AGYU launches second artist-book competition

Are you an artist who has published an artist’s book? If so, you have until Jan. 10 to win $1,500 in the Art Gallery of York University’s (AGYU) second annual Artists’ Book of the Moment (ABotM) competition.

The AGYU launched the competition last year to recognize the extensive genre of artists’ books, defined as works of art in the form of books.

Winnipeg artist/writer Rob Kovitz’s Ice Fishing in Gimli won the inaugural 2010 ABotM competition. The eight-volume image/text montage bookwork, set in a small town by a frozen lake in the uncharted centre of Canada, is a saga of desire, ambition, weather and landscape.  

“We still like the book, but we’re in search of the next one,” says Michael Maranda, AGYU assistant curator. “After all, it is the Artists’ Book of the Moment and the next moment is nigh. So, to everyone else out there, it’s time to dust off that magnum opus (or parvum opus, we’re not picky) and send it on in. Our jury is standing by.”

Submissions are due by Jan. 10 and go on display in February at The DepARTment, 1389 Dundas St. W., Toronto, as an off-site AGYU exhibition of Ice Fishing in Gimli.

The 2011 short list will be announced at the end of the exhibition and the finalist revealed at the AGYU’s spring exhibition opening.

Out of over 120 entries for the 2010 competition, 31 were shortlisted and a three-person jury (Toronto-based artist Micah Lexier, Art Metropole director Ann Dean and Ottawa-based lawyer and collector Joe Friday) chose Ice Fishing in Gimli as the winner. All entries are displayed in the AGYU lobby.

For submission rules and guidelines, visit the AGYU Web site.