The Book Lovers

Ensemble

The Book Lovers is a research project on the phenomenon of artist's novels curated by David Maroto and Joanna Zielińska. The central question is whether a literary genre like the novel can be considered a medium in its own right within the visual arts, as video or installation could be. There have been artists throughout the 20th century who wrote novels as an activity more or less detached from their visual art production. However, in recent years an increasing number of artists have begun to integrate their novels as a fundamental part of their visual art projects. Surprisingly, there is a lack of research on this subject. This circumstance gives rise to a situation in which artists who write novels are not aware of others doing the same. With The Book Lovers we are intending to create public awareness of this silently widespread artistic trend. The project develops in a number of different stages. Its base is the creation of a collection of artist's novels with a parallel online database, both supported by MuHKA. This is complemented with a series of exhibitions and public programmes, pop-up bookstores and a publication.

There are many ways to navigate the artist's novels database. You can start by the artist's index:

Sophia Al-Maria, Carl Andre, Alain Arias-Misson, Karin Arink, Michael Ayrton, Hugo Ball, Fiona Banner, Maria Barnas, Jennifer Bartlett, Cara Benedetto, Bernadette Corporation, The BERTY team (Angela Su et al.), Gerry Bibby, Simon Bill, Jimbo Blachly, Luther Blissett, Paul Bogaers, Maxime Bondu, Jean de Bosschère, Joe Brainard, Matthew Brannon, AA Bronson, Wojciech Bruszewski, Sophie Calle and Paul Auster, Paco Cao, Barbara Cardinale, Leonora Carrington, Brian Catling, Alex Cecchetti, Jake Chapman, Giorgio de Chirico, Billy Chyldish, Sebastian Cichocki, Guy de Cointet, David Colosi, Jasper Coppes, Erin Cosgrove, Douglas Coupland, Jan Cremer, E.E. Cummings, Keren Cytter, Salvador Dalí, Bert Danckaert, Henry Joseph Darger, Oskar Dawicki, Eric Doeringer, Christian Dotremont, Laura Edbrook, Pam Emmerik, Andreas Ejiksson, Steven Emmanuel, Tim Etchells, Everyone Agrees, David Evrard, Öyvind Fahlström, Matias Faldbakken, Charles Henri Ford, Nicholas Frank, Annabel Frearson, Klemens Gasser, Mark Geffriaud, Tom Gidley, Liam Gillick, Dan Gilsdorf, Jérémie Gindre, Unni Gjertsen, Goldin+Senneby, Rodney Graham, Alasdair Gray, Renée Green, Sabine Groschup, Sigurdur Gudmundsson, Heather Guertin, José Gutiérrez-Solana, Brion Gysin, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Samuel Hasler, Raoul Hausmann, Richard Hawkins, Paul Haworth, Hallgrímur Helgason, Pablo Helguera, Nick Herman, Norman James Hogg, Will Holder, Stewart Home, Isidore Isou, Marla Jacarilla, Łukasz Jastrubczak, Lisa Jonasson, Christopher K. Ho, Stephen Kaltenbach, Samson Kambalu, Ilja Karilampi, Phyllis Kiehl, Pierre Klossowski, Emily Kocken, Joseph Kosuth, Arno Kramer, Raziye Kubat, Alfred Kubin, Yayoi Kusama, Fernanda Laguna, Peter Lemmens, Norman Leto, Jana Leo, Edouard Levé, Wyndham Lewis, Little Warsaw, Gareth Long, Kiba Lumberg, Jill Magid, David Maroto, Rita McBride, Tom McCarthy, Andrea McGinty, Lucy McKenzie, Bjarne Melgaard, Alan Michael, Harland Miller, Momus, Sean Monahan, Andrei Monastyrsky, Heather & Ivan Morison, Simon Morris, William Morris, Valérie Mréjen, Ariane Müller, David Musgrave, Hayley Newman, Trong Gia Nguyen, Erik Niedling, Krzysztof Niemczyk, Ingo Niermann, Filip Noterdaeme, Leticia Obeid, Gary O'Connor, Brian O’Doherty, Tom O'Sullivan, Kambui Olujimi, Katrina Palmer, Philippe Parreno, Pathetic Sympathy Seekers, Francesco Pedraglio, Pavel Pepperstein, Mai-Thu Perret, PHILIP team (Heman Chong et al.), Tom Phillips, Francis Picabia, Kit Poulson, David Price, Seth Price, Richard Prince, PSJM, Ernesto Pujol, Cheng Ran, Sal Randolph, Graham Rawle, Jannie Regnerus, Karen Reimer, Hubert Renard, Stuart Ringholt, David Robbins, Pedro G. Romero, Roee Rosen, Romy Rüegger, Allen Ruppersberg, Christopher Russell, Pepo Salazar, Denis Savary, Bruno Schulz, Kurt Schwitters, Lindsay Seers, Jack Segbars, Q.S. Serafijn, Benjamin Seror, Lytle Shaw, Eric Simon, Alexandre Singh, Societé Realiste, Suzy Spence, Cally Spooner, Lisa Stålspets, Maria Stangret Kantor, Dan Starling, Elaine Sturtevant, Władysław Strzemiński, Robert Szczerbowski, Vibeke Tandberg, Dorothea Tanning, Joanne Tatham, Maija Timonen, Roland Topor, Oscar Tuazon, Parker Tyler, Linn Cecilie Ulvin, Félix Vallotton, Sarah Vanhee, Hannu Väisänen, Stijn Verhoeff, Gavin Wade, Andy Warhol, Mark Waugh, Julia Weist, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Dale Edwin Wittig, Jacob Wren, Jack B. Yeats, Unica Zürn, Miek Zwamborn.