JAB 47/48
ON REFLECTION AND IN RETROSPECT:
THE JOURNAL OF ARTISTS’ BOOKS, 1 9 9 4 -2 0 2 0
Johanna Drucker
he first issue of the Journal of Artists’ Books was a
T materially modest twelve-page pamphlet printed at SoHo
Services in NYC in a single color and staple-bound. Punchy
in tone, deliberately provocative, it was meant to wake up the
critical faculties of the community to which it was addressed—
artists, publishers, educators, curators engaged in the work
of making or collecting artists’ books. A quarter of a century
later, in the final issues of its existence, JAB has bulked up
considerably in mass and become a mature, multi-dimensional
journal for critical engagement with artists’ books. The final
double-issue, #47-48, contains seven original books created
exclusively for the volume tucked into the covers in omnibus
format. The number of articles and reviews in its pages attests to
its credibility and visibility—artists and writers want to appear
in JAB.
“A quarter of a century later”—what a phrase to compose in
this context. JAB was Brad Freeman’s idea, and it was his vision,
his labor, and his perseverance throughout that made it happen
and continue. When he began the Journal in 1994 it seemed
improbable that it would or could continue for forty-eight issues
and over a span of more than twenty-five years. As the project
comes to a close, some reflections on its scope and distinctive
contributions seem in order. As to next steps or successors, it
remains to be seen if anyone wants to take up the task.
The inaugural issue was created just in time for an
optimistic event in Minneapolis, a conference convened by
Charles Alexander in April 1994 as he was taking over leadership
of the Minneapolis Center for Book Arts. Alexander imagined
a fertile collaboration between writers, artists, and book arts
and Talking the Boundless Book was a dynamic event. Poets and
book artists in attendance thought about how their work could
be informed and transformed through possible exchanges. Brad
handed out copies of the brand-new journal, with its pointed
punch-in-the-jaw logo as an invitation of another sort—to
create a critical conversation in the field. This was early days in
digital production and pre-press. Offset production was still in
transition and film, plates, taped flats in orange masking sheets,
and mechanical registration were part of the process-even if
design work could be done on the Mac system we had purchased
a couple of years earlier for a then-staggering amount of money.
Access to and ownership of the means of production mattered,
and JAB, like many other artist-initiated projects would not
have existed if Brad had not been able to control the process.
Brad always worked in or had access to a print shop. The only
way the publication could happen was by doing the work—all
the work—of design, production, distribution, subscription
management, and shipping. JAB had no staff. As the publication
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continued, and people would call (they did in those days use the
telephone for direct contact without introduction) to ask about
some aspect of the journal. I might answer and then say I would
transfer them to “editorial” or “shipping” if they wanted. It was
a joke of course, and Brad answered all of those requests when I
handed off the phone call.
The timing of JAB’s appearance on the scene was
significant. A critical mass of activity was ongoing. Artists’
books publishers, institutions, major figures, and presses, were
all well established by the mid-1990s. After all, the impulse to
create “artists’ books” within a mainstream art context had
begun in the 1960s (the canonical milestone is Ed Ruscha's
Twentysix Gasoline Stations, 1963, though earlier and other
precedents can be cited). The much longer history of avant-
garde publishing went back nearly a century before that into the
small magazines and independent presses of the 19th century
and flagrantly inventive work of Russian Futurists, Dada artists,
and others beginning in the 1910s. And, as is frequently pointed
out, the interaction of artists with books is as old as scrolls
in the East and West, palm leaf books in Southeast Asia, and
painted skins and bark manuscripts in the New World. Ancient
history. Artists have always been involved with books for their
complexity and intimacy, authority and variety. Whether
illuminating, annotating, writing, or printing, artist-authors
have seen the book as a vital format in which to invent and
create, and this work has only expanded in recent decades, as
the explosion of works at book fairs attests.
But for all this activity, and all of the rich bibliography
available within the history of books in general, little or no
critical writing about the book as art, and even less about artists’
books specifically, existed.
The useful anthology assembled by Joan Lyons, Artists’
Books: A Critical Anthology and Sourcebook, (1985), was one of
the few texts directly concerned with the genre, and a handful of
other writings by Robert Morgan (focused on conceptual art and
books), Susan Compton (on early 20th century Russian avant-
garde), and William Strachan (with a focus on deluxe books and
artists in France) stood out in an otherwise largely barren field.
While that changed with contributions by Audrey Isselbacher,
Anne Moeglin-Delcroix, Nancy Princenthal, Clive Philpott,
Buzz Spector, Steve Clay, Tanya Peixoto, Judd and Renee Riese
Hubert, and myself among others, the dearth of good critical
writing still plagues the field.
Artists’ books are still largely without the kind of
gatekeeping that helps sort work in other fields—the critical
processes of review and peer review that promote one painter,
installation artist, poet, or other practitioner from the mass

of daubers and scribblers. JAB made an effort to call attention
to significant figures and to identify some of the terms on
which artists’ books might be assessed. The Journal of Artists’
Books was and remains the single, longest-running periodical
publication fully dedicated to the field.
The work JAB’s editor cared most about was artist-initiated
production that had a point of view, something to say about the
world we inhabit. High end production that leaned towards
deluxe editions, book art craft for its own sake, and work
that was either too conceptual or too commercial did not find
receptivity. Attention to literary work, however, and small
press publishing extended the journal’s range with the hope of
making book artists aware of contemporary writing. Features
like the profile of Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop, whose Burning
Deck im print influenced and promoted several generations
of contemporary writers in the experimental mode, were
meant to expose book artists to work they might not otherwise
encounter. An excerpt from Eunoia (which became a bestseller)
by Canadian conceptual writer, Christian Bok, was published
first in the pages of JAB. An interview with Steve McCaffery,
another with Simon Cutts and Erica van Horn, one with Clifton
Meador, Michael Kasper, another with Leszek Brogowski—all
recorded, transcribed, edited, and typeset—juxtaposed literary
and book arts genres in the same issues—which got thicker and
thicker. JAB 39 was fifty-six pages of small, single-spaced type
with a collection of three artists’ books in a final enclosure.
Twice a year (with the exception of a few hiatus years), the issues
arrived with ever-more surprising contributors from Germany,
Portugal, France, Australia, and other spots on the globe.
Many distinguished people wrote for JAB. Several of
those mentioned above, Tanya Peixoto, the Huberts, and in
translation, Moeglin-Delcroix. But many m ore- Janet Zweig,
Paul Zelevansky, Didier Mathieu, Thomas Gunther, Pattie-
Belle Hastings, Gary Sullivan, Ted Purves, Emily McVarish,
Uwe Warnke, Tom Trusky, Jae Rossman, Elisabeth Long, Kyle
Schlesinger, Alastair Johnston, Tate Shaw, Jan Voss, Nathan
Lyons and others were also contributors. The list is long and
reflects the extensive network that Brad developed as well as the
profile that JAB had among artists and writers. By the 2010s JAB
began to burst its borders. Envelopes inserted into the binding
held books, small add-ins were slipped into the pages, and whole
extra publications became part of the work. Young artists and
established ones, interns and well-renowned figures, had their
books produced for and in JAB. In the last decade, thanks to the
support of Columbia College Chicago, Brad has worked with
Print Production Fellows who assisted with the many aspects of
production.
A detailed bibliography with full index needs to be produced
to fully study and document JAB’s achievement.
[There is an index covering JABi to JAB20 in JAB20.]
Because it was produced as the vision of a single editor-
publisher-printer, it has always operated on a shoe-string. The
work was done in institutional contexts, and the presses used
were always part of equipment that belonged to a college or
university with the exception of Nexus Press in Atlanta where
JAB13 to JAB20 were produced. [All of JAB20, except the cover
designed by Ruth Laxson, was printed at the Borowsky Center
of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia after Nexus Press
JAB 47/48
was abruptly closed at the beginning of 2003.] As time went
by and image-setters for creating film came into the shop, the
ability to work from digital files lightened at least one part of the
production pipeline. But the journal continued to be ambitious.
Each cover was the work of a different artist and these were
painterly, photographic, multi-colored and with elaborate
production values often layering run after run of ink. Some were
letterpress, done by the individual artists and shipped to JAB
headquarters once finished. Typesetting, layout, page design,
proofing, photo and image scanning and proofing—every issue
required hours and hours of labor and thought and many runs
on the offset press, standing, monitoring, and adjusting the
ink, water, and pulling the sheets off into stacks for cutting and
trimming. The work is physical as well as intellectual. In the
editing, questions about what to juxtapose with what, whose
voice to foreground, whose to tuck into the later pages of the
journal, and how to get people to write and write well came into
play. But in the shop the issues were immediate and p ain terly -
will silver ink work effectively or should another pattern be
layered into the finished sheet?
JAB often printed irreverent or bluntly stated opinions in
its pages. Angry phone calls, complaints, letters of objection
were sometimes the result, especially in the early years. I
remember a long, tedious conversation with a disgruntled
person who took issue with something we had published
and my having to explain over and over that the author had
a perfect right to express an opinion even if it went against
the status quo and the attitudes of a major institution and its
curators. The desire to control discourse never goes away, but
JAB published what it wanted. No institution or advertisers
had to be accommodated. JAB had no overlords or oversight.
The editor/publisher had full control. Over time the substance
of its pages surpassed the earlier pugnacious attitude. So much
wonderful material was available to print that poking fun
at things that were not aligned with JAB’s values was more
trouble than just leaving them out. Why bother to attack the
work that wasn’t interesting by virtue of being over-produced,
under-conceptualized, or just plain boring? Just let it go. And
what began as a provocation became a mature journal, one that
gathered into its pages a wide spectrum of highly respected
authors and artists.
Some frustrations remain. In spite of best efforts, JAB has
remained dependent on contributions from North America,
the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia, with a handful of
entries from Mexico and South America. The wider range of
artists’ book activity—in Japan, China, India, and in Africa,
the Middle East and Russia-remains out of sight. Even in the
book fairs this work barely appears and the effort of bringing
that activity into better visibility remains to be done. Maybe a
JAB world research tour is ahead-to surface this activity and see
where work fits on the spectrum of conceptual, deluxe, hand­
made, personal, vernacular, popular and other traditions.
JAB made a major contribution to criticism and debate.
Those texts can be read in its pages. But substantive and rich
as they are, they tell only part of the story—the story that can
be read. But beyond its pages, JAB has another history of the
deep commitment that Brad had to teaching, mentoring, and
inspiring younger artists. At SUNY Purchase, he encouraged
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 JAB47-48
a number of outstanding students to contribute substantially.
Seana Biondilillo was a particularly gifted young artist
whose work constituted an entire issue of the journal. Later,
students at Columbia College Chicago worked on JAB as the
Print Production Fellows mentioned above. They were paid to
learn the multiple skills involved in the production process,
including the workings of the offset press as a creative, rather
than simply reproductive, instrument. They were invited into
the journal as writers, designers, and even as artists making
their own books. Some remarkable students benefitted from
this project, becoming book artists with sustained practices.
But even those who didn’t go on to more book projects got the
experience of seeing the steady work of production and the
dedication required by a project like JAB. This is a rare thing,
and an important experience for artists starting their careers
since without the work, nothing happens. But let’s be clear. Brad
never had a regular teaching position. He made the time for
JAB as a commitment of his own energy. At Columbia, his full­
time position as a studio manager has, little by little, included
recognition of the value of the journal to the College. The
support of the Dean and School has been rewarding, but JAB was
never an institutional project even if, in these last years, he has
been given the time to produce the journal as part of his daily
schedule.
In the end, in fact, JAB is about the work of making the
journal, of making books, of seeing through the enormous
undertaking year after year, of keeping a project going with
very little support, and no monetary reward. The real means
of production here was Brad Freeman, the JAB engine. No one
has contributed more generously and selflessly to the field of
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artists’ books in these twenty-five years than he has. Even those
of us who have been steady in our publications or editorial work
or teaching in the field have been more self-absorbed, more
focused on our “own” work, than we have on that of others. I
wrote for JAB, always happy to supply a few columns of text
as needed to fill out an issue. We were always encountering
interesting people, events, and works so it was easy to sit down
and pound out a few thousand words on demand. But JAB was
not my project, and I did not have the generosity of spirit to
build a platform for others the way Brad did.
The field of artists’ books will be less vibrant with the
departure of JAB from the scene, and many who have known
the journal throughout its existence maybe surprised to find,
as future scholars and artists will, how very rich and varied its
contributions have been. Go back through those issues, look at
the range of people involved, the multiple cover designs and
featured artists, interviews, project pages and profiles. This
is a record of artists’ books across multiple communities and
perspectives. If the opinions expressed in its pages sometimes
ruffled feathers and sometimes put people out of joint, so
much the better. Who among the current and next generation
will have the courage, expertise, dedication and stamina to
continue such an undertaking? We shall see. But what remains
is a major legacy. The Journal of Artists’ Books made aunique
and definitive contribution whose importance, will, I believe,
become even more apparent ahead.
Thank you, Brad Freeman, for a quarter of a century of JAB,
for your creative vision and professional dedication to the field
of artists’ books.
Johanna Drucker is an artist and scholar who teaches in
the Information Studies Department at UCLA. Her work is
represented in special collections in museums and libraries
in North American and Europe. Her recent titles include
Downdrift: An EcoFiction and The General Theory o f Social
Relativity, both published in 2018.
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