Artist Books for the Holidays

If you’re still looking for just the right gift for your Jewish (you better hustle) or Christian friend (you have a little more time), try an artist book from Printed Matter. Here are my, ahem, suggestions:

  • David Hammons, The Holy Bible: Old Testament. The complete works of Marcel Duchamp, rebound as a bible.
  • On Kawara’s CD, One Million Years (Past), which covers the years 998,031 BC to 997,400 BC.
  • Erin Cosgrove’s take on romantic fiction as conceptual art project, The Baader-Meinhof Affair, which sounds like The Rules of Attraction if Bret Easton Ellis had gone to Williams instead of Bennington.
  • J. Meejin Yoon’s Absence, a simple, remarkable “portable memorial” of the World Trade Center. It consists of diecuts on 127 pages (one per floor, including the radio mast), which create sculptural voids in the shape of the towers when the book is closed. The perfect gift for the nonfinalist memorial competition entrant in your life.