Ruth Rogers Lecture Mutable Form and Enigmatic Meaning: The Language of Artists' Books A lecture by Ruth Rogers for the School of Library and Information Studies at The University of Alabama November 3, 2023 Understanding the ways that artists' books communicate their meaning is akin to learning a new language. The memorable ones do not "serve" the reader; they invite and provoke us to understand them through multiple non-textual attributes. This talk explores the many languages that their makers use to convey meaning, including weight, substance, spatial orientation, distortion, abstraction and expectation. As an educator and curator in an academic institution, I try to counter students' tendency to flip pages and snap photos by asking them to interrogate how the book works. My goal is to provide a way into critical engagement with the artist book through examples and close analysis of how it acts on the reader. Ruth R. Rogers is Curator of Special Collections at Wellesley College, where she specializes in the evolution of the book as material culture, visual communication, and artistic form. As visiting lecturer in the Art Department, Rogers teaches a hands-on intensive seminar, History of the Book from Manuscript to Print. She hosts courses throughout the curriculum in the area of book studies, an interdisciplinary approach spanning centuries and media. Rogers is a frequent juror for exhibitions and awards in book arts, and is the author of nine essays in the recently published Materialia Lumina exhibition catalog (2022), sponsored by the Codex Foundation. In her public lectures and writing, Rogers advocates for the critical reading of international contemporary artists' books in teaching and research. With a grant from the Delmas Foundation and support from the Codex Foundation, she convened a collecting seminar at Wellesley College for academic librarians with the goal of articulating standards and creative approaches for building institutional collections with artists' View the lecture at https://vimeo.com/888789583 ________________________________________ Peter D. Verheyen Bookbinder, Conservator & Librarian Email | <mailto:verheyen@philobiblon.com> verheyen@philobiblon.com The Book Arts Web | <https://www.philobiblon.com/> https://www.philobiblon.com Pressbengel Project Blog | <https://pressbengel.blogspot.com/> https://pressbengel.blogspot.com