V. Art Book Triennial Martin

Zbigniew Sałaj, Woodshed (Drewutnia), 2010–2024, from the author's estate. Photo by MUO - Zdeněk Sodoma

Since 2010, the Olomouc Museum of Art together with the Turčianska Gallery in Martina has participated in the regular international presentation of authors’ books. This project represents a plurality in the Central European cultural space for artists for whom the medium of the book has become a permanent source of artistic inspiration and individual creative programmes. At the end of these endeavours stands the work of art – the author’s book, a unique combination and consonance of artistic, craft or technical disciplines with a personal creative language and a specific vision.

After 15 years of cooperation on the Book Art Triennial project, we have the opportunity to visit this regular international presentation of author’s books from Central Europe at the Olomouc Museum of Art. The fifth edition presents an opportunity for (exhibition) reflection on the intermedial arrangement of the author’s book, by addressing artists who experiment with the spatial composition of the elements of the work, or their incorporation into the installation in order to intensify the overall visual experience of the perception of the work. The shape and visual variety of the exhibits is represented by a whole plethora of atypically created and invented puzzles, loosely arranged leaf blocks, as well as spatial objects inspired by the book by 80 artists from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland.

It is probably not surprising that paper remains the primary medium used for the creation of an author’s book, but nothing is dogmatic and the exhibition includes author’s books made of wood, textile, metal, glass and plastic. An important line in the concept of the Triennial of Book Art exhibition is an integrated “touch” library, in which the visitor and the reader in one person can leaf through book artifacts. This line of the show is addressed primarily to the child visitor, with the intention of contributing to the cultivation and shaping of their reading tastes.

After the premiere of TUK at the Turčianska Gallery in Martina in 2024 and its Olomouc reprise in the first half of 2025, the project will be exhibited at the Book Art Museum in Łódź, Poland, and then at the Miskolc Gallery in Hungary.

Thanks to the publishers: Artforum, Baobab, Once Upon a Time, Centrala, Centrala – Mądre komiksy, Graficka dilna, Host, KHER, Knižni stezka k dětem, z. s., LUX, Meander, Paseka, Take Take Take Tak, Uutěrky, wo-men…

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5th artist’s book triennial Martin The link opens in a new tab