By Kevin Behan
Artist books are a treasure meant to be touched. To simply admire one from afar is against its purpose. You must pick it up and read its pages. Good ones use this medium to grand effect, teasing the artistic consumer into a visual tale, playing with the format of the book itself. Nexus Press is a legend of sorts in this field. Created in 1976 and ending in 2003, the company pushed forward a plethora of these books.
On May 7th, Daniel Fuller came into SCAD Atlanta to give a presentation on the history of Nexus Press. It was founded by a group of college students with the aid of a single professor. When their school refused to publish the works of a few students because the pieces were too edgy, said artists took initiative and started their own company to do it themselves. Over time their company evolved to do more than just art books, but at first this was chiefly what they did.
Having been founded by college students, there wasn’t much organization to the budding company. They used whatever paper was available to do their work and switched materials when they ran out. At first they used abandoned buildings, moving around as time went on from one discarded structure to the next. No matter what, the building served as a home for the various artists as they continued to produce more artwork.
It’s due to their inexperience that an archival problem was spawned. Either they didn’t keep very good track of what they created, lost it in their various relocations, or just didn’t create records of what they made. To this day, no one’s exactly sure how many Nexus Press books were published, though Mr. Fuller gave a ballpark number of about 250. If you do the math, that’s about two books every three months.
With artist books being a niche item which didn’t bring much revenue, it’s a wonder the company managed to stay afloat as long as it did, outlasting most of its competition. An effort was made to preserve the press, led by the Atlanta College of Art (which would later merge with SCAD), but a home could not be found and the company dissolved.
First printings of Nexus Press books are now collectors’ items, fetching high prices whenever they exchange hands. Even back when Nexus Press was still around and kicking, museums and collectors eagerly awaited their releases.
From May 1st to July 25th, 2015, Nexus Press will be showcasing some of its various artist books at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, 535 Means Street NW. The exhibition itself will be called “Endless Road: A Look at Nexus Press”, and will be curated by Daniel Fuller. If you’d like to get a look at Nexus Press before that, the hallway outside the Trois Gallery in the SCAD Atlanta library will be displaying two art books until May 14th.