From its inscription within the rigid aesthetic hierarchies of classical antiquity and early modern thought, which enforced a strict philosophical separation between word and image rooted in Platonic thought, through its radical reconfiguration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the artist’s book has progressively emerged as an expanded and heterogeneous artistic field in which textual, visual, material, and conceptual registers are continuously entangled and critically renegotiated.

Within this conceptual horizon, ΙΣΤΟΣ / WEB – Contemporary Artists’ Books unfolds as a spatialized artist’s book in its own right, as the entire Cercle Cité is transfigured into a concrete yet simultaneously immaterial book-body. Video projections, sculpture, photography, digital works, mixed media, and poetic interventions converge to form a multimedia environment in which the book is no longer confined to codex form but emerges as a holographic experience. The exhibition space itself becomes an experiential library; an expanded web where words generate images, volumes determine perception, and the act of reading is transformed into a holistic encounter.

In addition and in sustained dialogue with these diverse practices, the exhibition is further enriched through the inclusion of selected artist’s books from the holdings of the Bibliothèque nationale du Luxembourg (BnL). These materials comprise seminal works by internationally recognized figures whose artistic trajectories both resonate with and critically refract the contemporary pieces presented in the exhibition.

Maria Bourbou, curator, visual artist
Aias Christofis, assistant curator, art historian

Artists : Chloe Akrithaki, Maria Bourbou, Elsa Charalampous, Marco Godinho, Robert Hall, Florence Hoffmann, Julien Hübsch, Cristiana Iliopolos, Maria Kompatsiari, Sandra Lieners, Dimitra Maltabe, Manolis Manarakis, Christina Mitrentse, Fiona Mouzakitis, Dionisios Pappas, Panagiotis Voulgaris