Royal Book Lodge

After more than 30 years of activity by the Royal Book Lodge (RBL), renowned art historian John C. Welchman provides the first study of this project that generated a loose network of international artists. He examines the history and artistic practices of RBL’s collaborations, which produced a variety of intermedial experiments around the artist’s books, including photography, ceramics, writing, and publications. Against the backdrop of the diverse cultural and political geographies of those involved, narratives of migration and travels around the world – some artistically inspired – unfold in the volume. Welchman takes up central themes of RBL, such as biographical construction, fiction, and control, examining its Situationist traditions as well as its exploration of socially pressing issues, such as the study of experiences of violence and remedies.

ROYAL BOOK LODGE emerged in the late 1980s from a collaboration between artists Juli Susin and Véronique Bourgoin, and to date has brought together international artists and writers including Raisa Aid, Kai Althoff, Abel Auer, Linda Bilda, André Butzer, matali crasset, Guðný Guðmundsdóttir, Beate Günther, Tobias Hauser, Andy Hope 1930, Dorota Jurczak, Bruce Kalberg, Jochen Lempert, Roberto Ohrt, Jonathan Meese, Raymond Pettibon, Jason Rhoades, Lucia Sotnikova, Gianfranco Sanguinetti, and others.
JOHN C. WELCHMAN (*1958) is professor of art history at the University of California at San Diego. He is the author of numerous publications on modern and contemporary art, including Modernism Relocated (1995), Art After Appropriation (2001), and Past Realization (2016).