The exhibition THESE ARE NOT BOOKS is organised by the Serralves Foundation — Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto. It is curated by Christophe Boutin, publisher and consultant for the Artists’ Books Collection, together with Sónia Oliveira, Library and Archives Coordinator. Exhibition design and poster: Christophe Boutin. Editorial and research assistance: Ludovica Amaro. Assistants: Daniel Fernandes and Isabel Koehler, Serralves Library. Download here the booklet of THESE ARE NOT BOOKS

THESE ARE NOT BOOKS explores the concept of the book as an idea made visible, rather than a vessel for words or images. In the works on display, the book is no longer a support for conveying content but becomes the artwork itself. The selected pieces embody artistic intent through their form alone, even when devoid of customary content. Some of the books presented here address the question of what a book can be. They explore this enquiry within the specific context of each artist’s practice, developing it in a manner unique to their individual projects. In some cases, these works transcend the traditional definition of the book, taking the form of sculptural or conceptual objects — material manifestations of the concept of the book itself.

In the history of artists’ books — a field that began to take shape at the turn of the twentieth century — books have long been used as a means of experimentation rather than just for conveying content. At that time, significant changes in printing technologies, reproduction, and distribution methods transformed the conditions of artistic production, resulting in avant-garde movements that challenged traditional media. Artists began to engage with publishing not merely as a means of dissemination, but as an integral component of their practice. Books, pamphlets, and printed matter enabled new forms of circulation and redefined the relationship between artists and audiences, allowing ideas to unfold through sequence, materiality, and use rather than through singular display.

These works, ranging from Dada pamphlets and Russian Constructivist experiments to Surrealist publications and seminal works such as Henri Matisse’s Jazz (1947), as well as illustrated books developed with artists such as Sonia Delaunay and Pop artists’ books and the practices of conceptual artists such as Sol LeWitt — connected also to Fluxus strategies of intermedia — consistently transcend the notion of the book as a medium merely intended to transmit text or images. Rather than viewing books as containers for content, they conceive them as experiences — temporal, material and conceptual structures through which ideas are developed, activated and dispersed.

The term artist’s book itself came to be more clearly defined through the work of artists such as Ed Ruscha. His publications in the 1960s established a new category closely linked to the emergence of Conceptual Art in the United States, prompting a reconsideration of authorship and distribution. At the same time, the variety of terms — artists’ books, livres de peintres, livres d’artistes, zines — reflects the diversity and inventiveness of the practices that have emerged around the book as a medium, making it a remarkably fertile field of artistic research.
By bringing together works created in different historical periods and across diverse artistic contexts, THESE ARE NOT BOOKS reveals how these inquiries have recurred throughout history, driven by a shared and enduring curiosity. The exhibition features a small, carefully curated selection of works, primarily drawn from the extensive Artists' Books Collection — started at Serralves over 25 years ago on the initiative of Vicente Todolí — and is completed by a limited number of pieces on loan for the occasion.

In this context, the book emerges as both a medium and an artwork — an autonomous space in which concept and material coincide.

Works in the exhibition:

JOHN ARMLEDER “STOD”. Paris: Three Star Books, 2024 31 x 31 x 2,5 cm
The combination of holes and mirrored surfaces creates a play of planes and voids, where reflections produce the illusion of shifting.

TAUBA AUERBACH “Pilot Wave Induction II”. New York: Diagonal Press, 2018 33 x 17,7 x 3,8 cm
Pilot-wave theory is transposed into editorial sequences of altered images, converting scientific models into abstract visual systems.

ROBERT BARRY “Autobiography”. Rennes: Éditions Incertain Sens, 2006 22 x 22 x 1,7 cm
Fragmented portraits of friends and family, combined with text, invite readers to reconstruct the story of an artist devoted to exploring the invisible.

ROBERT BARRY “Robert Barry”. Köln: Gerd de Vries, 1971 30 x 21 x 0,5 cm
Thirty artist’s statements operate as temporal propositions, in which language asserts itself as an autonomous space of conceptual practice.

BARBARA BLOOM “Never Odd or Even”. München: S. Schreiber e and Pittsburgh: The Carnegie Museum of Art, 1992 28,5 x 20 x 0,8 cm
Sealed book whose pages must be cut; a palindrome articulating doubles, mirrors, and symmetry, activating a totalitarian architecture and reading as a gesture.

STANLEY BROUWN “1 m 1 step”. Eindhoven : Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, 1976 100 x 11 x 1 cm
Publication with eight sheets, two of which are marked at the edge with a black line referring to the meter as the standard unit of measurement and the artist’s step as a personal measure (cut-out sheet).

ANNEMARIE BURCKHARDT “Der falsche documenta-Katalog”. Kassel: Documenta, 1992
2 elements: 29,5 x 21,5 x 5 cm e and 18 x 12 x 0,5 cm
A fake documenta catalogue presented as a book-shaped cushion, provoking media confusion and triggering an actual legal dispute.

DANIEL BUREN “Du vélum au volume (1974–1992)”. Bruxelles: Yves Gevaert, 1992 51,5 x 50 x 5 cm
Eight striped canvases, first presented as velums, were later cut and rebound according to their original position, from top to bottom and left to right, becoming volume.

JAMES LEE BYARS “Gold Dust is My Ex Libris”. Eindhoven: Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, 1983 16,5 x 16,5 x 15,2 cm
An exhibition catalogue becomes a cube where material excess and emptiness turn information into a physical and conceptual presence.

HANNE DARBOVEN “Information”. Milano: Flash Art Edizioni, 1973 21 x 30 x 0,5 cm 
Written sequence of U-shaped curves, where mechanical repetition reveals time, gesture, and subtle variations of the writing act.

MARIANA CASTILLO DEBALL “Never Odd or Even Volume II”. Berlin : BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE, 2012 24 x 18 x 1 cm
An anthology of thirty covers of non-existing books, where editorial fiction and cataloguing expand themes, knowledge, and possible narratives.

LIZ DESCHENES “Registration”. Paris: Three Star Books, 2022 34 x 32 x 2 cm
Book reactivating the artist’s moiré series, where mis-registration and superimposition transform photographic process into abstraction.

MARCEL DUCHAMP / MATHIEU MERCIER “Museum in a Box: 1935–1968: De ou par Marcel Duchamp ou Rrose Sélavy (Boîte-en-Valise)”. Köln: Walther König, 2020 37,5 x 37 x 7,5 cm
Portable museum condensing the artist’s oeuvre into miniatures, transforming catalogue and autobiography into a mobile object. This is a facsimile published in 2020 by the artist Mathieu Mercier in a print run of 1,000 copies.

OLAFUR ELIASSON “Innen Stadt Außen = Inner City Out”. Köln : Walther König, 2010 30 x 24 x 5 cm
The project articulates museum and city through ephemeral installations distributed between urban space and the institutional interior.

ROBERT FILLIOU “Livre-étalon”. Stuttgart: Dieter Roth Verlag, 1981 Instalação: dimensões variáveis Installation: variable dimensions
Playful leporello proposing a “standard book,” using numbers and orientation as an ironic fiction of faultless measurement and impartial assessment of printed matter.

CLAIRE FONTAINE “Per una espressione nuova Towards New Expression”. [Edição dos artistas Selfpublished] 17 × 10,5 × 0,6 cm
Brick wrapped in the cover of Suzanne Santoro’s text, made to resemble a real book while retaining the weight and hardness of a construction material. Knowledge is thus given a physical, confrontational force.

FERNANDA GOMES “Seven Handmade Paper Sculptures”. New York: S/W Ediciones, 2018 18 x 18 x 4 cm
Seven folded paper sculptures, where material, light, and minimal geometry operate as spatial punctuation.

KARL HOLMQVIST “Leporello Nº 07”, 2022 14 x 10 x 2,5 cm
Within the Leporello Series, which invites artists to explore the accordion format,Holmqvist proposes a Language Yoga session, reinterpreting concrete poetry.

ON KAWARA “I Am Still Alive”. Berlin: Edition René Block, 1978 21 x 24 x 4 cm
Book gathering 203 telegrams sent to acquaintances, repeating the same phrase as a minimal assertion of existence over time.

SZABOLCS KISSPÁL “One by 1” (2009) 100 x 1 cm
One-metre measuring tape, that continuously repeats its own unit, activating measurement and scale as a metaphor for perception.

IMI KNOEBEL “Mennigebilder 1976–1992”. Hamburg: Deichtorhallen, 1992 31 x 24 x 3,3 cm
Portfolio in a linen box with 54 perforated sheets; the work explores the relationship between colour and structure, presenting geometric variations developed over sixteen years.

SOL LEWITT “A Cube”. Köln: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 1990 18 x 18 x 3 cm
Textless book in which a cube is photographed using nine light sources and all combinations, exploring permutation, system, and seriality.

GEORGE MACIUNAS “Flux Paper Events”. Berlin: Edition Hundertmark, 1976 20,5 x 15 x 0,3 cm
The pages are “events” where each physical alteration documents the book’s creation; no text or images appear beyond the cover.

KRISTEN MUELLER “Language to Cover a Page”. Berlin: Motto Books & So, 2014 23 x 16 x 2 cm
Flipbook composed of aligned excerpts from disparate books, where typography and text accumulate meaning and the narrative reveals its own formation.

BRUCE NAUMAN “L A A I R”. New York: Multiples Inc, 1970 30,4 x 30,4 x 0,1 cm
Ironic series on Los Angeles air, presenting ten monochromatic images that evoke pollution and question documentary function.

RICARDO NICOLAU “Ana Ana Ana”. Porto: [Edição de autor Self-published], 2023 36 x 26 x 6,5 cm
A book- object where editing and typography articulate portrait and memory; the front endpapers present a reproduction as a relational trace.

CLAES OLDENBURG “Geometric Mouse, Scale D — 'Home-Made'”. Los Angeles: Gemini G.E.L., 1971 variable dimensions 
Graphic object in cardboard and metal that transforms the iconic mouse form into a modular construction, bridging sculpture, multiple, and Pop language.

GINA PANE “Action psyché (essai) 24-1-1974”. Paris: Galerie Stadler, 1974 41 x 30 x 0,5 cm
Visual essay recording the eponymous performance, exploring the relationship between body, pain, and perception.

A. R. PENCK “Je suis un livre, achète-moi maintenant”. Paris: Galerie Gillespie- Laage-Salomon, 1981 17,5 x 12 x 2,4 cm 
420 poetic texts, one per page, initiating a continuous dialogue about the book, its function, and the reader.

SETH PRICE “Model for a One Page Book”. Paris: Three Star Books, 2017 32 × 24,5 × 6 cm
A book reduced to a single, thick silicone page, translating the idea of a page into a sculptural, material object.

CINDY SHERMAN “A Play of Selves”. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2007 24 x 17,5 x 1,5 cm
A series of 72 photographic assemblages in which cut-out figures stage multiple alter egos, fragmenting identity and narrative as a psychological theatre.

SLAVS AND TATARS “Kitab Kebab”. Paris: Three Star Books, 2016 Installation: variable dimensions
A kebab skewer pierces the collective’s books, drawn from cultural traditions, proposing alternative, transversal forms of knowledge grounded in affective, embodied, and non-hierarchical reading.

HAIM STEINBACH “OBJECT”. Paris: Three Star Books, 2009 30 x 27 x 4 cm
Sixty- one images constitute one of the most moving and autobiographical accounts of Steinbach’s personal journey: a picture book, a dictionary, and a self-portrait.

VIBEKE TANDBERG “Mumbles”. Paris: onestar press, 2011 22,5 x 14 x 1,4 cm
Poem distributed across 145 pages, a fragmented meditation on body and belonging, in which the narrative remains suspended and unresolved.

RIRKRIT TIRAVANIJA “Once Upon a Time”. Paris: Three Star Books, 2022 41 x 31 x 1 cm
Usable stencil book composed of die- cut slogans meant to be sprayed and circulated in public space as activist poetry. The orange colour, seen as a symbol of spiritual simplicity, reinforces the spiritual dimension of the aphorisms.

ROSEMARIE TROCKEL “PRO TEST”. Köln: Verlag Walter König, 2002 21 x 16 x 3 cm
Visual archive of collective protest: thousands of completed forms document a belated action against the demolition of the Kölner Kunsthalle.

TIMM ULRICHS “Dem Leser den Rücken zukehrend (1970–1977)”. Hamburg: Lamor 21 x 13 x 3,2 cm
As a fake copy, the book is displayed only by its spine, becoming illegible and asserting itself as a sculptural object.

MARK VERSTOCKT “(This is not) A Book”. Antwerpen: Mercator Fonds, 1971 30 x 30 x 5 cm
Constructivist publication with inserts, folds, and three-dimensional elements, where the book asserts itself as a spatial structure and conceptual object.

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