ARLIS/NA 54th Annual Conference

Centering on makers and forms, this panel considers how artists’ books can be viewed as sites of resistance. The impulse to generate such books is sparked by artistic ideas rather than practicality, their modes of creation defy traditional publishing norms, and their physical shapes often circumvent the limits of the codex. Artists’ books are neither solely books nor solely art. They exist as unique or multiple copies. In a digital age, they are meant to be tactile, experienced as material objects in intimate proximity to human hands. They evade formal display in casework. Artists’ books allow for experimentation. Their textures, media, structures, and narratives can be idiosyncratic and varied. Their networks of distribution can be conventional or alternative.

The first panelist, Christine Walde, will show how artist’s books defy categorization. Walde frames artists’ books as outliers that defy norms, exploring how the form of the book across titles such as Clive Philpott's Fruit Salad, Andy Warhol's Index (Book), and Ben Denzer's 20 Slices, acts as a perfect site of resistance.

Next, Caroline Clavell will speak to the Renegade Bookbinding Guild, a not-for-profit guild of artists founded as a Discord server during the COVID-19 pandemic, and engaged in binding fannish works under the idea of fandom gift economy. Rejecting the idea of publishing as a purely commercial endeavor, the guild preserves the ephemeral in print as a labor of love and anchors a community that freely shares resources and tutorials.

Finally, Nemo Xu will present on the inaugural catalogue for Behind VA Shadows (BVAS), a public art project founded as an autonomous choice by a group of frontline staff at the ICA/Boston to celebrate the dual identity as artists and museum workers. Xu shares how the collaborators considered what records would be necessary and adequate to tell the story of BVAS, to preserve the history and experience of their grassroots project, and resist disappearance.

Weaving together insights into physical forms and creation processes, the lived experiences of creatives and cultural caretakers, from the recent past to the present day, the panel frames artists’ books as contemporarily relevant and rich with possibilities for defiance.

This panel explores feminist resistance as practiced by artists whose work and lives are documented in archival collections at the Getty Research Institute, examining how their creative, political, and bodily interventions challenged prevailing cultural narratives around gender, sexuality, power, and representation. Drawing on the papers of feminist artists, as well as digital and programmatic approaches to engaging feminist legacies, the panel demonstrates how resistance takes form—materially, performatively, and structurally—through art, writing, and institutional activism.

The first presentation, The Female Experience: Works by Faith Wilding and subRosa, explores the papers of an artist whose solo and collaborative projects focus on critiquing dominant perceptions of women’s health and social identities. Through performance, installation, activist interventions, writing, and pedagogy, Wilding and subRosa challenge societal views of women’s bodies and traditional roles. This feminist resistance is documented in an array of materials in Wilding’s archive—from cyberfeminist websites, workbooks, and videos to installations and solo performances reflecting on both mundane and distinctive female experiences.

The second presentation, Harmony Hammond and the Work of Making Space, examines the papers of a multidisciplinary feminist artist who mounted sustained resistance to the erasure of lesbian identity in the art world. Through interconnected strategies—including co-founding A.I.R. Gallery and the Heresies Collective, publishing Lesbian Art in America: A Contemporary History (2000), and maintaining her own creative practice—she challenged institutional exclusion on multiple fronts. Hammond’s archive reveals how her scholarly interventions, institutional activism, and artistic works operated as acts of resistance against systemic marginalization.

The third presentation, Resisting Erasure: Institutional Strategies to Support Feminist Art Historical Research, addresses institutional approaches that support feminist research, examining strategies that facilitate scholarly investigation into women’s artistic practices and resistances. As part of a larger research project that aims to examine the relationship between feminist performance art and its archives, this presentation will focus on the various ways that the research project has aimed to share resources pertaining to the holdings at our research institution. The speaker will primarily highlight the newly revised and expanded LibGuide on feminist archival resources, which was updated to bring attention to latent stories within our institutional collections and to take a feminist approach to historiography and the erasure of histories in the artistic canon. Throughout, the speaker will reveal the considerations underpinning decisions around accessibility within the shifting political landscape in the U.S.

The fourth presentation, Valentines for a Feminist Future, addresses programmatic initiatives that activate these feminist archives, with particular emphasis on networks of care and issues of bodily autonomy. Inspired by our collections of women artists’ archives, the speaker will describe events and partnerships that serve to illuminate the histories of feminist activism and resilience with the urgency of our contemporary moment.

Taken together, these presentations demonstrate how libraries and archives function as essential sites for preserving and activating feminist resistance practices. Through research, cataloging, and dissemination, the resistance strategies documented in these archives continue to contribute to the vital work of contemporary cultural workers.