Behind the Selections
The Format team loves to read. Three of us worked on this list of the top five books in our collections–the ones that have stayed with us. We each have a different background and medium(s) as artists. From painting, sculpture, animation, film, photography and writing; our lists resonate with our practices, as well as our personalities.
One of us spent their early life, from womb to toddling, in a library and has the stickers to prove it. Another, matter of factly and without a hint of sociopathy, prefers books to people. Identifying like one would as a cat person, a book person. We are proud nerds.
For knowledge and escape, the love of reading has connected us (I could have written bound us but I respect you too much to do that), and we’re certain it connects you too–because you’re here. Whatever your tastes, we are sure there is something on this list for you; our fellow artists, nerds, and book people.
Adrienne:
Subject to Change by Liz Magor
For a long time I’ve genuinely believed that the artist statement is the worst genre of writing. [Editor’s Note: It is.] As text, a statement plays a tricky supporting role in translating visual media into language, and if indulging in art speak then the vocabulary alone has a way of chewing the scenery and distracting from the artwork itself. That said, Liz Magor’s book of collected writings, Subject to Change, has been a favourite reference point over the last year. Magor’s extensive and materially canny practice is documented in this book through selected writings, as well as interviews and essays written by Magor on other artists.
This collection also includes some of the punchiest artist statements which find a way to speak directly to the artwork without puncturing what made it compelling in the first place. Besides this, it’s a beautiful publication, and some of Magor’s early art-books are partially reproduced inside. Read this book if you want insight into Magor’s prolific sculptural practice, and for a rich example of how text and material thinking can work together.
My Meteorite by Harry Dodge
Readers of Maggie Nelson will perhaps recognize Harry Dodge as a figure who appears within her book The Argonauts, which came out in 2015. Harry Dodge is known for his sculptural and video practice, and this book touches on his thinking and practice in a more interior way. I first read this book in 2021, and in a way my experience of it is attached to the pandemic–this book was a kind of company in its sprawling and somersaulting intelligence, which Dodge both possesses and investigates within the book.
Written from memory, My Meteorite touches on Dodge’s research into artificial intelligence, his father’s decline from dementia, and Dodge’s day-to-day life with his children and his studio projects. The titular meteorite refers to a literal meteorite that Dodge buys off of eBay, and this book revels in serendipity and coincidence. I’d recommend My Meteorite to anyone, art nerd or not–between niche regional queer references and the absurd wonders of the cosmos, there’s something for everyone in this book.
Wendy, Master of Art by Walter Scott.
Despite sharing a last name with the author I have no relation that I know of to Walter Scott. This is quite tragic for me. What can I say about Wendy that she hasn’t already tacitly confessed through her precise yet somehow still ambiguous cartoon facial expressions? Wendy, Master of Art is the 3rd book in the storied comic series by Walter Scott. I don’t know if a book can be an anthem, but if it can, this book was the anthem of my grad school cohort, and storylines within this book proved prophetic.
A barely concealed parody of the Guelph MFA program, this book and the Wendy series more generally is like a funhouse mirror of artists in Canada. I see myself reflected; my reflection amuses and horrifies me. I can’t look away? Walter Scott has stated that the most recent Wendy book, The Wendy Award, will likely be the last for some time, but I intend to follow this travelling circus wherever it goes.
Before I Was a Critic I Was a Human Being by Amy Fung
Sharp and affecting, this book is written by art critic Amy Fung. Written in personal voice, with a partly-fictional but still autobiographical structure, Fung gives the reader insight into her life growing up in Edmonton in the 1980s and 90s, her pathway into writing, and her experiences as a first-generation immigrant within Canadian art circles. Fung structures her book as a series of linked essays which examine the contradictions of working in the cultural sector in Canada, with insights into the racism and colonial violence that these contradictions perpetuate.
Fung challenges the reader, while also challenging herself, and deconstructs the ‘double-speak’ of the national context. I am reminded of what it means to be a critic with this book, and the time and sincere engagement required to assess work. In Fung’s case, this time and engagement is spent within a cultural scene, and her assessments extend to the conditions that might not be evident to the average gallery visitor. Read this book to see an example of critique balanced with enormous care.
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
Ok so this is me being a high school nerd with this pick, as the first time I read this book was as a sixteen year old with an enormous commute which gave me ample time to read. I also read this book before I had outgrown my ‘underline text in pen’ phase, which as a teenager was the type of habit I took on because I thought it made me seem smart and literary. My younger self aside, this novel is a masterpiece, and I’m not the only one who thinks so.
Doris Lessing received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007, and The Golden Notebook is one of her most recognized books within an extensive body of work. It’s also one of Lessing’s longer books, and it’s written in a fragmentary but complex way. The narrator, Anna Wulf, is a writer experiencing a block who records her experiences in 4 separate colour coded diaries. Anna’s life and thinking fracture in ways that echo her fractured social context–set in the mid 20th century and published in the 1960s, the political revelations within the book follow the values and involvements of Lessing herself. It’s been a few years since I re-read it in full, but what I have gotten from this book repeatedly is a renewed sense of the purpose of making art and writing, even (or especially) during moments of upheaval.
Ben:
Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch
Framed through Lynch’s experiences as one of the most influential filmmakers of all time, Catching the Big Fish is a profound exploration of creativity, intuition and the subconscious mind. The book is a collection of short reflections on embracing mystery, trusting your intuition, and nurturing a daily creative practice. Lynch likens ideas to “fish” in the ocean of the mind, urging artists to dive deep to catch the most meaningful and resonant ones. While at times it goes a little off the deep end into advertising transcendental meditation, the book is packed with invaluable lessons and practical advice for artists and creatives of all kinds. Lynch’s thoughtful and brilliant approach to filmmaking shines through in every page, making this a must-read for any creative.
On Writing Well by William Zinsser
A fantastic handbook for writing clearly and authentically. Although the book focuses on writing, its principles—expressing ideas in your own voice and stripping away excess to reveal the core of your message—are universal across all artistic mediums. Zinsser emphasizes the importance of clarity and resonance, arguing that clear expression allows your work to connect more deeply with others. Writing is just like any other medium of art, a vehicle for ideas and emotions–if you’re able to express yourself clearly, the work will be more impactful. This book also offers practical advice on structure and approach, making it an invaluable resource for artists crafting statements, pitches, or grant applications.
Herzog on Herzog: Conversations with Paul Cronin
A book length interview with the legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog. Known for his poetic and singular vision, Herzog’s work spans a wide range of genres, from poetic documentaries like Grizzly Man and Lessons in Darkness to philosophical adventures like Aguirre, the Wrath of God, and Fitzcarraldo, as well as genre reimaginings like Nosferatu the Vampyre and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call–New Orleans. What ties his work together is his profound curiosity about the human condition and his commitment to telling deeply human stories. Herzog’s skill as a storyteller comes through well in the book with a variety of amusing and absurd anecdotes on his work and life experiences, whether it’s the act of dragging a steamship over a mountain for Fitzcarraldo or hypnotising his cast for Heart of Glass.
My favorite section of the book is when Herzog discusses the idea of “ecstatic truth.” In many of Herzog’s documentary works, he injects fictionalized stories into them that fit into the greater theme of the film. His reasoning for this is to try to capture a greater “ecstatic truth” that goes beyond mere accounting of facts to reach a deeper universal truth. This concept of “ecstatic truth” has deeply influenced my approach to narrative filmmaking, both in documentary and fiction. To quote another great filmmaker Michael Haneke: “Film is 24 lies per second at the service of truth, or at the service of the attempt to find the truth.” All art, not just film, is ultimately in service of seeking truth, and I hope this book resonates with you as profoundly as it did with me.
For additional reading on ecstatic truth, see Herzog’s Minnesota Declaration.
Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy
A great book that demystifies the alchemy of visual communication. David Ogilvy is one of the legendary ad men of the 60s and 70s, and while most of this book focuses on advertising and working in the advertising industry, it’s hard to understate its insights on storytelling, audience psychology, and the power of imagery. With many artists being commissioned by companies to create work, the principles here on how to effectively create striking images that simultaneously convey purpose is invaluable. When you create an online portfolio, you’re effectively advertising yourself and your work. Understanding how to shape the story you are telling with your work is a critical skill.
Notes on the Cinematograph by Robert Bresson
A poetic manifesto on purity in visual storytelling. Bresson, one of the most important French filmmakers of the 20th century, is known for his restrained and minimalist style. His films often feature stoic, expressionless performances, relying instead on composition, rhythm, and silence to evoke emotion. This emphasis on restraint and subtlety is a vital lesson for all creatives. Like Zinsser and Ogilvy, Bresson champions the power of succinctness and depth through economy of expression.
Bresson’s writing is full of aphorisms, and his poetic style makes for many memorable quotes in this breezy 136-page read. In one of my favorite passages, Bresson describes the life cycle of a film: “My movie is born first in my head, dies on paper; is resuscitated by the living persons and real objects I use, which are killed on film but, placed in a certain order and projected onto a screen, come to life again like flowers in water.” This idea—that the vision in your mind will never perfectly match the final work or how it’s received—applies to all art forms. Yet, in each stage of creation, there is beauty and joy to be found.
Julia:
I Like Your Work: Art & Etiquette edited by Paper Monument
A collection of diverse voices sharing wisdom and discrete art world gossip. Paper Monument’s survey piece is made up of responses from artists, curators, critics and dealers prompted to reflect on the rules of the art world–spoken and unspoken. It makes for a dishy little read.
The funny, weird, dry, and biting accounts of the laws of this niche society, and the transgressions against them–spanning from unwitting and minor to downright bad behaviour, paints a vivid picture of a varied art community, united by vulnerable egos. Found within are some real insights into the surrealities of this culture, human nature and the absurdity of our rituals. If you have ever felt like an alien observer in this emotionally-charged culture-meets-business world, or if you may have acted in opposition to some unknown social norm specific to it, this may give you answers. It also made me feel better about never nailing the double-cheek kiss.
So many of us find this awkward! I don’t want to do it anymore!
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
An experimental narrative and work of meta-fiction, the entwined stories within House of Leaves are challenged by redactions, cuts, codes, overlaps and insertions; making it as much a visual and conceptual artwork as it is a novel. These narrative frustrations aren’t just stylistic indulgences, they feed the story and create an unsettling ambience. A feat of conceptual book design, I especially love these strange fragments of text that appear right ways on the front side, and backward on the reverse.
At its core House of Leaves is about a house that, while it’s outside unchanged, is growing increasingly larger on the inside. As told in three intertwining narratives; the diary of Johnny, a tattooist who stumbles upon research documents on a never-seen documentary about this house. Zapano, the late researcher, whose footnote descriptions of that documentary and what he knows of its maker fill the gaps left by the final narrative thread. And The Navidson Record, the first-person account of the documentarian living in the house as he discovers a mysterious hallway. Johnny’s interjections are a grungy product of their time, and these sections are not the most compelling of the work at the outset, but serve a real purpose as a heightened proxy of the reader–becoming unmoored and incoherent by the events unfolding in The Navidson Record.
With fragments first released over a young internet, this work has garnered a kind of cult status as readers worked out whether this was fiction or real document of something unexplained. Now a cultural touchpoint, one of those if you know you know phenomena akin to Twin Peaks. A shorthand to know the person you’re talking to has an appreciation for the weird.
As a writer and artist I found this work to embody everything that could be done when rules were simultaneously closely followed (so many academic footnotes and appendices) and broken–a page with one word!
My water-logged copy has a forever bloated place on my bookshelf.
The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord
I put this in the middle of the list, purposefully to lull you to a false sense of security, but I promise more fun things come after.
Things are not great (unfortunately, an evergreen statement), and there has never been a more appropriate time to read this work…but it’s going to be upsetting. A critique of advanced capitalism, and considered a foundational document of the Situationist movement, The Society of the Spectacle is composed of 221 numbered aphorisms. From both theory and form, it seems as if Debord knew where the average attention spans would fall off–and why. Media, life, progressively more representation than real, desires and drives overwritten by economic forces, replaced with illusions and commodities–our own relationships commodified, faces and bodies distorted as we make products of ourselves.
Debord also had an interesting relationship with television–itself playing a significant role in the Spectacle as a method of distraction and mollification, and a medium that Barbara Kruger also wrote about, the lore is that he did much of his writing with television playing. This resonated with me as a writer, as I often find it necessary to distract part of my mind from myself and my own heavy stories. Already disturbing enough going in there as lived experience, watching television spares me from some of the discomfort of my own narratives as they come tumbling out.
At this particular time I can think of nothing more discomforting than Debord’s thesis around mass media dulling our ability to see ourselves within the structures of capitalism as we work and consume ourselves toward our own inevitable obliteration…
I’m just going to check what’s on Prime…
Goddamnit.
Goodbye, World! Looking at Art in the Digital Age by Omar Kholeif
In this series of theoretical essays Kholeif is conversational, witty, and anecdotal as he expounds on what it is to make art in an image-saturated time of hyperconnectivity. As an early adopter of all things tech and social, I love a good critique of technology and social media as I now find myself growing reclusive in rejection of these intrusive objects and all their dopaminergic designs. Anytime I taught a media or marketing class, I put this on the reading list for a healthy dose of awareness.
Kholeif writes about the impact of the internet on art, and how we even view art in public spaces–not content to just look, but needing to be seen looking. This book bridges the 58 years between Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle and now–when the art world itself, even as it resists, is enveloped by spectacle. Kholeif balances his deep thinking with levity, so you can use this to pull yourself out of the hole Debord put you in, while staying sharp and critical.
I particularly enjoyed his thoughts on how algorithms can and have made for a generation of autodidacts, as one’s search for information reveals more gaps in knowledge and drives further interest. Of course this was the slightly more optimistic 2018 take, and now we have a better understanding of how this drive has been exploited to spread misinformation, but… those poles of intent have always existed. Knowledge and ignorance. Good and evil, same as it ever was.
Poor Artists!
Poor Artists! is electric satire, a collection of short stories; real and autobiographical, some fictitious or slightly embellished, and others completely insane, functioning as allegories. This anthology truly has it all. Zarina Muhammad and Gabrielle de la Puente began working together in 2015 when, in art school, they became united by their irreverence and created the blog The White Pube. A platform for reviews, essays and weird shorts that trolled the establishment, and refused to bend a knee to the capitalist structures behind the business of art.
A general rule, I will buy any work that embraces the absurd. A philosophy that is, I believe, the only way to cope with…well, I covered it above. Everything. All of it. The absurd also happens to be more exposed when you’re an artist living in, adjacent to, or in rejection of the art world. Besides; I, an art clown, can’t take myself seriously. It gives me a rash.* Reading works from other art clowns is a soothing balm; I feel a great sense of relief and community. It’s clear from Muhammad and de la Puente’s collaboration with contributors that they have created a welcoming circus.**
Every artist, emerging to established, should pick up this book. For art students enrolled in formal training, this may just keep you sane. Maybe you’ll find one of your classmates reading it and decide then and there to start a blog…
*To be fair, a lot of things give me a rash.
**I noted in editing this piece that both Adrienne and I liken the arts community & arts academia to a circus, so I feel doubly confident in this analogy.
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Bonus Content: Our Favourite Bookstores!
You may have noticed that our links went to independent bookstores and artist-run centres. Here are some more that we can vouch for, and, if your city isn’t on this list, it’s because we’re poor artists and haven’t been there. We encourage you to explore those!
