La définition russe de l ’objet-livre : un terme global et mondialisant.
Pour
tous parler le même langage et de la même chose…
(Quelqu’un peut-il traduire ce terme en anglais et en français ?me les
acheminer à lerelieurfou@hotmail.com )(merci)

« kniga hudozhnika»
The russian term : «kniga hudozhnika» is the translation both of the French phrase
«livre d’artiste» and the English «artist’s book». However, these phrases arte not absolute
synonyms. The French term appeared at the beginning of the century and denotes the
tradition of collectioner’s editions originating from Vollare’s publishing activities. Such
artists as Harpe, Miro, Picasso and Matisse worked in the genre of «livre d’artiste». The
«artist book» is a much younger term, it appeared in the middle of the 1970s, when a wave
of minor exhibitions devoted to artists’ experiments in the book form rolled over US
universities and museums. The Russian term «kniga hudozhnika», does not only embrace
both the notions, but also lays claim on something bigger : it means also the books of
Russian futurism, typed collections of «samizdat» and post-conceptualist creativity of
Russian artists. This a ll-embracing c haracter of the t erm is even harmful, since too
different things appear to come togheter : unique luxurious editions neighbor upon poor
notebooks padded of rice-paper, lithographic books painted by hand stand side by side with
objects made of paper and paperboard, and sometimes even of other, normally «not-book»
materials. « K niga h udozhnika» i s not r eally a t erm of art c riticism ; r ather t han t hat it is a
metaphor u sed to d escribe the p henomenom, w ich does not have a w ell-defined place in
the a rtistic situation.
Tales of artists. A hybrid oa a narrative and an object, Anna Chudetskaya.
Source :
http : //www.dirizhabl.sandy.ru/artistbook/Prague99/en/chude.asp(deadlink)
– Tales of artist from the East, the book as a project. Russian and Ukraine Artist’s
book exhibition : Prague – Nizhny Novgorod – Moscow, 1999.