Booked

Donna Ruff, Rabii

Curator Maddy Rosenberg

The book as an art form is going through a contemporary renaissance. Artists have always kept sketchbooks, worked with poets, and illustrated books, but the artist’s book is a work of art in itself, where the book, as we know it, is totally rethought. Why a codex? Why bound at all? Yes, an intimate object to be picked up from a shelf and enjoyed, but also torn apart; enlarged; hung on a wall, ceiling, standing on the floor; and as part of a larger whole, a bevy of books. Made of paper, metal, glass, fabric. Cut, sewn, welded, printed, etched, wound. To be torn apart page by page, and transformed as it’s put together again. To be pondered from a distance, to be surrounded by it, to follow it with the eye, to sit quietly and caress its pages. This is an exhibition that will have one reexamining the book as more than a mere container of information but as an inspiration for the artistic imagination.

Participating artists are Desirée Alvarez, Rosaire Appel, Doug Beube, Jay Bolotin, Sang-ah Choi, Béatrice Coron, Anne Gilman, Susan Reese Horvitz, Eunkang Koh, Despo Magoni, Pamela Moore, Jeffrey Allen Price, Maddy Rosenberg, Donna Ruff,  and Sarah Stengle.