Artists' books' extreme emphasis on formal qualities tend to isolate one or another of those meanings and metaphorically punctuate them. The complex work is comprised of images of foreign stamps packed in tiny suitcases or riding on a little flatbed cart. Used not just as a means of escape, the best sorts of books transport us intellectually and emotionally to lands far away. It is not outlandish to speculate that, when reading, part of you is actually occupying some other space. In 1st Class , the form of the book is its content.
Books are vehicles.
African Proverbs , a book by Amos Kennedy, presents the idea of books as totems, as the symbolic repositories of wisdom and history. The book takes the form of a charm bracelet, and each charm holds the text of an adage. And that preservation is the basic building block of cultural stability. There are other aspects of books in the show. There are art journals, subtle and private, by William Budelman and Anne Kingsbury.