustrated concept books, through avant-garde works of poetry to those works that serve as pure objects. Artists take diverse and very different directions when it comes to dealing with the book as medium; the design is usually distinctive from that of the mass-printed article, not only in terms of the complex printing techniques employed, but also with regard to the use of (often) unusual materials, binding forms and dimensions . However, the objective in all cases is to establish a special rapport between object and reader/viewer that it is rarely possible to achieve in this form through any other vehicle. Artists working in different mediums can exploit the characteristics specific of books to express an individual and personal approach to relating images to each other and/or to text. This approach to book art is not simply restricted to traditional forms and techniques; it treats the book as a project in progress that with each new form initiates challenges that require debate. In our era dominated by digital media, the book has thus found a role as a platform for experimentation with new design concepts.

FN 1: Schraenen, Guy: quote., 1977, in: Bartowiak, Heinz Stefan: Bartkowiaks forum book art: Kompendium zeitgenössischer Handpressendrucke, Malerbücher, Künstlerbücher, Einblattdrucke, Mappenwerke und Buchobjekte. 21st edition, Hamburg 2004, p. 428.

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The collection of Wulf D. und Akka von Lucius, Stuttgart Wulf D. and Akka von Lucius

Those who are interested in both literature and the modern visual arts will, sooner or later, discover the genre of Livre de Peintre, Künstlerbuch, artists' books; here, these two fields not only come together, but also interact symbiotically with each other. Images add to the text while the text supplements the images; neither is there to serve the other, but both belong together. It is unsurprising that in the case of many artists' books, the writer and painter are not only acquainted but know each other intimately; it often takes years for the processes needed to produce such works to mature. This form of work represents a genuine and significant contribution of the 20th century to the world of books; because it combines two artistic disciplines it occupies the middle ground between the institutions that are the traditional guardians of these - libraries of text and museums of images and sculpture. But there are only few libraries that systematically collect artists' books and there are even fewer art museums that do so. This is primarily the hunting ground of the private collector who is particularly attracted to these works because of the way they combine these two areas. For over 30 years, we have been investing increasing efforts in the acquirement of these books in which images and texts are involved in a discourse. We do not collect them as merely decorative items but because of their context; they reveal the artistic movements of their time. Our collection predominantly consists of works that appeared during our lifetimes, i.e. post 1965 - although we greatly admire the first generation of artists' books produced by the École de Paris - while our new acquisitions show us the way that concepts within art are developing. As collectors, we encounter works of the past (to which those of the École de Paris belong - none of the involved artists is still alive) and of the active production of the present day. As a result, there is a tension between the near and the distant in our collection. We would feel we were lacking something if we did not interact with living artists and engage with artistic creations of the contemporary world, but at the same time we need the calm afforded by the older works as a counterbalance. The selected exhibits are intended to illustrate the range of our collecting interests - from textless sketchbooks (that still manage to tell a story) to artistically/typographically transformed texts and even cryptography-related works that contain text that is designed to conceal its meaning. What all these variants have in common is an underlying design concept that provides for the sequential 'reading' of their contents – usually in the form of double page spreads. In contrast with those to be seen on the walls of museums, the images are also subject to this sequential design principle and the reader (viewer) thus not only sees the images but also the text from a new perspective thanks to the way these provide the contents with a rhythmic structure. It is our aim to build up a collection that reflects as far as possible the very different approaches used to create this image/text partnership and that documents current developments on the art scene. On display here is a small selection of the more characteristic works.

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Hubert Kretschmer Collection, Archive Artist Publications, Munich Hubert Kretschmer

Books, regarded as autonomous space-time sequences, offer an alternative to all existent literary genres. * WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT? ARTIST'S BOOKS - a term that may seem to be self-evident, but it turns out that it is a blanket term that covers an astonishing diversity in terms of content and form. I have been fascinated by this term since the late 1970s but have yet to find someone who can adequately explain what it means. And so all I can do is quote Lucy Lippard's definition: "It's an artist's book if an artist made it, or if an artist says it is." To which I would like to add: "An artist's book is a book by an artist but a question mark remains." And why would anyone want to collect this sort of thing? WHEN DID IT START? Shortly after the collector Rolf Dittmar had introduced the wider public to the concept of the artist's book at documenta 6 in 1977, I was commissioned by the Produzentengalerie in Munich to prepare a three-part exhibition from an artist's point of view. The extraordinary range of this new medium was apparent even then, but a simple classification system provided for an overview: 1. Printed artists' books 2. Objects as books 3. Books as objects. I subsequently began to be mainly interested in the first category, and then, a little later in the second category. I formed my publishing company in 1980 and was later distributing art publications under more than 2000 titles. This provided the basis for the archive. WHAT DOES IT CONTAIN? Books and journals issued by artists constitute some 20% of the archive; the larger proportion is grey literature (which is largely ignored by the public collections) and there are also multiples, posters, invitations, various audio recordings, photocopies, postage stamps, videos, zines, CDs, suppliers' lists, magazines, websites, secondary literature, correspondence and exhibition catalogues, all of which are evidence of the art movements of the last 40 years - the by-products of Fluxus, Happenings and Action art, Mail art, Stamp art, the 'Neue Wilde', concrete and visual poetry, Concept art, Appropriation art, Copy art and zines to today's artistic print output. More than 11,000 items can be viewed through a publicly accessible database. Artists' statements, an events diary, an extensive range of links, a suggested reading list and a spirited blog supplement the website. Items from the collection have been displayed at more than 70 exhibitions, fairs and events to date. WHO DOES THIS SORT OF THING? Hubert Kretschmer is a Munich-based artist, publisher, teacher, curator and collector. In the new art, every book requires a different reading.* * Quotations from The New Art of Making Books by Ulises Carrión, translated into German by Hubert Kretschmer, Darmstadt 1982, making possible participatory interaction with books as objects.

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The Library of the University of Applied Arts, Vienna Gabriele Jurjevec-Koller, Director

The Library of the University of Applied Arts in Vienna has been collecting artists' books since 1994. Our holdings, put together in a special study collection, currently comprise (March 2014) some 4000 works and 200 artists' journals of which some 1000 have been produced by female artists. This is not designed to be a museum collection but is intended to be a compilation of exemplars of the various diverse styles, a resource providing illustrative material for students and teachers that can be directly accessed and used as a source of inspiration for their artistic endeavours. The criteria we apply to collecting and the artists' book categories that interest us are thus correspondingly widely defined; we look for the use of unusual materials, design in the form of objects, use of special printing techniques, signed and numbered special editions with inserts, hand-printed works and digital photocopies in limited editions, drawn or painted unique works and cheap mass-produced items, illustrated books and leporellos or concertina books. The only mandatory requirement is that there must be a definite artistic intention behind the creation of the book, irrespective of whether it comes in the form of an object, documentation, catalogue or other guise. In our collection, there is an emphasis on the kind of artists' books that have been produced since the 1960s in association with Concept art, Fluxus and concrete poetry. We hold several of the major works that appeared in the 1960s. There are some 14 titles produced by Ed Ruscha (including Every building on the Sunset Strip) and 8 of the works of Lawrence Weiner (with Statements), together with Andy Warhol's Index(Book) and Claes Oldenburg's Store days. Among the 'incunabula' dating to the 1970s are Dan Graham's Two Parallel Essays, John Baldessari's Ingres and Other Parables, Gordon Matta-Clark's Splitting, Sol LeWitt's serial projects and Dieter Roth's Gesammelte Werke (complete works) . Fluxus is represented in the form of works by Emmett Williams, Robert Filliou, George Brecht and Yoko Ono, among others. The Concept art of the 1980s is exemplified by works such as General Idea's The Getting into the Spirits Cocktail Book, Heinz Gappmayr's Raum and books by Lothar Baumgarten. Unique individual binding design and small print-runs characterise several projects, such as the works of the Transavantgarde artists and Daniel Spoerri's lambskin-binding for Lupanar by Freddy de Vree. The artists' books of the 1990s take a more 'simplified' approach, as demonstrated by the works by Christian Boltanski, Fischli & Weiss and Rosemarie Trockel.

In 1993, the museum began to build up a collection of 'female-specific literature', which has been digitalised and is now available as a virtual library. This aspect thus represents a further focus within our collection. In the exhibits we have selected for display here, the spotlight is on books produced by women. The starting point is the reference work by Cornelia Lauf and Clive Phillpot: Artist/Author, Contemporary Artists‘ Books, which is dedicated to Martin Kippenberger. The remarkable design concept employed by Renée Green has made this into an female artists' book about artists' books.

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The Research Centre for Artists' Publications, Weserburg | Museum of Modern Art, Bremen Anne Thurmann-Jajes, Director | Bettina Brach, Curator

The Research Centre for Artists' Publications was founded in 1999. Its purpose is to collect artists' publications issued since the 1950s and to research, inform about and preserve these for future generations. It is located, rather like a 'museum within the museum', in the Weserburg | Museum of Modern Art and is financed by both the University of Bremen and the Weserburg Museum. Exhibitions, publications, conferences and events are used to ensure that the diversity of artists' publications is made known to the wider public. The term 'artists' publications' covers all forms of published artworks. It includes all works produced by artists that are duplicated, distributed or published. Artists' publications thus also function as a medium of information and communication. The publication of artworks provides the alternative art scene with the opportunity to form international networks in defiance of political barriers. The holdings of the Research Centre for Artists' Publications are unique in terms of their extent and diversity. At its core is the original Archive for Small Press & Communication formed by Anne Marsily and Guy Schraenen in 1974 that was acquired by the centre in 1999. With its more than 50 archives, bequests, funds and collections, the centre now houses more than 200,000 publications by more than 3000 artists from around the world. These works are arranged in 17 different categories - from artists' books to multimedia editions, from prints to artists' recordings, from artist-designed postage stamps to an installation consisting of 16,000 audio cassettes. The artworks published by Joseph Bueys and Andy Warhol, Hanne Darboven and the Guerrilla Girls clearly betray their origin in movements such as Fluxus, Concept art, Pop art and experimental poetry. Artists' books represent a significant proportion of our collection. Starting in the late 1950s, the artist's book has developed into a separate artistic medium that plays an important role with regard to democratisation and communication. No longer simply a vehicle for text and images, the book as such has been transformed into an autonomous artwork. Simple in form, relatively inexpensive to produce and easy to distribute, artists' books provide the general public with the opportunity of encountering contemporary art outside the context of museums and galleries. The interaction with a book as an artwork takes a very direct, individual form. The reading viewer quite literally has the artwork in their own hands and can explore it page after page at their own pace. The artists' books that we have selected for display in the exhibition at Admont Monastery are characterised by the theme 'Space and Time' to reflect the words of Ulises Carrión, who provided the following definition in his essay The New Art of Making Books that originally appeared in Spanish in 1975: "A book is a space-time sequence."