The first edition of books, the festival dedicated to art and artist books curated by the Ravenna publisher Danilo Montanari and Lorenzo Balbi. Together with the 40 exhibitors, booksellers and publishers of the sector, both Italian and international, present with real projects on the art book, there will be eight exhibition focuses: from the presentation of all the artist books by Franco Vaccari to the five volumes born in the seventies of the collaboration between Claudio Parmiggiani and Mario Diacono; from the limited editions of Paolo Ventura to all the books edited by Luigi Ghirri during his activity as an artist and photographer; from the production of Daniela Comani from the 1990s to the present to a selection of works by Jacopo Benassi and a posthumous tribute to the artist Irma Blank, who passed away a few days ago. A monographic focus will also be reserved for Giorgio Maffei, with nearly 50 books edited by him, dedicated to the production of masters such as Bruno Munari, Alighiero Boetti and Sol Lewitt.
Danilo Montanari, what is “Books” about?
«I am not saying for the first time, but for the first time after a while, and in any case in this way, booksellers and publishers specialized in the sector meet, adding up to forty, which shows that the Italian publisher of art is at the international forefront, not only in terms of quality (it has always been like this) but also in terms of quantity on offer. But the market is more international than Italian. With this initiative we also want to give an audience, which will always be niche but may be more important than it is now, the possibility of getting closer to the art book”.
Exhibitors but not only: what else is planned?
«Some small exhibitions are planned, involving the most important authors, artists such as Franco Vaccari, Luigi Ghirri and, among young people, Paolo Ventura and Jacopo Benassi, to open small foci on the path of the art book in Italy. Art book understood in a fairly broad sense, in the sense that in this case it also includes the artist’s book».
What exactly is meant by art book and artist book?
«The artist’s book is something that was born in the second half of the 20th century, in Italy it had a particular expansion in the sixties and seventies with conceptual art and this is not the “art book” in the sense of a book made by hand. hand: has a precise meaning. It is a book that is part of the poetics of the artist and therefore it is an expressive form of the artist in the form of a book».
Will the “Books” be open to everyone?
«Yes, it is an event open to all, with the hope that there will be the largest possible public, even the absolutely incompetent ones: it is not an event for insiders, it is simply to intrigue even people who may not know what the an artist’s book, in fact it will probably never be clear. If we talk about an “artist book” we often think of an “art book”, instead it is something different ».
