An artist’s book is a unique object within the field of art. It is a complete

autonomous artwork composed of separate units brought together as one. Like a

living body, it is made up of a system of internal and external organs: cover,

spine, binding, endpapers, margins, spreads, folds, stitches, pages, and more.

While each element of the artist’s book fulfills its own distinct function. practical,

material, formal, and conceptual – the essence of the completed book emerges

from the relationships between all of its parts.

The exhibition More Than the Sum of Its Parts is based on the rich history of

artist’s books created at the Jerusalem Print Workshop, which has served as a

creative field for many of Israel’s leading artists. This tradition has formed a livin

g archive of images, print gestures, material processes, reading structures, and

diverse methods of binding.

Like every artist’s book, the Workshop’s collection of artist’s books reveals itself as

an organism: a system of independent units that together form a complete, multi-

voiced, compelling, and evolving body.

The exhibition is organized around five cross-sections through the body of the

artist’s book. Each section is structured around a family of concepts: Exterior |

Threshold | Time | Space | Relationships. Like a conceptual lexicon, each section

is a field of inquiry in which words designate functions, relationships, mechanisms

of operation, and approaches.

The exhibition curator, Merav Salomon, is a printmaker, Professor of Illustration and Visual Storytelling at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, founder and editor of the visual publishing house Salomon & Daughters, and a curator. Her work explores the book as a distinctive artistic medium.

Curator: Merav Salomon