From Democratic Multiple to Artist Publishing

Within the genre of contemporary artists' books, democratic multiples represent a production type that was established in the early 1970s and lasted through the early 1980s. Precursors included conceptual and minimalist artists' books from the 1960s. In the early 1980s, the political, social, and economic climate drastically changed for artists and nonprofit institutions established to assist in the production of democratic multiples. With the introduction of desktop publishing in the mid-1980s, followed by the development of the World Wide Web and print-on-demand technologies in the mid-1990s, a new era of artists' publishing replaced the democratic multiple as a production type. The author examines this transformation in format and purpose.