The "IACK Archive Fair Online", which is being held on the online store, will run until this Sunday.
We decided to carry out this project in order to reexamine our activities as we approach the milestone of our fourth anniversary, and above all, to show our gratitude in some way to all of our customers for their continued patronage.
IACK has focused on collections of works as a medium that, unlike actual works (although that may sound odd) exhibited in galleries, is accessible to many people across time and place, and is relatively easy to archive both physically and financially.
Whereas in an exhibition space, works are fixed in one place and can only be viewed by those who can visit the venue, a collection of works crosses borders and can be picked up and viewed by a wide range of people through hubs such as bookstores around the world. Since there are no time constraints such as exhibition periods, works can be rediscovered in unexpected ways across eras and generations. Also, while it is not easy to actually view or collect all of an artist's works, collecting and viewing collections of works can be said to be a more realistic and familiar way of enjoying works in some sense. If an artist creates a collection of works as a work of art, you can directly trace the trajectory of their creation by reading it in order.
It is primarily for these reasons that IACK has once again advocated an alternative way of appreciating artworks, treating the collection as a work of art. However, as our daily lives change due to the global spread of COVID-19, we have gradually begun to feel that we need to re-examine the assumptions that allow such a collection to have a certain degree of strength and function as a work of art.
For example, the portable nature of a collection of artworks is undoubtedly useful in this day and age, when restrictions are being placed on people's movements. However, a collection of artworks does not move on its own. It can only move because there are people who carry it. The current situation has made me realize that I myself have been blind to this all-too-obvious premise.
Also, whereas exhibitions are restricted by time and place, I had always felt that the high degree of freedom and democracy of collections of artworks was superior, but as with the case of the collections mentioned above, I think we should now reconsider the meaning and importance of the fact that, instead of artworks moving, they have moved people. I can now personally understand that this is one of the factors that has driven the unprecedented movement of art books and photo books in many countries since around 2010, and that it has become so popular.
In reconsidering the future of the collection of works, which has been the core of IACK's activities up until now, we must also reconsider the element of "archive," which has been one of the concepts we have adopted since the company's inception.
IACK was founded with the concept of an "open study." The study can also be called an archive. Initially, it was a place for personal exploration and a research lab where materials were shared, and it was perceived as more practical, but over time the study element gradually became stronger.
So what exactly does "an open study = archive" mean? Looking back, perhaps the reason I decided to adopt this concept was because, based on my formative experiences at book fairs and various events, I had unconsciously envisioned a more gradual form of archiving in which works and their associated elements would move from one personal archive to another, rather than a self-righteous archive (collection).
With all this going on, now that we are in our fourth year, we have decided to go back to our roots and put this kind of archive into practice. And as a next step, we will begin to reconsider the possibilities of both collections and exhibitions in the modern era.
Our store mainly deals with self-published and artist-run publications, so there aren't many of them produced in the first place, and they are rarely reprinted. Therefore, they rarely appear on the secondary market, not only in Japan but also overseas, and there is no opportunity to get your hands on them.
We hope that through this fair, while you enjoy these now rare collections of works, it will also provide an opportunity to think about archiving in the modern era, the nature of artworks, and your own archives.
------------
"Art Books: 79 +1" is a collection of works from IACK's archives.HereIt is available for purchase from here. It is a little different from a catalog, and is enjoyable not only for those who want to discover a new collection of works, but also for those who like art books. Please take a look.