Hol Art Books. Self Releases on the Web.
12 Mar 2008
I meant to write about this site for a while now. Hol Art Books is a new publisher dedicated to great writing on visual art. Under the guidance of founder Greg Albers, the site provides a platform for people to submit a literary project and/or choose a book to be published.
From the press release:
__From theory to fiction, we publish and promote books that are enjoyable, engaging, and enlightening reading. We are now in the process of putting together seed teams to publish our first books, for release in the fall of 2009. We will publish original works, reprints and new editions of older titles, and new translations of foreign language works—all in simultaneous paperback, hardcover and ebook formats whenever possible.
The idea is generous and is another interesting and optimistic step in the changing direction of independent publication and distribution of artistic essentials.
This brings certain questions to mind: How can one judge the release of one cultural item over another? Can the distribution of art become a social service as opposed to the current capitalistic condition?
Whether in the field of music, visual art or writing, we can see a shift taking place and this is pretty exciting.
With the raise of the one-person accounts, through blogs and other people generated initiatives, ones project and artistic creation can now easily be seen and appreciated by a very large amount of people in a brief amount of time. The classic middle woman/man with her/his power to compile who is worth showing and distributing someone over someone else doesn’t carry as much weight any more.
Sure I am going to take the example of what happened with the release of both Radiohead and NIN’s last albums, and it might seem trivial, yet these mark an interesting turn in the history of self-release.
Let’s see what it will mean for the visual arts spectrum. I bet on Self Released Art Fairs! You read it here First! (Edit: Or you know, maybe!)
(All images scans of books from Hol, left is Emile Zola, The Masterpiece, middle is Dietmar Elger, Gerhard Richter, Maler, and right is Roger Cardinal, Outsider Art)
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