Arnaud Desjardin:
For Comma 38, artist and publisher Arnaud Desjardin will exhibit new, old, rare, and popular books while running an active printing press in Bloomberg Space. His COMMA commission, part of an ongoing project titled The Book on Books on Artists' Books, is intended to create an active and participatory review of current and historical practice. This exhibition is about both the display of books on artists' books and the production of a book about the books displayed. He intends to print a first edition, a book of books, a critical anthology and source book, in which a large range of books on artists' books will be displayed in a series of vitrines.
Artists' books have normally been sold and distributed through small networks of bookshops and galleries that often produce lists of available titles in printed form. The advent of the Internet has meant that information online has changed the nature of this documentary evidence. Desjardin's unique and extraordinary combination of display and production makes an exhibition that actively engages in both the making and disseminating in real time. The books themselves become both vehicles for information and documents that testify for artistic activity in its own right.
