A traveling exhibit of twelve three-dimensional bookworks
Norman B. Colp, Exhibition Coordinator, said of the exhibit: “To create a point on a page, one simply places a pen to the paper. To generate a straight line, one begins at the point and moves in a constant direction away from it to a terminal point. We now have one dimension.
To increase our number by one, we generate another line at right angles from the first with an equal length (for convenience). We then generate a third (also of equal length), at right angles to the second, yet parallel and in the same direction as the first. A fourth (again of equal length), at right angles to the third, parallel to the second and moving in the direction of the point of origin, will, upon reaching that point, complete a plane of two dimensions.
To increase our two-dimensional object to three dimensions is too tedious to describe, but the result gives us an opportunity to manipulate the space within that volume in an infinite number of ways.
This exhibit illustrates that notion of the three-dimensional by presenting the sculptural paper works of twelve artists. For this show, each participant received (in 1982) one twelfth of a bookwork measuring twelve inches by twelve inches by one inch. In this pageless book they could do, in paper, whatever they wished, as long as the art folded back into 12 x 12 x 1. The results are both diverse and similar and the cumulative effect speaks well for all.”
Support for the Center for Book Arts’ visual arts programming is provided, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
