bibliomania 1998-1999

Simon Morris & Helen Sacoor

Price £20+pp
ISBN 0953676501
Year 1999
Edition 1000
Pages 120
Binding softback; perfectbound
Illustration BW reproductions throughout
Dimensions 225 x 170 mm

This is the first codex form publication in the eponymous project, which was initiated by Simon Morris & Helen Sacoor in 1998 and continued until 2002 through collaborations with a huge number of fellow artists, curators, theorists, architects, and other bibliophiles. The broader project also included a second publication edited by Morris that hugely expands the concept and method explored in 1999, similarly entitled bibliomania 2001-2002 (published by information as material, 2002), plus exhibitions (in Leeds, London, and New York) and an online database.

As the artists/curators of this project, Morris & Sacoor invited 15  artists whose own work informed the context of this project. Contributors were invited to send them a list of the books that reflected their own individual interests and practice. Their choices could range from the reverential to the ridiculous. bibliomania 1998-1999 contains all of the book lists returned in response, some typeset and others reproduced as facsimile images of the written page, in a slim and powerful multi-threaded bibliography. It also double as a refined catalouge: The British bookstore chain Waterstones bought in copies of books on the contributors’ lists and made them openly available for purchase on dedicated shelves at two of its stores in 1999, precisely as an exhibition. The contributors to this book are:

Julie Ault, Victor Burgin, Neil Cummings, Mark Dion, Andrea Fraser, Matthew Higgs, Daniel Jackson, Joseph Kosuth, Marysia Lewandowska, Jeremy Millar, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Cindy Smith, Haim Steinbach, and Greville Worthington.