Report: Bibliographic Performances and Surrogate Readings by Janelle Rebel (recipient of the Research Publication Grant)

19 December 2024 -

Janelle Rebel, Seymour Adelman Director of Special Collections at Bryn Mawr College, reports on the publication of her monograph titled Bibliographic Performances and Surrogate Readings, which was partly funded by the DHS Research Publication Grant. Applications for the 2025 grant are open until 31st January 2025.

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Bibliographic Performances & Surrogate Readings was published by The Everyday Press in August 2024. The project delves into the imaginative realm of books and libraries and takes a closer look at the interpretive structures at work in subject bibliographies. My interest in subject bibliographies, generally speaking, is that they wrench resources out of search-driven systems and into the realm of spirited recommendations, troubling arrangements of resources, challenging canonical norms, countering algorithmic suggestion loops, and constituting new thought models.

Bibliographic Performances & Surrogate Readings locates artistic and poetic projects that explore artifactual, intellectual, spatial, and design possibilities. It is the first monograph of its kind to historicize, theorize, and survey two decades of what I refer to as contemporary visual bibliography or experimental subject bibliography. Ranging from artists’ books and web databases to stack interventions and reading room installations, Bibliographic Performances & Surrogate Readings reviews over fifty compelling visio-bibliographic examples created by diverse, international cultural workers.

The DHS Research Publication Grant was applied toward the production subvention costs of paper, printing and binding. And more, it was extremely beneficial to be awarded the DHS grant, as it lent credibility to the whole project and put the ball in motion for the awards and grants that followed. As I write in the Acknowledgments: “Searching for and applying to publication grants was an eye-opening experience and exposed me to the current conditions of art publishing. Special thanks to the Design History Society (UK) for being the first to take a chance and award me a Research Publication Grant, as well as to the College Book Art Association for a Member Support Grant, ARLIS/NA for the H.W. Wilson Foundation Research Award, and SECAC for the Artist’s Fellowship Honorable Mention Award. I am humbled to count these professional organizations as project backers” (338). My sincerest thanks to the Society.

The book is a beauty—an interesting trim size (193 x 134 mm), a fat yet airy book block (353 pages), and a spirited page design by Margherita Sabbioneda. The tactile cover has a florescent pink foil-stamped design on brown wove paper. The layout of the book and its navigational feats are central to its thesis: “Bibliographic projects that incorporate critical annotations, novel methods of graphic representation, inventive juxtapositions between written works, or conceptual themes for discussion and debate offer lively ports of entry, identifiable places in the vast waters of ‘information’”(29).

It is currently being distributed in the UK & Europe by Public Knowledge Books. The publisher is working on securing a US distributor. We did a soft launch with advanced copies at the NY Art Book Fair in April 2024 and The Everyday Press brought them to Offprint London at Tate Modern in May 2024. It was officially published in August 2024 and with the publication launch ongoing at art book fairs this fall in Athens, Paris, Berlin, and Tokyo and this winter in Philadelphia and Miami.

I hope the book’s arrival finds its reader and drums up many future opportunities…! I’m looking ahead to the winter and spring to schedule events, so please be in touch if any members would like me to talk about the book or make an artwork or plan a program or curate an exhibition!