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Artists' Books at UW-Madison draws 'Genius Grant' Winner and Chicago Art Institute Curator
Posted 1/19/2002
MADISON, Wis.
--A MacArthur "genius grant" winner and the curator of
the acclaimed exhibit "Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of
the South" at the Art Institute of Chicago are among the speakers
in 
the
spring lecture series sponsored by the Friends of the UW-Madison
Libraries. The series, billed as Artists' Books, begins Thursday,
Feb. 7.
A multiple-location exhibit on campus--"Artist's Books: Highlights from the Kohler Art Library"--is the centerpiece for the lecture series. Some of the most outstanding pieces from the Kohler Art Library's artists' books collection—one of the largest of its kind in the nation—are on display in four locations at the UW-Madison.
Artists' books combine elements of the traditional graphic arts–typography, paper, and other media–with an artist-driven concept. The result is that the book itself becomes a form of art. The show includes pieces that unfold into three-dimensions or unravel into a 20-foot runner.
The lectures cover the creation of artists' books, scholarship, and collecting, and include a gallery talk with examples of artists' books to handle.
-
4:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 7, Special Collections, Memorial Library
The opening lecture, "Some Readings," will be given by Buzz Spector, art professor and departmental chair at Cornell University. Spector's writings highlight the relationship between readers and text, and how the conjunction of mind and body is mediated by reading. According to Spector, "We hardly know a book by looking at it, and when we truly ‘know' it, the knowing is engaged and intimate—a ravishment." Spector's talk will cover his twenty years of work with books. -
4:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 28, Special Collections, Memorial Library
In "Sandboxes" William C. Bunce, former director of the Kohler Art Library at UW-Madison, will discuss the origin of the collection in the 1970s and cover the deep relationships he developed over the years with these books and many of their makers. Co-curators of the exhibit, Lyn Korenic, current director of the Kohler Art Library, and Tracy Honn, director of the Silver Buckle Press, will be on hand to give a tour of the exhibit and show examples of artists' books to handle.
-
4:30 p.m, Thursday, March 14, Special Collections, Memorial Library
"Form Follows Content: Books of Unusual Format from the Janus Press" will be presented by Claire Van Vliet proprietor of the Janus Press, which has produced more than 100 titles since its formation in 1955. Van Vliet introduced book arts to UW–Madison printmaking students when she was a visiting artist in the mid-1960s. She had a profound influence on the Art Department's graphics program, an impact that continues to this day. Internationally recognized for her work, in 1989 she won a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, popularly known as a "genius grant." -
5:30 p.m., Tuesday, April 16, Howard Auditorium, Fluno Center, 601 University Avenue
Douglas W. Druick, curator of the popular "Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South" at the Art Institute of Chicago, will give the Friends annual lecture. He is the Searle Curator of European Painting and Prince Trust Curator of Prints and Drawing at the Art Institute. It is the first show devoted to the nine weeks that artists Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin spent together in southern France in fall 1888, a crucial period in the development of both painters.
For more information about the lecture series, contact the Friends of the UW-Madison Libraries at (608) 265-2505 or e-mail:<friends@library.wisc.edu>
The exhibits will be on display through March 15 in four locations: Department of Special Collections, 976 Memorial Library; Kohler Art Library in the Elvehjem Museum of Art; and Memorial Library—main lobby and second floor west.
