The collection of artists’ books of the Serralves Museum, curated by Guy Schraenen until his death in 2018, is one of the leading collections in Europe. Represented are all types and tendencies of this art genre, which emerged in the late 1950s when artists invented the concept of the ‘artist’s book’, a new and revolutionary way of dealing with the space of the book and with the diffusion of ideas and works.

On the occasion of its twentieth anniversary, the three-chapter exhibition Game, Set, Match will present major publications by visual artists of all horizons. It will highlight three main investigative fields within the universe of artists’ books: while chapter one deals with the tautological notion of the artist’s book as book, chapter two reflects on the book as an artwork in its own right, equivalent to a painting or a sculpture; chapter three focuses on works that exist at the interface between book and object. Altogether, the presented works are examples of how artists metamorphose the ordinary aspects of the book. Rather than destroying its ideas, they give new life and perspectives to it.

On occasion the opening, Ricardo Nicola, curator of the Museum Serralves, hosted a conversation between João Fernandes, deputy director of the Museum Reina Sofía Madrid and Maike Aden, curator of the exhibition.

Künstlerbücher werden nie zu den glamourösen Statussymbolen der prestige- und kapitalträchtigen Kunstszenen gehören. Ihre Untauglichkeit als exklusive Sammlertrophäe ist es, die ihnen den Status eines Kunstphänomens mit subversivem, widerständigem Touch eingebracht haben. So missverständlich, unscharf und vielleicht auch bequem diese Zuschreibung auch ist, eines hat sie zumindest bewirkt: sie hat dem Künstlerbuch - zumindest unter jenen Kunstakteuren, die sich eine Alternative zur herkömmlichen Kunstwelt der Superreichen und -mächtigen wünschen - eine beträchtliche Konjunktur beschert. So erfreulich es auch ist, dass diese vom Kunstbetrieb lange vernachlässigte Gattung endlich eine gewisse Aufmerksamkeit erfährt, um so herausfordernder ist es allerdings, die vielfältigen Phänomene und Konzepte des Künstlerbuchs sachgerecht in Ausstellungen zu vermitteln. Denn das Buch an sich hat keinen musealen Ausstellungswert. Wird es allein als zu besichtigendes Objekt dargeboten, bleibt es abwesend. Erst wenn man es betastet, aufschlägt und darin blättert kann es lebendig werden. 

The exhibition brings together hundreds of vinyl records, covers, objects and graphic works, created by visual artists as well as by poets and some musicians. The works belong to the internationally most important and most comprehensive collection on Sound Art, the Sound Collection Guy Schraenen, which is part of his Archive for Small Press & Communication, now held by the Centre for Artists’ Publications at the Museum Weserburg Bremen, Germany. The show is divided into various sections that range from the avant-garde movements of the beginning of the 20th century such as Dadaism and Futurism, to sound experiments after 1945 by the Lettrists, Sound Poets, Beat Generation, Fluxus, Zaj, Conceptual Art. Presented are also groups of records by artists such as Jean Dubuffet, Dieter Roth, Joseph Beuys, John Giorno, William Burroughs, Roman Opalka, Hermann Nitsch, Hanne Darboven, Allen Ginsberg, Laurie Anderson, as well as singular works by Yves Klein, Tom Wesselmann or Karel Appel. The relationship between visual arts and rock and pop music is highlighted with the records of the Rolling Stones, Velvet Underground or the Beatles, but also more recent groups such as Kraftwerk, Black Flag or Sonic Youth; artists such as Andy Warhol, Robert Franck, Peter Blake or Raymond Pettibon have transformed them into icons.

A listening table, specially designed for this exhibition, allows visitors to access sound samples by almost all works of the collection.

Furthermore is presented a selection of music clips by artists. Chosen are works by visual artists who have found a freedom of creation in this short format which allows them to mix provocations, humour or diversions while echoing our time.

In a specially arranged movie space, the public can also watch the documentary Vinylmania which leads through the fascinating facets of the vinyl record. Enthusiastic collectors, DJs, musicians and artists all over the world can be met. Guy Schraenen speaks about his passion for records and covers by artists.

Curators: Sylvie Zavatta (for the part "Clips by Artists"); Maike Aden (for the part "Sound Collection Guy Schraenen").

Link to the collection:
Sound Collection Guy Schraenen including artist biographies, a glossary and hundreds of sound samples

Artists’ books and all kind of artists’ publications are an increasing collection field of museum collections, museum libraries, documentation centres, archives, collections. The unique and unconventional features of these published works of art pose major challenges regarding their classification, recording, placement, and relocation. Until today, the usual database systems are not satisfactorily adapted to this genre of art. The Artists' Publication Keyword Directory provides. Based on the professional expertise of decade-long collecting and curating, the Artists' Publication Keyword Directory provides unambiguous, consistent and comprehensive cataloguing standards that are especially applied for the diversity and complexity of artists’ publications. The question in the foreground is the user who needs an effective search tool in hands for the retrieval of a work. To meet this objective, the directory is conceived as a glossary which provides both the definitions of the technical vocabulary and a concrete system for cataloguers to classify and record artists’ publications in their specific aspects as precise and straightforward possible. Its system of non-hierarchical groups of a standardized vocabulary provides a practical guideline to set up an online database which ensures, above all, access to the treasures of this genre of art which would otherwise stay undiscovered in well-protecting, acid free boxes on extensive shelves in filing cabinets of carefully tempered and ventilated archive cellars and library stacks.

Initiator of the project: Guy Schraenen

Scientific development and elaboration: Maike Aden

ARTISTS' BOOKS OF THE INTERNATIONAL POST-1960s AVANT GARDE

Universität Osnabrück in Kooperation mit dem A.S.P.C. im Zentrum für Künstlerpublikationen Bremen, Sommersemester 2015

BOOK AS ARTWORK

Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte München, 09.10.2014

ARTISTS' BOOKS WITHIN THE COLLECTION OF THE MUSEUM SERRALVES IN PORTO

Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Porto in cooperation with the Museum Serralves Porto, Summer semester 2014

ARTISTS' BOOKS IN PRIVATE AND PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Institut für Kunst und Kunsttheorie der Universität Köln in Kooperation mit dem Künstlerbuchsammler Walther König und der Sammlung Buchkunst in der Kunst- und Museumsbibliothek Köln, Sommersemester 2013

The exhaustive survey Vinyl. Records and Covers by Artists presents sound and art works by visual artists as well as by musicians and poets of the twentieth century. The exhibition provides all kinds of formats and media, located at the interface between visual and audible components. It represents the visual and sonant facets of artists' records and other froms of supports from the early avant-garde movements such as Futurism , Constructivism and Dadaism on, the new deveopments by the Lettrists and the Sound Poets until the manifold experiemnts during the main phase of Sound art in the sixties uand seventies all the way to today’s trends. A selection of 300 avant-garde records can be listened to on the sound station in the exhibition.

The accompanying programme of the extensive Sound Art Project, organized on occasion of this exhibition, presents the cross-border activities in the area of art, music, literature and film since the 1960s.

It consists of:

• 14 Sound art concerts of artists including (a.o.) Dmitri Prigov, Sven-Ake Johansson, Sten Hansen, Carsten Nicolai

• An international conference : "Sound Art Between Avant-garde and Pop Culture" (30 Sept.–2 Oct. 2005)

• A Sound Art Cinema Week (2–6 Nov. 2005)

• An international Sound art fair with publishers and antiquarians, specialised in Sound art (30 Sept.–2 Oct. 2005)