Robin Moore Book Collection

Tropos by Kevin Osborn, self published, 1988

Robin Moore is a curator, appraiser, and art advisor who grew up in the Fluxus movement in New York, attended Oberlin College, and moved to Washington, DC, in 1989, where she took a job managing the niche bookshop at the seminal artist-run organization, Washington Project for the Arts. Bookworks had a similar mission to Printed Matter in New York — to promote and sell books made by artists as well as small press, art catalogs, and selected titles from European publishers, along with a range of contemporary fiction and theory. During the 1990s, Bookworks became a locus for an alternative stream of “cyberculture,” which started as zines and magazines even before the World Wide Web was in common use. Moore hosted there the first node of the International Networking Congress, an offshoot, at the time, of mail art.

Moore is deaccessioning her collection, including rare and unusual publications from this period, a small collection of truly bizarre children’s books published in the 1970s, some erotic books, and a large group of “comix.”

Moore seeks to place this collection of more than 300 publications with an educational institution by sale or donation.

The list of items (LINK to PDF) is messy and incomplete!The image galleries below do not include all items.

Contact for more information: Robin Moore, robin.f.moore@gmail.com, 301-204-7252.

Artists’ books

A grouping of more than 100 books published by artists in the US and Europe, mostly between 1985 and 1993. Some of these items are cross-listed in other categories below. While there are a few handmade works, most of the books follow the mission promulgated by the Visual Studies Workshop, an influential photo and book school in Rochester, NY: artist-controlled offset-printed with the intent to be broadly distributed at low prices. Together this group of books and bookworks demonstrates the increased importance of visual communication in the early nineties, before widespread internet use. The works cover a huge variety of themes, use diverse narrative styles including interactivity, and intersect with experimental photography, xerox culture, zines, alternative spaces, and performance. As you’d expect from that period, topics include feminist and LGBTQ+ issues, and questions about media and technology.

Highlights:

  • Several “books about nothing,” meta'-statements that involve either the structure of the book or offset printing as a process as part of their message. These include: The Book of Troy, by Henriette van Egten; Frischer Wind, by Jan Voss; Un Feuille Papier a Cigarettes by an unknown artist (possibly Joost Elffers), and In Front of You, by Jose Soler.

  • Boekie Woekie — a tiny publisher in the Netherlands run by artists Jan Voss, Henriette van Egten, and Runa Thorkilsdottir. These delicious, almost primitive books are among my favorites, esp. “Wartelist (Waiting),” a book for which you could buy as many pages as you wanted to indicate how long you wished to wait (for a bus or whatever).

  • Books published by Visual Studies Workshop and related artists: Joan Lyons, Scott McCarney, Keith Smith, Clarissa Sligh, Michael Gibbs

  • Brad Freeman — a number of his self-printed books, including Overrun, and several copies of JaB, the Journal of Artist’s Books, which he published with his wife, Johanna Drucker.

  • Items published by European small press, including Rainer Verlag and Coracle Press.

  • Several exhibition catalogs including a Brion Gysin.

  • A few oddball items that I have collected after 1995..

  • Books related to my family and my mother’s businesses, Bound and Unbound Gallery and Something Else Press, a Fluxus intersection.

  • Several artist’s periodicals, including Sally Alatalo’s “Du da,” Jurgen Olbrich’s untitled varied-format periodical, and Parkett.

  • Several specific items created for Bookworks or given as personal gifts from creators, including a small edition set of pencils published as a “bookwork” by Francois Deschamps (each pencil tells one phrase in the story of the entire life of a pencil).

  • Several sculptural books, including Yellow Hanging Book Structure by Scott McCarney and one of Robert The’s iconic untitled gun books.

  • Several groupings of books from mainstream and indie publishers which are just outstanding: three titles by Marvin Heiferman and Carolyn Kismaric which reuse tell new stories using pop culture photography; several “boxes” published by the U.K’s Redstone Press; and a few other odd items including a jigsaw puzzle of a Malevich “Black Square” painting.

Erotica incl. artists’ books

A small grouping of books on erotic themes including several self published. Highlights:

  • Annie Sprinkle, Post Porn Feminist, which was banned for US sale at one point.

  • Caught Looking, ed. Ellis.

  • Aber Dahinter, a German-published pocket book depicting “hidden window” scenes from 19th Century erotic engravings.

  • One issue of FutureSex, a short-lived magazine about sexuality that mostly predates the internet era

  • Several artists’ books including works by Margaret Murphy and Michael Peven.

Cyberculture

Magazines, zines, and books related to early cyberculture and the early 90s Internet culture. Highlights:

  • Mondo 2000 magazine, 11 issues

  • Reality Hackers, the precursor to Mondo 2000

  • Going Gaga, several handmade issues of this wonderful early cyber-era by Wired contributor Gareth Branwyn.

  • Boing Boing, early print issues

  • Pamphlets by Hakim Bey and Mark Dery.

  • A group of catalogs from Loompanics, a distributor of edgy and anarchistic books. These are on newsprint but they are an essential view into forbidden and difficult topic publishing before the internet.

Comix and zines

A grouping of over 100 items published by American small publishers (primarily Fantagraphics and Drawn and Quarterly) during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Most are first editions in good or fine condition; none are graded. Highlights:

Children’s books

A grouping of 18 books, overlapping some of the above categories. Highlights:

  • Around 8 picture books for children, most from the early seventies, including a group from the publishing imprint Harlin Quist. An odd and sometimes dark niche, includes work by Eugene Ionesco, Tomi Ungerer, and William Steig.

  • Four limited edition books by the artist Warja Lavater, published by Ed. Maeght in various years through the 1980s, featuring symbolic / wordless retellings of fairy tales: Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (Little Red Riding Hood), Cendrillon (Cinderella), Le Belle au Bois Dormant (Sleeping Beauty), and Blanche Neige (Snow White).

~ Fini ~