Do not attempt to speed read Book 91. Authored by the artist Keith A. Smith, the book won't tie you up with complicated language or intricate plotting. But if you try to turn the pages too quickly, your fingers will get tangled in string.
String is the sole content of Smith's tome. Strands pass through holes punched in the heavy white paper, creating complex patterns as the blank pages turn. Shadows are cast, evoking lines of text. Sounds are made, as if the book were whispering words left unwritten.
Published in 1982 and currently on view at the Getty Research Institute, Book 91 is typical of the atypical forms that artists' books have taken over the past century. In that timespan, the medium has engaged artists as diverse as Dieter Roth and Olafur Eliasson, Sol LeWitt and Tauba Auerbach, to name just a few of the forty-two artists represented in this survey exhibition. The accompanying catalogue supplements this group with dozens of other masters, ranging from Sophie Calle to Andrew Hoyem to Xu Bing.