MCBA Prize for Book Arts

Jan Owen

Requiem

My own Minnesota Center for Book Arts has established the MCBA Prize to "recognize book art from across the field and around the world" and named the five finalists here. The prize comes with an award of $2,000, not to mention the distinction of being the first winner of this hopefully bi-annual award. (It is being given in conjunction with MCBA's biennial.)

Simon Redington

Bomb

The intent of the award seems to be to encourage not only form and craftsmanship but also the development of content and how these three elements work together. I'm not familiar with all five finalists, but having taken a number of Julie Chen's classes, I know that she works particularly hard...both in her own work and in encouraging others...to see that her voice is understood in all aspects of her final book.

Veronika Schapers
Durs Grunbein

The question of what makes a book art is always an interesting one and I'm sure that this prize will elicit more of that discussion. What makes it successful is an even more elusive question. There are so many possible elements to a potential book: is there text? is it handwritten or is it printed with letterpress? (Some would say that the modern invention of polymer plates in printing is not the same technique as using metal type.) If the work is a single sheet of paper (as in a broadside) is it a book? I'm beginning to have my own definition of all of this, but in the meantime you can enjoy all of the submissions and the finalists' work on the link above.

Clifton Meador
Avalanche

A note to the web master at MCBA: it would be lovely if we could click on the photos and see them in a larger size on our screen.

Julie Chen
Panorama