Marilyn Sward at the Center for Book and Paper Arts - Art review - Time Out Chicago
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“Speaking in Paper,” Center for Book and Paper Arts, through Aug 21.
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“Marilyn Sward loved paper,” Audrey Niffenegger writes in her introduction to the Chicago
artist’s first retrospective. “She wanted you to love it too.”
Sward, who died at 67 in 2008, cofounded the Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia
College. “Speaking in Paper” spans 40 years of her career, from the paintings and drawings
she made as an undergrad at the University of Illinois to the amazing aerial photos she
created toward the end of her life. In between are decades of paper collages and
sculptures. More handmade paper peeks out of travel journals displayed in vitrines—books
the artist bound with sticks, bark and other organic materials and stuffed with photos,
drawings and found objects from places such as Bali and Australia.
Sward’s travel journals are so intriguing it’s a shame they’re too fragile to flip through by
hand. All of her work begs to be touched, its handmade paper elements yielding colors and
remarkable textures missing from more conventional media. The strangeness of its messy
aesthetic makes us wish “Speaking in Paper” put more of this work in context. Niffenegger’s
text explains that papermaking had been “in abeyance” for decades when Sward discovered
it, but only a brief 1986 video about the artist’s nonprofit studio Paper Press addresses her
attraction to paper and reveals what papermaking entails.
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Sward’s collaborative nature infuses Treewhispers, a project she developed with artist
Pamela Paulsrud, who cocurated “Speaking in Paper” with Niffenegger and Stephen
DeSantis. Visitors may add their own illustrated stories about trees to the hundreds hanging
in the installation—a cheerful coda to a rich, productive life.
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Time Out Chicago / Issue 281 : Jul 15–21, 2010
Most viewed in Art & Design
http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/art-design/87157/marilyn-sward-at-the-center-for-book-and-paper-arts-art-review
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Marilyn Sward at the Center for Book and Paper Arts - Art review - Time Out Chicago
1/5/11 4:23 PM
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http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/art-design/87157/marilyn-sward-at-the-center-for-book-and-paper-arts-art-review
Page 2 of 3
Marilyn Sward at the Center for Book and Paper Arts - Art review - Time Out Chicago
http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/art-design/87157/marilyn-sward-at-the-center-for-book-and-paper-arts-art-review
1/5/11 4:23 PM
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