Dispensing with the official role and elitist nature of the conventionally conceived art object, Fluxus artists’ books sought to occupy more clandestine, subversive positions by shirking conventional modes of conception and distribution, breaking all commercial ties and operating as salvos in the struggle to bridge art and life. These books offered artists fuller autonomy in the production of their own work and opportunities for broader distribution, and became central to the amorphous movement. Using inexpensive printing processes such as stenciling, photocopying and offset printing, Fluxus artists became their own publishers, gallerists and curators. As books took on the character of events, expected to do more than merely contain thoughts and images, they exceeded the structure of the traditional book format and mutated into boîtes, containers, binders and boxes.

Fluxbooks, the first detailed study of the artist’s book within the Fluxus movement, presents Fluxus as the site of some of the most productive and irreverent transformations of the book medium in art history. Drawing on the Luigi Bonotto Collection and including works by George Maciunas, Wolf Vostell, John Cage, Alison Knowles, Dick Higgins, George Brecht, Allan Kaprow, Jackson Mac Low, Gyorgy Ligeti and many others, this extensively illustrated volume presents the publications with minimal critical commentary, allowing the books themselves to narrate their nature and development.