Make-Up Posting, The Book as Art

I owe a posting about the "Book as Art" exhibit at Boston College. This was an experience that I -- or "we," my mother came too -- truly enjoyed. On the lower floor (and I see that others reacted to this, as well), there was a piece by M.L. Van Nice titled, Dinner with Mr. Dewey. The display was accompanied by an artist's statement referencing the Sir Francis Bacon quote, "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested."

This seemed to be an accurate, overarching assessment of the exhibit as a whole. Many of the pieces seemed whimsical, at most, simply presenting the viewer with an unexpected novelty. Those books, which were "to be tasted," only, seemed to include Carrots Anyone?, Bon Bon Mots, The Uneventful Life of Dona Carmen y Costanza, Green Salad, Teatimes, and Eight Slices of Pie. Others seemed to require more consideration, with a deeper meaning to be "swallowed," including The Legacy of Scheherazade, Soap Story, and (I don't remember the title of this one) the book featuring excerpts from Soviet newspapers. Some few definitely deserved to be "chewed and digested;" we thought that Endangered Species, a pop-up book with images of African-American children and children from China, Brazil, Uganda, and the Balkans, certainly warranted much more attention and reflection.

In fact, some of the best art in the room came in the form of reflections from BC faculty members and administrators. Their statements, which were printed on the walls, endeavored to tie together the books by theme, addressing matters of nature, family dynamics, food and nutrition, travel, etc. In these cases, their individual expertise shone through, and achieved the most powerful and lasting impressions of the day. My favorite statement commented on the long-standing environmental struggle that has arisen from man's insistence that he is "above" and separate from the rest of the ecological web. It was great!

Artist Books

By far I think the most successful and amusing was Allison Cooke Brown's TeaTimes. All the familiar bits of a book are all there - text/editorial content, paper, imagery, a protective outer layer - yet in an assemblage entirely not typical of a book. One is compelled to wonder just what it is that she has written on each and every tea bag in the box. And since witty statements, fortunes, and Bon Mots are printed on every tag attached to every bag of Salada Tea, there is the added intrigue of wanting to know what each label says, and how it related to what the artist wrote on the bag.

My initial reaction as I approached Julie Chen's Bon Bon Lots was that it looked fat too commercial.... perhaps something you could purchase at Paper Source or some such place. After reading the provenance label on the wall, my instincts were proven right: the piece was published by Flying Fish Press (albeit in a limited run). It felt out of place to me.

My reaction to Lara Walker's Freedom: A Fable; a Curious Interpretation of the Wit of A Negress in Troubled Times, With Illustrations was certainly heightened by the description of the work and the artists work as a whole. As it stood on it's own, I thought it was a beautifully executed piece. Her cut work is exquisite.

Less successful books in the exhibit in my opionion where Nancy Leavitt's piece (it looked too much like a over sized brochure), The Green Salad piece (too sculptural), and Lois Morrison's After Water Aerobics. The last could hardly be called a book: in fact, I would be more comfortable calling it a mixed-media sculpture.

Rexon McMullen Visit

Love the exhibit, one of its kind. There were several books that I liked. Lind Smith's "Change Cube", Kazutko Wantabe "The Diary of a Sparrow", M. L. Van "Dinner with Dewey" are few of them.

The book that I really enjoyed observing is Elana's "Unfinished Symphony". I love the detailed hand drawn symbols and the symmetry of visual appearance.

Museum

I managed to get back into the city on Saturday thanks to what can only be called serendipity. I was pretty sure I was not going to make it. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibit though, like the others who have posted their reactions, I came away a bit unsure of what exactly constitutes an artist's book. The books there ranged from books, to fold-outs, to paper sculptures, to things that were most definitely not books by any traditional definition of the term. There is, however, a less-used definition of the word that means "anything that serves for the recording of facts or events" which I guess applies here.

I have never been so frustrated by "do not touch" signs in my life. Some of the books I desperately wanted to open or interact with, like the shadow puppets. My favorite was "Dinner with Dewey" in the downstairs gallery which made me smile. The logic of the Dewey Decimal system as applied to things outside book cataloguing, very clever.

Museum

So I went to see the exhibit of artist's books at the museum and was pretty impressed. I must say though, that I am still some what fuzzy on what actually constitutes a "book" since some of them did not seem like books at all. It seems like you can pretty much call anything an artist book. Some of my favorites included "The Legacy of Scherazade" by Donatella Franchi. I really liked the story behind this one and she had made shoes out of paper and wrote on them. "After Water Aerobics" by Lois Morrison was one of my favorites. It was in a case but it looked like you could turn a nob and have the people and words rotate around. I thought it was cute. "Green Salad" by Katherine Glover made me laugh because it really did look like green salad. The one I was very impressed with was "Unfinished Symphony" by Elena Presser. The detail in the piece was amazing and I stared at it for a long time. I really liked how in the middle you could see through it to another layer behind it. It was very cool. Alright, that's it! All in all I liked the exhibit. I also liked that the man at the front said I could leave my iced tea with him instead of having to throw it out since I had just gotten it. :)