Building on Arnolfini’s recent approach to more experimental formats, this exhibition uses a specific tendency in artists’ books to generate an energetic series of events and activity. Focussing on books that either offer sets of instructions or are derived from instructions – the books unsettle the ususal distinctions between writers and readers, artists and audiences, and act as prompts to go beyond the conventions of reading.
Partly drawing from Arnolfini’s archive, which includes several hundred artists’ books – many dating from the 1960s and 1970s, and from the artist book collection at the University of the West of England, the exhibition presents a whole range of publications by renowned and emerging artists including: Angela Bulloch, Sophie Calle, Melanie Carvalho, Don Celender, Douglas Huebler, Boem Kim, Alison Knowles, Jonathon Monk, Ed Ruscha and Lawrence Weiner amongst others.
