Artist’s books and rare books: approximations

Abstract

This work establishes dialogues and cross-referencing between artists’ books, such as the Visual Encyclopaedia, started in 1974 by Wlademir Dias-Pino, the Encyclopédie of Diderot and d’Alembert and the Encyclopedia, Contemporary Art in the World, with www.google.com/language_tools (2010), by Jean-Benoît Lallemand. While the Visual Encyclopaedia and the Encyclopedie are works with utopian characteristics, which seek encyclopedic knowledge tending towards universal knowledge, the Encyclopedia, Contemporary Art in the World questions the possibility of apprehending total or universal knowledge. From the approximation of the works analyzed, it can be seen that encyclopedism is a current theme, which runs through art and culture, and in some cases the principles of the "total knowledge" of the Encyclopedie are reinforced and in other cases this possibility of a universal knowledge is contested or subverted, for, despite the ease of access to information in the present time, it is often not absolute, depending on the context in which it is received.

Keywords:
Artist’s book; Rare book; Encyclopedism; Universal knowledge; Encyclopedia