Background information
"Is it a book, an exhibition, a catalogue of the exhibition? Is it mass produced? Is it unique? Dayanita SINGH is a book artist who stretches the imagination of what a book can be, transcending the spaces between publishing and art. 'Book Building' is both a short history and a deep dive, this is her manifesto for the photo book. The volume 'Book Building' by Dayanita SINGH traces the journeys of her books, from the first, 'Zakir Hussain' (1986), to her latest, 'Zakir Hussain Maquette' (2019), showing the spectrum of her book-building process, from idea to material object and how she inventively circulates them in the art world and beyond. Taking those books as a basis, we witness the transformation of books into book-objects which open up new interpretative spaces: 'Museum of Chance' (2014), for example, first became a book-object, then a diptych, a book-case, a suitcase museum and a book museum, before finally becoming the ongoing museum in her 'Museum Bhavan' (2017).
Content
The volume 'Book Building' documents thirteen photo books by Indian photographer Dayanita SINGH in images and short texts, along with several DIYs she has created with detailed instructions on how to display her books as exhibitions―making us the curators―as well as various performative interventions, from book carts and happenings, to installations and tours. At the heart of 'Book Building' is the collaborative process that Dayanita SINGH and publisher Gerhard Steidl have established over twenty years; the belief that a book is always in a process of becoming." (© Steidl Verlag, 2022)