To Illustrate and Multiply: An Open Book examines how sequencing, a characteristic of time-based media, manifests itself in various ways within artists’ books. Borrowing its title from an undated, limited-edition Raymond Pettibon book, the exhibition highlights conceptual strategies and formal processes, and explores how the ordering of information—visual, textual, and material—affects meaning in books. To Illustrate and Multiply: An Open Book constitutes the first large-scale, museum survey of artists’ books in Los Angeles since 1... Read more

To Illustrate and Multiply: An Open Book examines how sequencing, a characteristic of time-based media, manifests itself in various ways within artists’ books. Borrowing its title from an undated, limited-edition Raymond Pettibon book, the exhibition highlights conceptual strategies and formal processes, and explores how the ordering of information—visual, textual, and material—affects meaning in books. To Illustrate and Multiply: An Open Book constitutes the first large-scale, museum survey of artists’ books in Los Angeles since 1978, presenting work dating from 1965 to the present by both emerging artists who have begun to experiment with this media and established artists who view bookmaking as an integral part of their artistic practice. Featuring books made in exclusive edition sizes of 100 or less, but also those with wide distribution and print runs of 1,000 or more, the presentation includes recent examples made available in a reading lounge where viewers are invited to physically interact with them. In addition to the many exceptional artists’ books from the holdings of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, augmented by those from several public and private local collections, MOCA presents a special site developed on moca.org that features animated sequences from selected works, essays by the curators, brief text entries for each book, and an extensive bibliography. To Illustrate and Multiply: An Open Book is organized by MOCA Librarian Lynda Bunting and MOCA Director of Publications Lisa Gabrielle Mark.