Petr Herel: the Artist's Book as Aberrant Object

Abstract

The principal innovation of this dissertation is to present the artist’s book as aberrant object. This sustained investigation of the artist’s book draws upon interdisciplinary theories from art history, anthropology, linguistics, economics, socio-cultural studies, and material studies to examine the artist’s book’s place in art history, its collection and display, and individual analysis. I contend that the artist’s book, which defies institutional classification and sits outside of the canonical narrative of the history of art, provides a vital case study to question the inherent media bias towards traditional forms of painting and sculpture in collection, display, and discourse of contemporary art in our national cultural institutions and scholarship. The value of a critical engagement with aberrance is demonstrated by numerous case studies examining Petr Herel’s books interwoven throughout this research. Combined, this dissertation presents a nonlinear narrative. Part One, comprising two chapters, sets a foundational understanding of the artist’s book as aberrant object, before articulating a new experiential methodology necessary to engage with such works. Part Two, comprising three chapters, uses this identification of the aberrant object to expose new themes and unstudied concepts in Herel’s work. This non-linearity intentionally reflects the interpretive process of circling around such material, and mirrors the way I think about the artist’s book as a challenging, subjective object. With no concrete definition, and no prescribed start or endpoint, this dissertation identifies and engages with a necessarily nebulous interpretation of the artist’s book.

I argue that the attribution of aberrance to the artist’s book is not a pejorative, but a positive term that casts new light on why the artist’s book sits so uncomfortably in art historical discourse. I demonstrate that rather than limiting analysis, examining aberrance generates room for contemporary experimentation that embraces qualities of tactility, emotion, and temporality that jar with conventional art histories. It is from this foundational idea of artist’s book as aberrant object that I have examined Herel’s work in relation to the encounter, Surrealism, the visual presence of text, and ideas of cartography and belonging. In writing the first comprehensive study of Petr Herel’s artist book practice, I propose a new manner of analysing the artist’s book with wider applications in contemporary object-based analysis. Show more