Beube's Book Art

Our winter issue features Richard Minsky's interview with book artist Doug Beube. For those intrigued by Beube's work--or book art in general--his 2011 book, Breaking the Codex, is an incredible production. A large hardcover of 220 pages, it includes 275 illustrations and longform essays by writers, scholars, curators, collectors, and fellow artists. Having had a taste of his work in the magazine, there's so much more to enjoy in this book. His 1991 altered atlas, Invisible Cities, a tribute to Italo Calvino's novel, was new to me, as were the earlier pieces that Beube collects in a final chapter: a 1979 altered comic book, early sketches for his zipper books, and his 1988 Chair of Censorship, once on the campus of Minnesota's Carleton College, which held a Russian text frozen outside so that viewers could watch its gradual thaw.

For those who enjoyed Minsky's Q&A, Judith Hoffberg's interview elaborates on many of these questions.

It was also fun to see Buzz Spector's contribution to the book, since he will be featured in our spring issue. Spelling out "Douglas Beube," Spector's poem uses each letter to list twelve books from his library. FB&C readers will get a kick out of the fact that Nick Basbanes' A Gentle Madness is there, as is Nicholson Baker's Double Fold.

To see more of Beube's work, check out this Vimeo video that was created to accompany the exhibition Rebound: Dissections and Excavation in Book Art at The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art.

Rebreaking the Codex from Halsey Institute on Vimeo.