Clive Phillpot
from Printed Matter 1996 Catalog
It is possible that if Lucy Lippard and Sol LeWitt had not dreamed up the idea of Printed Matter, the landscape of cheap artist books would be very different today.
When Art Metropole, Printed Matter, and Other Books and So were founded in the seventies, it seemed as if we were witnessing a real breakthrough in the production of cheap art in the book form and the exposure of books and magazines by artists.
These little booklets, and some of the magazines, were a spin-off from conceptual art, land art, visual poetry, performance art, video art – the relatively de-materialized art forms of the time – even though there had been a less conspicuous tradition of artist-involvement with publications before this time. (It is said that the first artist magazine was The Germ, begun in England by the Pre-Raphaelites in 1850!) Artist publications achieved equal time with other, more museological, artworks for a change.
Echoing the concurrent regressive trend in Western politics, the eighties saw a swing back to more Neanderthal types of publications, such as unique books, often conspicuous in both their craft and their lack of content. Even so, cheap multiple artist books – and Printed Matter – thrived until the recession late in the decade.
Because the Printed Matter bookstore strove, and was able, to keep its doors open, unpretentious, cheap (and cheap to make) artist books had somewhere to go, and be seen, and be publicized abroad; the Printed Matter catalogs were important in this respect too. Of course, Printed Matter was not alone in this effort, but it was probably the most significant place to sell and distribute artist books and magazines.
Today the climate and the market, or at least the hype, for luxury books (livres de peintre, etc.) and for arty-crafty unique books seems to be as buoyant as ever, while cheap artist books continue on, perhaps less effervescent than in the seventies. Although, as if in compensation, another form, the museum and gallery exhibition catalog as hybrid – or full – artist book, seems to have become well established.
Cheap books as artworks continue to be only one of the strands in the skein that is artist books, for most artist books convey information or experiences, or attack issues, just like books or other groups. (Can no-one conjure up a decent alternative for the term "artist/s books," whereby such books are not defined by profession!) But the traffic of books and people through the doors of the Printed Matter bookstore confirms that a focus/locus (no hocus pocus) for what artists think about art, politics, life, the universe, and everything, is still actively appreciated and used – as is a place for artworks in book form.
Had this brain child of writer and artist not become established (and recognized by the state and union as regularly deserving of tax dollars) it is hard to think how one could have discovered and located more than a tiny fraction of the artists and publications that cohered around Printed Matter, given that our contemporary electronic technologies were not then as widely available as they are today. Sidestepping the discussion of whether electronic texts can be "books," electronic distribution and purchase are almost inevitable, but the store will surely continue to be around to satisfy the need for that sensual flip through a new book, and for knowledgeable and welcoming staff.
London, England, October 1995