February 5-June 6, 2016 in the Maslow Galleries
Ever contemplate a future where domestic bookcases, communal libraries, commercial bookstores, and hand-me-down schoolbooks will be things of the past and reading for most will become a digital experience? What will happen to all of the obsolete publications in print? For the artists in Between the Covers: Altered Books in Contemporary Art, found and mass-produced books are their expressive medium of choice. Viewing themselves as collaborators with their source material, they transform them into sculptures and installations of all sizes and shapes. Beyond exploiting physical and sensorial properties, the artists improvise with content, both text and image. In answer to the looming demise of the printed publication, the exhibition argues that in giving books new life as unique works of art, the artists are opening up fresh possibilities of meaning and relevance. Approaches range from folding, drilling, shredding, carving, stacking, ripping, sewing, pasting, burning, and sanding to collage and assemblage. In reshaping both subject and material, the artists repackage our personal attachment to the written text as a catalyst for memory and the imagination while rekindling our sensorial response to the book’s physicality. And as they draw attention to communal and personal associations of books and reading, they explore alternate ways to knowledge and history, the cycle of creation and decay, and the passage and compression of time. Between the Covers is exclusive to the Everhart Museum and is guest curated by Sarah Tanguy.
Designed by participating artist Lisa Hill, the Between the Covers interactive PDF is available for download here.
Artists: Noriko Ambe, Maria Anasazi, Doug Beube, Caryl Burtner, Long-Bin Chen, Byron Clercx, Brent Crothers, Brian Dettmer, Jessica Drenk, Shiela Hale, Lisa Hill, Jeffrey Kent, John Kirchner, Lisa Kokin, Carole P. Kunstadt, Guy Laramée, Susan Lenz, Corwin Levi, So Yoon Lym, Scott McCarney, Pamela Paulsrud, Buzz Spector, Robert The, Maika’i Tubbs.
Lenders: Adah Rose Gallery, Kensington, MD; Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin, Texas; JHB Gallery, NY; Frederieke Taylor Gallery; International Arts & Artists’ Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection, Gift of John and June Hechinger; Scranton Public Library; P.P.O.W. Gallery, New York; Galerie Myrtis; Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, California.
Exhibition support is provided in part by a grant from Pagnotti Enterprises, Inc. & Lackawanna Insurance Group, with additional assistance from Joseph & Lisa Curtin, Scranton Area Foundation & Stifel Nicolaus.