CENTER FOR BOOK AND PAPER ARTS COLUMBIA COLLEGE CHICAGO
Structures for Reading: text & the
reading body in contemporary art
February 15 – April 6, 2013
SELF-TOUR FOR VIEWERS &
EDUCATION GUIDE
This resource packet, which contains additional information on the works on view
and questions for looking and discussion, was produced as a viewer supplement to
the exhibition Structures for Reading: text & the reading body in contemporary art by
Jessica Cochran, curator of exhibitions at the Center for Book and Paper Arts at
Columbia College Chicago. This packet is also available on the center’s website. To
schedule a tour, contact Gina Ordaz, gordaz@colum.edu.
This packet contains Information about the Center for Book and Paper Arts and the
exhibition; it can be used as a self-tour or a teaching guide.
o
About the Center for Book and Paper Arts
o
Books in Contemporary Art: an overview
o
Exhibition Overview: organization and highlights
o
Questions for Looking and Discussion
o
Useful Vocabulary
o
Additional Resources
Untitled drawing by Eva Kotatkova
1 About the Center for Book and Paper Arts
The Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago is part of the
Interdisciplinary Arts Department, which grants MFA and MA degrees Interdisciplinary Arts.
Because we are part of a teaching and learning community, we consider the artists’ books
and hand papermaking as zones of interdisciplinary activity. This underscores all of our
programming, which includes publishing artists’ books, mounting exhibitions and public
programs, such as lectures, readings and panel discussions, artist residency programs, and
hosting community workshops for advanced practicioners of book and paper arts. Our print
and paper studios are among the best in the world. Because we are so interested in the past,
present and future of book and paper arts as interdisciplinary activity, you may see an array
of different kinds of art practice represented in our gallery on and off the wall—from
experimental iPad publications to fine press book objects or installation work.
Books in Contemporary Art: an overview
People love books, and they have for hundreds of years: especially visionary people, such as
artists, scientists, politicians or writers. At least this is what the history of art tells us. From
the scrolls of the middle ages to the codex books that proliferated after the invention of the
printing press, artists picture books, when they picture the world around them.
This exhibition focuses on contemporary art, or art of the present. Today, if one looks at art
regularly, he or she regularly sees the book sited in art in several ways. First, the book, as well
as book-related subject matter such as people reading, bookshelves, or libraries, are often
depicted representational works of art, such as photography, painting, printmaking and
drawing. Second, artists often create installation art (or art that creates immersive
environments within the gallery) around books or concepts culled from books. Third, artists
often create “bookworks” or art objects out of actual books (these are often called “altered
books). Finally, and perhaps most notably, artists themselves create artist’s books, or books
that utilize the bookform to creative, expressive ends. These artist’s books range from handbound unique books, to photocopied zines, to digital ebooks.
Exhibition overview: organization and highlights
This exhibition features contemporary artists from around the world, including five brand
new projects commissioned especially for the exhibition. All of the works share a thematic
orientation around the subject of reading, and the structures that make this activity possible
or different. Additionally, some projects reveal how artists re-imagine the activity of reading
in interesting, irreverent or innovative ways. In summary, each work in the exhibition does
one or more of the following:
Houses, modulates, or mediates book(s) or text(s).
Engages or visualizes the act of reading in new or speculative ways: this could be a
prosthetic, garment, or functional object.
Considers the actual (infra)structures around reading that exist in the world; physical
contexts, from the domestic to the commercial to the institutional.
It can be said that several main themes run through the exhibition: reading in public/private,
prosthetics for reading, and the artist as reader. Explore these concepts in the following
pages.
2 Reading in Public or Private
Some artworks in the show engage the idea of reading as an activity that takes place
in private, while others emphasize the
social dimension of reading. For
example, Tony Cruz’s Horizon #2
depicts two photos: one of a book
spread and the other of a landscape
depicting the sea and city coastline. A
small wooden popsicle stick-like
viewing device frames both a passage
in the book and the horizon line. This
passage, from a text by cultural
theorist Theodor Adorno, articulates
the relationship between the art object and the world of things. By placing these
images side by side, what might the artist be asserting about the relationship
between art, reading, and the way one navigates the world?
o Works to explore in the gallery:
-Judith Leemann, reading aloud, stories about a coyote
-Moyra Davey, Newstand No. 2, No. 12
-Jessica Bardsley, Archive: Rhyerson and Burnham
Prosthetics for Reading
Several projects in the exhibition consist of sculptural elements that connect the
body and the book, which can be considered prosthetics. Interestingly, such
prosthetics may or may not make the activity of reading
easier! They do, rather frame the activity in particularly
physical ways; they suggest that reading has the potential to
be difficult, a taxing activity both physically and mentally.
Eva Kotatkova’s drawings, photographs and videos exemplify
this idea. Kotatkova depicts children and adults wearing
strange, limb-like book-holding devices that don’t make
reading easier. In fact, they have such a disciplinary quality to
them, they seem to be structures designed to make it harder.
Because many of these seem to be sited within learning
environments, perhaps they underscore the activity of
reading as a deeply psychological process.
o Works to explore in the gallery:
-Johana Moscoso, multi-task walker; delirio/delirium
3 The Artist as Reader
This exhibition suggests that artists are prolific readers, writers, thinkers and doers,
and that these activities all happen in similar spaces: it is for this reason that the
desk form is recurs in the exhibition several times—particularly within works that
address the activity of reading in an electronic, or digital age. After all, isn’t a lot of
reading done these days on laptops or tablets?
o Works to explore in the gallery:
-Gareth Long, Bouvard & Pecuchet’s Invented Desk for Copying
-Sebastian Schmieg, Free Monument
On the other hand, works by Sebura+Gartelmann and Matthew Girson embody the
multilayered concepts of “the artist as reader” in other ways that relate to the birth of
ideas. Palletized Material for the Construction of a
Space Based on the Writings of E. Annie Proulx,
Charles Bukowski, Raymond Carver, and Cormac
McCarthy by Sebura+Gartelmann,for example, was
inspired by the living spaces found in the collaborative
pair’s 5 favorite books. According to the artists, the
work is an “architectural space that can be seen as
anaveraging of emotional and psychological spaces
within these writers’ narratives.” Matthew Girson’s
drawings of readers, along with his dark, nearly
monochromatic, paintings of bookshelves with a subtle
overlay of painted stars The Poet’s Other Library is the Artist’s Other Night Sky imply
that writers and artists alike look to both books and nature as sources of inspiration,
knowledge, and even emotional satisfaction.
o Works to explore in the gallery:
-Gareth Long, Bouvard & Pecuchet’s Invented Desk for Copying
-Johanna Moscoso, Delirio/Delirium
-Liz Sales, steam
4 Questions for Looking and Discussion
Select one work in the exhibition. What do you think the artist is saying about
reading? What kinds of “structures” can be found in the work?
Are there any artworks that don’t appear to contain a book object? If so, where is the
text in the work, if it is not physically present?
Several works in the exhibition were inspired by particular books. Can you identify
one? How does the book relate to the final artwork?
Can you find any “artist’s books” in the show?
Find one work that tells you that reading is a social activity. How does it make this
idea known to the viewer?
Find one work that tells you that reading is a solitary activity. How does it make this
idea known to the viewer?
With the onset of kindles and other e-readers, do you think the physical book is
going to disappear?
Do you think it is important for artists to read? Why or why not?
Find one of the desks in the exhibition. How is this desk a structure for reading?
5 Useful Vocabulary
The following words are mentioned in the text. Some may help you express your thoughts
about projects in the exhibition.
Artist’s Book
An artist’s book is a book created as an original work of art, rather than as a reproduction of
pre-existing works (like an exhibition catalog or monograph).
Altered Book
An altered book is a form of mixed media artwork that changes a book from its
original form into a different form, altering its appearance. Typography
The art or process of setting and arranging types and printing from them, and the style and
appearance of printed matter.
Prosthetics
Artificial, or “human-made” body parts
E-Reader
An e-reader is a standalone, refreshable electronic device designed for the display of
content, such as books, newspapers and documents. Common versions include the Kindle,
Nook and iPad.
Codex
The most common modern physical book: paper pages bound with a single spine
Paratext
The main text of published authors is often surrounded by other material supplied by
editors, printers, and publishers, which is known as the paratext. Paratext typically includes a
cover (with associated cover art), title, front matter (dedication, opening information,
forward), back matter (endpapers, colophon) footnotes, and many other materials not
crafted by the author. These added elements form a frame for the main text, and can change
the reception of a text or its interpretation by the public. Other editorial decisions can also
be “paratext”such as the formatting or typography. Literary theorist Gérard Genette defines
paratext as those things in a published work that accompany the text, things such as the
author's name, the title, preface or introduction, or illustrations.[1]
Marginalia
Marginalia are scribbles, comments and illuminations in the margins of a book.
Subtext
Subtext or undertone is content of a book which is not announced explicitly by the
characters (or author) but is implicit or becomes something understood by the observer of
the work as the production unfolds. Subtext can also refer to the thoughts and motives of
the characters which are only covered in an aside.
6 Additional Resources
Books
Bookwork: From Medium to Object to Concept to Art
By Garrett Stewart (University of Chicago Press), 2011
A Book of the Book
Edited by Steve Clay and Jerome Rothenberg (Granary Books), 2000
A Century of Artists’ Books
by Johanna Drucker (Granary Books), 1994
Journal of Artists’ Books
www.journalofartistsbooks.org
Articles
Structures for Reading: A Conversation with Jessica Cochran
Bad at Sports, published February 22, 2013
http://badatsports.com/2013/structures/
Websites
Triple Canopy
www.canopycanopycanopy.com
Exhibitions
Learn to Read
Tate Modern (2007)
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/level-2-gallery-learn-read
The Ends of the Library
Goethe Institut, New York (2013)
http://www.goethe.de/ins/us/ney/bib/end/enindex.htm?wt_sc=theendsofthelibrary
Brother, Can you Spare a Stack
The Center for Book Arts (2013)
http://www.centerforbookarts.org/exhibits/
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