Typologising the artist’s book

Over the past thirty years, the artist’s book has inspired comment from critics of disparate disciplines from writers on art, bibliography and librarianship, all keen to bring the artist’s book under the writer’s explanatory gaze and assimilate it into critical discourse. As a cross-disciplinary field of activity, it is thus open to constant reconfiguration from the respective voices of the practitioner, the critic, the librarian and the bibliographer. The definitions and categorisations offered by these writers often belie their respective dispositions, their training and the expectations of the audiences for whom they write.