◦ Throughout September:

Streaming exhibition from the archive at vsw.org

◦ Independent Publishing Panel Discussion:

Now streaming on Vimeo

  • Monochrome image of several books on a surface.
    From Options in Independent Art Publishing Conference Brochure (1979)
  • A Serious Concern:
    The Options in Independent Art Publishing Conference 

    The medium of the book is rapidly gaining recognition as a serious concern in contemporary art. Hundreds of artists all over the world are becoming involved in independent publishing

    – From the Options in Independent Art Publishing conference brochure

    The Options in Independent Art Publishing conference took place November 6th-10th, 1979 in two stone buildings on the historic campus of Visual Studies Workshop. Over 150 people from North America, South America and Europe attended this well-organized symposium, which included a book fair, exhibitions of artists’ books (including an “exploded” wall version of Syl Labrot’s Pleasure Beach), archive tours, parties, performances and opportunities for attendees to explore exhibits at the nearby George Eastman Museum and Memorial Art Gallery. A daily “bag lunch” prepared by Susan Plunkett, owner of Rochester’s counter-culture establishment, Snake Sisters, was offered to attendees for a modest fee of $3.50. The conference was chiefly organized by Don Russell, who had been part of VSW’s Book Bus project from 1976-77. Lucinda Furlong, who wrote for Afterimage and later became assistant curator of the Film and Video Department at the Whitney Museum, assisted with conference communications and administration. 

    VSW Press was established by Joan Lyons in 1971, and by 1979 had published over 175 books with more than 100 artists. This robust publishing activity made VSW a vital part of the emerging field of artists’ books, and created strong relationships with a diverse network of individuals and independent publishers who were passionate about the history and future of the field. While working with Helen Brunner and Bob Bretz in the VSW research center, Russell recognized an opportunity for VSW to use its connections and resources to invite a dynamic group of speakers, scholars, historians and artists to gather in Rochester to share their experiences in the field of independent art publishing. The OIAP conference provided a community of engaged practitioners a much-needed reason to gather, exchange ideas, and connect their efforts to create a vibrant ecosystem in which artists’ books could thrive. True to its vision, the OIAP conference created a forum for exploring a wide variety of obstacles, examples and issues within the field of independent publishing, and to celebrate the interrelation of artists, scholars and publishers who saw the book as “a serious concern in contemporary art.” While the atmosphere of the conference was largely conversational, an undercurrent of urgency can be heard in the panel discussions and questions from the audience, and seen in the intensity of the interactions among attendees recorded in the video footage. 

    Forty five years later, the tradition of artist book publishing lives on, thanks in great part to the work of the participants who attended the OIAP conference. VSW Press continues to publish artists’ books, and maintains the Joan Lyons Independent Press Archive, which holds over 6,000 volumes of books made by artists. Many of the books discussed and exhibited at the OIAP conference can be found in the archives of Visual Studies Workshop and, like all of our collections, are available to the public for research and exploration.

    This online exhibition showcases archival selections from the OIAP conference, including a gallery of images and ephemera, a playlist of the near-complete audio recordings of each featured speaker, and a selection of video interviews and excerpts captured during the conference. The audio and video recordings of the OIAP conference in this exhibition come from VSW’s Moving Image Archive, and were digitized in our on-site Media Transfer Lab. A finding aid of all the OIAP collection materials can be found here. To revisit the many issues discussed in these recordings through a contemporary lens, we are hosting a conversation on September 19th with a panel of artists, critics and publishers, including conference organizer Don Russell, VSW Press founder Joan Lyons, D.A.P. Director of Artbook Retail Skúta Helgason, and Megan N. Liberty, Art Book editor for the Brooklyn Rail.  

    We are deeply grateful to Don Russell for not only organizing this conference, but for having the foresight to record it for future study. We hope you enjoy this archival exhibition, and that it might inspire an interest in the expansive possibilities – and challenges – of publishing artists’ books. Long live independent publishing!

    – Tara Merenda Nelson, VSW Curator and Managing Editor, VSW Press

  • The VSW Salon is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts and by the ArtWorks program of the National Endowment for the Arts.