The Centre des livres d’artistes (cdla) is the home of a growing collection of artists’ books and an exhibition space dedicated exclusively to this type of publications.

The cdla is based in the centre of France, in St Yrieix la Perche, forty kilometers south west of Limoges, a region famous for its porcelain and the last home of Raoul Hausmann who died there in 1971. Since 2005, the centre occupies a building in the heart of the historical city centre, 450 square meters divided in three exhibition spaces (150 square meters on the first floor), a bookshop, a library, a space for the diffusion of videos and sound pieces, storage and conservation space for the collection, educational facilities and offices.

There are three monographic or thematic exhibitions based around the collection per year. The thematic exhibitions reveal the coherence of the collection and its evolution in time, monographic ones allow for dynamic fruitful exchanges and collaborations with artists and publishers. There are also off site exhibitions and events in the region, other parts of France and abroad. A booklet is produced for each exhibition, freely available on site or to download from the Internet. These ongoing publications constitute the catalogue of the entire collection as well as a source of reference materials for professionals and researchers.

The collection
The collection of the cdla is fairly recent (about ten years old) and contains more than 3200 items around the themes of “landscape” and “childhood”: making it a unique and coherent collection of artists’ books, magazines, posters and other printed works as well as CDs and DVDs….

The notions of landscape and childhood are to be taken in their broadest sense: countryscape and the idea of Nature, cityscapes, the space around us, the environment, small details, fragments and traces (natural or manmade), books inspired by childhood rather than books for or about children (even though…) The collection acquires an average of 350 items every year, which are either bought or donated.

The cdla is also the home of two sets of books of Paul-Armand Gette and Herman de vries belonging to the FNAC (national trust of contemporary art).

Around 500 artists, French and others, are represented, among them: Ida Applebroog, Herman de Vries, Peter Downsbrough, Ingo Giezendanner, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Hamish Fulton, Edmund Kuppel, Lefevre Jean Claude, Richard Long, Jean-Jacques Rullier, Edward Ruscha, Colin Sackett, David Shrigley, Didier Trenet, Bernard Villers, Hans Waanders, Éric Watier.

We are particularly concerned with gathering all the publications (as far as possible) of some: among them Ida Applebroog, Herman de Vries, Mirtha Demisache, Peter Downsborough.

Contact: Didier Mathieu

Location: 1 place Attane
87500 Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche
France

cdla.info/en
Collection: cdla.info/en/collection