April / June 2020

An artist's book is an artwork conceived as a book, as opposed to a book displaying an artwork.
Jan Steinbach
 
We are happy to announce the new guest of Spazio Choisi 01: Jan Steinbach who conceived the online project edcat.
Jan Steinbach is one of the founders of the publishing house for artists' books Edition Taube together with Jonas Beuchert and Tilman Schlevogt and he is involved in the non-profit space for book culture MATERIAL in Zurich.

Through edcat, Jan Steinbach offers an open source database of art editions and publications, a unique information and resource platform, that can be accessed freely by everyone. As of now, it contains data on nearly 12,000 titles, entered and updated by artists, publishers, researchers, collectors and booksellers.

The independent art publishing universe is huge and manifold, and edcat offers a key of access and knowledge. This collaborative tool allows, in addition to the conservation of cultural information, an increase in the visibility and circulation of artists' publications.
On edcat, interested people can access info on art editions and publications, discover the new entries and create 'virtual' collections.

During the virtual residency, Jan Steinbach will process the data provided by Choisi Bookshop, transposing them within edcat.net and he will collaborate with the bookstore and the public library Artphilein Library in the creation of "online" stories on photobooks and artist’s books.

We invite artists and publishers to add their publications here: edcat.net/items/new and to send your books to Choisi Bookstore, if you'd like them to be shown or sold at the bookstore, as soon as it will reopen to the public.