Forms, Strategies and Contexts of Publishing in Modern and Contemporary Art Practice (1960s to the present day)

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The shift to language-based art practice and its particular interrogation of editorial strategies and publishing formats, acrossprint and increasingly digital platforms, has been a central preoccupation within modern art critical and historical discoursesince the 1960s. This has also provided an essential context for some of the most interesting international contemporarypractices of today. By their very nature, these practices straddle the disciplinary divisions of art and editorial design and areable to use the activities of publishing and distribution to ignore traditional geographical and cultural separations. Inresponse to this phenomenon, art institutions have had to assimilate new concepts and revise their conventionalclassifications, structures and methodologies. These are evidenced in new modes of contemporary curation and newmethods of display, archiving, cataloguing, editing and distribution.Tate Library recognizes that new research is key to the development of accurate revisions to its own current classificationsand methodologies in the area. Its initiation of a specific partnership with the Department of Typography & GraphicCommunication at the University of Reading is in response to this identified need. This Department has a world-leadingreputation for collections-based research and internationally recognized expertise in the area of artist publications. Throughcross-institutional supervision and unique access to Tate Library's collection, this partnership will facilitate the developmentof a much more comprehensive account of these works than currently exists in published academic literature, which willhave the potential to feed directly into the organization and growth of Tate Library's collection and archive.Aims and objectivesThrough close examination of key examples in Tate Library's Artist Book Collection and other holdings, the proposed thesiswill address research questions that aim to provide a more informed discussion of the particular design and editorialfeatures of important published works dating from the art historical periods of fluxus, pop and conceptual art (c.1960-1975).The thesis will aim to produce a rigorous account of the ways in which these works can inform readings of contemporarypublishing practices, which continue to be appropriated today in (and as) works of art. Through the development of aframework for cross-articulation between print and digitally published works, the thesis will provide a means through whichto incorporate accurately and rigorously new acquisitions into the Library's collection, as well as enhancing and expandingcurrent readings of the existing collection of artist books.Potential applications and benefitsThis research will respond to Tate Library's important strategic objective to revise the classifications, structures andmethodologies surrounding its Artist Book collection. The student's work will be both crucial and transformative in helpingTate to meet this objective by its specific identification and articulation of important works within the collection and its criticalexamination of the shifts these works have necessitated in new modes of curation and methods of display, archiving,cataloguing, editing and distribution. The research will contribute to Tate Library's aim to use collections-related research toenhance collection knowledge and interpretation for a broad audience. In particular, as the Library's first studentship award,this opportunity will provide the essential academic framework needed to inform Tate Library's on going acquisitions in thisarea as well as underpinning its objectives for the provision of greater physical, intellectual and virtual access to the collection.