Winter 2023 Exhibitions Opening Reception
This event takes place in-person at Center for Book Arts (28 W 27th St, 3rd Fl) on Thursday, January 12, 2023 from 6:00–8pm.
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New Exhibitions
Center for Book Arts is delighted to present three new exhibitions—Craft & Conceptual Art: Reshaping the Legacy of Artists’ Books curated by Megan N. Liberty featuring works by: Harriet Bart, Barton Lidice Beneš, Helen M. Brunner, Frances Butler, Ulises Carrión, Sas Colby, Betsy Davids, Agnes Denes, Mirtha Dermisache, Sylvia De Swaan, Mindell Dubansky, Philip Gallo, Berwyn Hung, Gerald Jackson, Susan E. King, Alison Knowles, Suzanne Lacy, Ellen Lanyon, Gordon Matta-Clark, Richard Minsky, Louise Neaderland, Yoko Ono, Benjamin Patterson, Howardena Pindell, Liliana Porter, Ed Ruscha. Lucas Samaras, Carolee Schneemann, Clarissa Sligh, Barbara T. Smith, Keith Smith, Michelle Stuart, Melody Sumner, Cecilia Vicuña, and Reginald Walker; Scaffolding by Tricia Treacy; and Rituals Here by Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo.
Join us in celebrating these exhibitions at the opening reception at Center for Book Arts on Thursday, January 12 from 6:00–8:00pm.
Catalogue
Craft & Conceptual Art: Reshaping the Legacy of Artists’ Books
$50.00
Edited by Megan N. Liberty
Additional contributions by Kayleigh Perkov, Sur Rodney (Sur), David Senior, and Tara Aisha Willis, and a selection of reprinted historical texts
Edition: 500
Year: 2023
Binding: Perfect Bound Softcover
Dimensions: 9 x 12 inches
This fully illustrated catalogue reconsiders the early history of artists’ books. In the history of art, craft and conceptual art are often placed at odds. Craft emphasizes the materiality of the object, while conceptual art emphasizes the dematerialization of the object. But artists’ books offer a unique merging of these premises in the book’s status as a conceptual, tactile, and often ephemeral object. Successful artists’ books blend the craft of its making—paper, binding, scale, and printing method—with a conceptual premise tied to its status as time-based media in which the idea of the book—sequence, repetition, and audience activation—is essential to its meaning. While early exhibitions and writing on artists’ books maintained both these practices, including unique and small-edition handmade books that verge towards sculpture alongside mass-produced photobooks, paperbacks, and stapled zines, the history of artists’ books has since shifted, primitizing only the democracy of the genre and ghettoizing expensive, unique, and sculptural bookworks.
Craft & Conceptual Art: Reshaping the Legacy of Artists’ Books, revisits this early history, focusing on the intertwined legacies of book art centers across the US whose primary goal has been to teach the craft practices of book arts, and other institutions focused on distribution and collecting.
This publication was made possible with support from Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund.
Artists’ Book
$40.00
Edition: 125
Year: 2023
Binding: Hand sewn Softcover an a cloth wrapper
Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 inches
Scaffolding uncovers a visual collection of printed grids, patterns, and geometric frameworks from our constructed and natural environments. Objects in our typical environments unfold into a familiar, almost invisible backdrop for our lives.
Grids of space and time are everywhere, even if we cannot see them on the surface. They create modules and patterns that are easy to follow. Often in blue on ruled composition paper, bright orange on a pad of vellum paper, white on cutting mats, air between poorly installed drywall, or metal to break a window into a set of smaller views. They dissect and image, line, floor, and/or ceiling while filtering a changing view. They give rhythm under the stillness. This mismatch of grids can be quiet, soft, indifferent.
