With ART IN BOOKFORM OF LAWRENCE WEINER 1973/2021 Gabriele Detterer delves into her library and her collection of artist’s books, catalogues, posters, exhibition announcements and ephemera created by Lawrence Weiner. The book with its concise cover design made by Lawrence Weiner invites the reader/viewer to participate in the ingenious imagination and determination of one of the leading figures of Conceptual art. He catapulted the printed book as a conveyor for conceptual ideas to a larger audience. .
One motive that prompted Gabriele Detterer to revisit her own collection was the fact that she was moving house and therefore had to pack her books. The act of unpacking reinforced her delight of experiencing the tactile and visual qualities of Lawrence Weiner’s art in bookform.
Embedded in the story of her passion for collecting are the author’s encounters with the artist, which reveal the background to Lawrence Weiner’s bookmaking. The book includes twenty-three photographs by Laura J. Padgett that open and unfold a number of works from the collection.
Concept and texts: Gabriele Detterer / Book cover: Lawrence Weiner, February 2021/ Photographs: Laura J. Padgett / Graphic design: Matteo Moretti.
Language: English, 64 pages, 17,5 × 19 cm. Edition of 500 copies. Printing and binding: Pattern, Foligno, Italy, 2024.
Distribution: a+mbookstore, Milano/Art Metropole, Toronto / Printed Matter, New York/ Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln
Gabriele Detterer publishes on contemporary art and architecture. She contributes to periodicals, newspapers, art catalogues. She edited the books Art Recollection. Artists’ Interviews and Statements in the Nineties, Danilo Montanari & Zona Archives Editori, 1997, and together with Maurizio Nannucci, Artist-Run Spaces. Nonprofit Collective Organizations in the 1960s and 1970s, JRP Ringier & Les Presses du Reel, 2012.
Laura J. Padgett works in the media photography and film, with a strong regard for the written word.
Zona Archives editions have its origins in Zona, the nonprofit artist-run space which was founded in Florence in 1974 by a collective of like-minded artists. After closure in 1985 Zona Archives has continued publishing editions and multiples until today.