Fragment of "Note of intent on Tipo.PT"

www.Tipo.PT is an online archive about artists' books, experimental graphic objects, magazines and author's editions created by Portuguese artists, designers and illustrators, or having Portugal as its theme. Periodicals or certain collections are treated separately. The artists' magazines are very special objects and fundamentally different from other publications. Generally they are a collective work, with several numbers, while the majority of the books are designed by just an author and in many cases in a very specific context1. The cataloged objects are multiples, editions in book form, leaf let or brochure, postcards and posters, printed in any technique: offset, digital and laser, engraving, letterpress, screen printing and other traditional printing techniques.

The structure and organization of the archive was inspired by ABsOnline2, a platform for artist's books developed by Johanna Drucker between 2004 and 2008. www.Tipo.PT exists as a natural consequence of the collaboration between Brad Freeman, Catarina Figueiredo Cardoso and I in the preparation of the Journal of Artists' Books #323, an issue entirely dedicated to the Portuguese panorama of self-publishing and artist's books. www.Tipo.PT is also an outcome from the conference "What a Book Can"4 organized in 2011 and 2012 by me and three friends: Claudia Dias, an associate Oficina do Cego, and David Guéniot and Patricia Almeida, GHOST's editors. www.Tipo.PT makes a stand in the active dissemination of editorial projects of great quality but, for various reasons, still with little visibility in Portugal.

Being a teacher for several years now, I consider important to invest in the pedagogical utility of the archive. So, the archive has technical and specific information on each work, and most importantly it mentions public libraries where these objects can be found. Some of these books are expensive, many are rare and hard to find because they have short runs or their distribution is restricted to a small group of collectors.

This is not a curatorial project in the strict sense of the term. More than choosing authors, we document the widest possible number of editions. That is, the digital index cards that describe each book are made according to the characteristics of the graphical objects and not the reputation of their authors.

(...)We want to understand better the role these editions played in terms of dissemination of avant-garde and new artistic movements, as well as its use in political claims and protest. With the accumulation and systematization of information I think one interesting aspect will be to compare the use and the various contexts that publishing had over the years or even decades for certain artists.

(...)www.Tipo.PT is a developing archive that will never be complete, unless Portuguese artists stop making books or editing multiples. We are committed in the long-term with and www.Tipo.PT and the Portuguese Small Press Yearbook as personal projects. In the case of Catarina, as an interested and curious collector and patron; in my case, as an extension of my artistic practice and as a pedagogical tool.

I conclude by thanking the collaboration of all the artists who gave us information and images. Despite the lack of institutional support, it has been rewarding to be able to create, informally, a collaborative network. Throughout this work process we focused on putting artists in touch with publishers, generating exchanges of books and personal experiences, solidifying a community of artists, makers and publishers of books. Making us all more aware that we are not alone in the face of current difficulties.

Isabel Baraona, 2013

1 To quote two specific examples: in the case of Carla Cruz publishing is inseparable from some performances and her active research on feminism; in the case of Gonçalo Sena, publications are an extension of his sculptures and installations.

2 www.artistsbooksonline.org

3 http://www.journalofartistsbooks.org/jab32/issue.html

4 http://oqueumlivropode.tumblr.com/