This facsimile edition of Variable Piece 4: Secrets, originally published by Printed Matter, brings this legendary artist’s book by Douglas Huebler (1924–97) back into print. Simple and salacious, the publication collects over 1,800 secrets written by visitors to the 1970 Software exhibition at the Jewish Museum, providing a fleeting glimpse into the cultural, political and social preoccupations of the era while showcasing Heubler’s open-ended and variable approach to art-making. Pioneers of the artist’s book medium, of which Huebler was one, predicted that one day artists’ books would be sold next to detective and romance novels in drugstores and supermarkets throughout America. It was a dream that was never realized, but here we have one book that could easily compete with those popular forms; a book that delivers the whodunit in succinct statements, ripped from real life: a true page-turner.
