Jonathan Hammer
Matthew Marks Gallery
Pushing the livre deluxe to its luxurious limit, Jonathan Hammer collaborates with artists and writers to create tomes swollen with the uniqueness challenged by the artists’ books of the ’60s and ’70s that, motivated by specific political agendas, were often produced in relatively large quantities as inexpensive alternatives to the limited edition.
Hammer, a kind of bibliophilic Warhol, gives himself over fully to the role of middleman—spine, hinge—to become artisan and patron saint of volumes so precious they are fittingly, albeit tellingly, encased in vitrines: you could look but neither touch