Language is not transparent (1970), Mel Bochner. Recreated for the exhibition at the Jewish Museum, New York. If you are anywhere near the Jewish Museum in New York you have a few days left to catch the Mel Bochner exhibit 'Strong Language', a gathering of 70 works where language takes center stage. Bochner, a founding figure of the Conceptual Art movement of the 1960s, now focuses his energies on "the possibilities of language as image, medium, and content." The use of words as sources for painting stems from Bochner’s interest in philosophy on the one hand and humor and popular culture on the...
Jordan Buschur: Book Painter
Place Holders, 2013 There is no doubting Jordan Buscher has the book love in her veins. Give her some oil paint and canvas and she is off to the books. About her work she says: The paintings in this body of work use collections and arrangements of books to implant ordinary objects with psychological meanings. The groupings of books, stacked or on shelves, act as a stand in for one person’s accumulated knowledge and memories. Some stacks of books remain blank: full of potential or conversely, impenetrable. Other groups of books include painted words and images to act as clues...
Books in art help tell the story
‘Madame de Pompadour’ by Francois Boucher, 1756, As many of you who regularly check in with Book Patrol know, the representation of the book in art is one of the cornerstones of our foundation. Over at the British Library's Collection Care blog Christina Duffy looks at the value of books depicted in art as it relates to the history of bookbinding. Fueled by her week of studying European Bookbinding (1450-1820) at the London Rare Books School Duffy shows us how the "keen eye of the artist has captured precise details when depicting books throughout history, showing sewing structures, stitch types, supports, covers and even how...
Visual Libris: Part Two
Infinite Jest – Dave Adams 11′ x 14′, created digitally using the Procreate iPad app and Adobe Photoshop There is just too much good stuff in this exhibition to cover in one post so here is another healthy sampling from Ex Libris: 100 Artists, 100 Books Enjoy! Venus of the Great Northwest (Another Roadside Attraction) – NoMe Edonna. Oil (on acrylic underpainting) on canvas. 12″ x 16″ inches. Moby Dick – "Ahab" by Mark Daughhetee. Pigment on paper. 45 x 45 inches Papillon - 'Cavale' by Todd Jannausch - steel, plywood, lightbulb. (Photo credit Ish Ishmael) The Fountainhead – “Howard and Dominique” by Lana Gentry. 11″ x 14″. Graphite and colored pencil on bristol board The Amazing...
The Art of Steven “Jesse ” Bernstein
Steven "Jesse " Bernstein just might be the most the important Seattle poet and performance artist that you never heard of. He opened shows for Nirvana and Soundgarden and was pals with Willliam Burroughs. He even rode on Ken Kesey's Magic Bus! Bernstein also spent years in a mental institution during his adolescence and became a heroin addict soon after. In 1991 he pulled a Johnny Cash and went to the Monroe, Washington State Penitentiary Special Offenders unit to record a live performance for Sub Pop Records. Months later he committed suicide by stabbing himself in the neck repeatedly. During a period of sobriety...