Above: Marcel Duchamp, The Green Box, 1934,

Below: Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Painting, Photography, Film, 1925

Dieter Roth, Collected Works, Volume 17: 246 Little Clouds, 1976

Since Duchamp's Dada beginnings, he was always willing to push the borders of accepted forms of art. The Green Boxis both a model for so-called book object and a valuable prototype for the artists book as it became an accepted art form in the 1960s and 1970s.³⁵
         Hungarian constructivist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), teacher of photography and graphic design at the Bauhaus, had considerable influence on the early artists book makers because of his use of the photographic book. Moholy-Nagy demonstrates one of the first "modern attitudes" toward photography.³⁶ In his work the normal viewpoint is replaced with a "worm's eye, bird's eye, extreme close-up or angle viewpoint."³⁷ In 1922 Moholy-Nagy began to experiment with photograms, which allowed an artist to capture patterns on a light sensitive paper without a camera. He used this medium to express abstract pattern that he believed could be more creative and functional than imitative photography. His book Painting, Photography, Film (1925) "laid the ground rules for making a photographic sequence function beyond the level of mere collection"³⁸ This work also uses structure and format as part of the content, rather than merely as instruments of eye catching organization. His concentration on the sequence or series of photographs and the declaration that the "knowledge of photography is as important as that of the alphabet"³⁹ make his work a predecessor to the photographic artists books of Ed Ruscha or Sol LeWitt in the 1970s.
         While all of the above artists and movements influence artists working in the book medium, there are two artists from the 1960s and 1970s that stand out as pioneers to the current activity in artists books. These are Dieter Roth (Diter Rot) (1930-98) and Ed Ruscha (1937 - ).
         Their works stand as a model to the artists book as a form because they produced book works in a sustained series of projects. Until this time 20th century artists working in the book medium had only dabbled and not created a sustained, long-term body of artists books. Their work grew out of the non-traditional, conceptual art forms being developed in the late 1950s and early 60s and set a foundation for the medium of artists books and particularly for the artists book as a democratic multiple or inexpensive edition.⁴⁰ During the 1960s and 1970s with the climate of social and political activism, the democratic multiple was appealing to artists shut out of the traditional gallery and museum scene. "The book could be art in and of itself."⁴¹ Artists books became a way to reach a wider audience and the decades of the the 1960s and 1970s were fertile times for this new art form to take hold. The fine art hierarchy had been shaken by the public and artistic interest in photography. As the lines between conceptual art, film, theater, dance, literature and music were blurring, experimenting in the book arts was a natural transition for many artists. As Clive Phillpot states in "Some contemporary Artists and their Books," the 1970s was a "time more artists were compelled to discuss their intentions than ever before. ... There were a great many artists who wished to communicate without intermediaries..."⁴² and the book format made this an option more than ever before.
         Dieter Roth's path to artists books came via experimental work in graphic design and concrete poetry. His earliest work was co-publishing nine editions of the journal Spirale.⁴³ His book projects began in 1954 as he began to investigate the physical form of the book. In his work the "conventions of the page become subject matter - a turning page becomes a physical, sculptural element, rather than an incidental activity."⁴⁴ Roth is also interested in exploring process in his books. For example in 246 Little Clouds, scraps of paper (little clouds) with sketches are taped onto the page below a particular phrase. This is then photographed with the illumination moving one degree at a time from left to right representing the rising sun with the taped pieces of paper casting shadows such as clouds might create.⁴⁵

 

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