Irma Boom: Book Activist
[UNCUT SPECIAL EDITION]
Limited edition of 50
Published by FRAGILE BOOKS

To coincide with the worldwide release of Irma Boom: Book Activist , FRAGILE BOOKS—the project director and worldwide distributor—proudly presents the Uncut Special Edition.

This extraordinary edition preserves the book in its original form, before it was trimmed down to its miniature format. In the standard edition, a total of 1,500 pages are gathered into 16-page signatures and sewn together. The book is then finished by trimming its three open sides. But the book block—with its trim marks still visible—was so beautiful that we decided to publish it exactly as it was.

Since an unfinished book block is too fragile to withstand handling, the spine of each copy has been reinforced with cold glue. Also, Irma Boom herself hand-painted the spine in pink. Like the standard edition, the Uncut Edition is accompanied by the English booklet as a two-volume set, but instead of the familiar red cover, it is housed in a red box.

“Making books is time consuming and incredibly fascinating. It is something I want to spend almost all my time on, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. You could call it obsessive. I am obsessed with the printed book: the book as physical object. The possibilities and impossibilities that it offers are so challenging and so thrilling that I can hardly understand why not everyone shares this essential excitement. The literal making, the materiality of the book, the inventions, the search for new structures, is addictive. I want to explore – within the limitations of industrial production – what is specific to the subject matter.” Irma Boom

Her experimental approach often challenges the conventions of book making. Boom has created over five hundred books. She has been senior critic at Yale University (1992–2023), and gives lectures and workshops worldwide. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Vatican Library; and Centre Pompidou, Paris. The Allard Pierson institute of the University of Amsterdam holds her complete oeuvre and archive. Boom is a much awarded designer: in 2001 she received the Gutenberg Prize, in 2014 the Johannes Vermeer Award, the Dutch state prize for the arts. In 2019, she got an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art, London.