Galeria Posibilă, Institutul Prezentului, Punch, Secret Garden, Curtea Veche, La două bufnițe, Arhiva Perjovschi

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This year, the PAV Visual Arts Platform presents, for the first time in Sibiu, an exhibition dedicated to artists’ books.

The artist’s book is a distinctive art form that, unfortunately in Romania, falls between the domains of the art museum and the library. As a result, it is often overlooked: it is rarely collected, archived, exhibited, or institutionally supported.

An artist’s book is not a graphic novel, a comic book, or an illustrated book—although the boundaries between these genres have become increasingly blurred in recent years.

The artist’s book emerged as an artistic practice in the 1960s, alongside movements such as Fluxus and Conceptual Art. It is an artistic medium in its own right, much like painting or sculpture.

Artists’ publications are neither entirely books nor entirely sculptures. Or perhaps they are both at once.

Produced in small or very small editions, sometimes as unique pieces, featuring unconventional binding methods, hybrid subjects, aesthetic or anti-aesthetic approaches, explicit manifestos or purely formal explorations, the artist’s book has evolved into a distinct territory with its own fairs, specialized collections, dedicated artists, and independent publishers.

In Romania, several publishers are active in this field, including Posibilă (Posibilă Gallery), P+4 (which later became The Institute of the Present), Punch, and, on selected projects, larger publishing houses such as Humanitas, Curtea Veche, and IDEA Artă + Societate.

A special case is Secret Garden, the bookstore and publishing house from Timișoara, which also focuses on fanzines—publications without ISBN numbers, often simple projects produced through modest means.

Every October, Secret Garden organizes Sit and Read, the only artists’ publications fair in Romania.

The exhibition at Habitus is structured into four sections:
a) My personal collection of artists’ books and publications, assembled over the last 35 years;
b) Publications produced by Posibilă, The Institute of the Present, Punch, and Paper Tiger;
c) A special guest presentation by Secret Garden;
d) A selection of artists from Sibiu and beyond, who either work regularly with the artist’s book format or are experimenting with it for the first time.

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Romania

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