Selected Reading (Core of Conviction), Charcoal and graphite on paper, 100 x 72 in., 2012 Combining deep technical skill with a healthy sense of humor Eric Yahnker's work relieves much of the seriousness that one usually associates with an A-list artist. His witty pairings of objects with detailed drawings challenges and exposes the deeply ingrained duality that hinders our culture. His series Selected Reading highlights his approach by providing iconic cultural imagery with some challenging reading material. As the press release for his solo show last summer at Ambach & Rice states, Yahnker: deploys an unflinching comedic analysis of the Western world's fixation...
Protest Design: Disobedient Objects at the V&A
The act of protest has blossomed into also being an opportunity for tremendous creativity. In the first exhibit of its kind, the Victoria and Albert Museum has gathered a healthy sampling of items designed and produced by grassroots social movements since the mid-1970's. "From Suffragette teapots to protest robots" the Disobedient Objects exhibit "will demonstrate how political activism drives a wealth of design ingenuity and collective creativity that defy standard definitions of art and design." Inflatable cobblestones first used during the General Strike in Barcelona in February 2012 Everyday objects have become part and parcel of protest. From homemade gas masks...
Book Arts of Latin America at the University of North Carolina
For this installment of In the Stacks we visit the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for a sampling of Latin American book arts. All the works below appeared in their 2008 exhibition Hecho A Mano: Book Arts of Latin America. The exhibit featured work from Argentina, Cuba and Mexico. Enjoy! Loma del ángel by Reinaldo Arenas. Published by Brandsen y Zolezzi Editores, 2007 Barquitos del San Juan: La revista de los niños. Published by Ediciones Vigía, Matanzas, Cuba nd Hechizo para matar al hombre infiel ; Hechizo de amor ; Sortilegio para vivir...
Book Design and the Native American Experience
Indian Horrors by Henry Davenport Northrop. Unsigned cover design. Imperial, 1891 The latest work from the scholarly side of the venerable Richard Minsky is Trade Bindings with Native American Themes 1875-1933. Minsky gathers together 120 books designed by many of the leading illustrators and book designers of the day. From kids books to captivity narratives to fiction and "fiction purporting to be truth, including a white missionary writing under a pseudonym as an Indian Chief, and a multiracial black man, son of a school janitor, writing as a pureblood Blackfoot Chief." Yosemite Legends by Bertha Smith. Cover by Florence Lundborg. Paul Elder, 1904 American Indian Dance Steps by Bessie...
Latin America 1960-2013. Photos + Text
León Ferrari, from the series "Nevermore," 1995. Inscriptions written on photocopy The latest exhibit at Museo Amparo, Latin America 1960-2013. Photos + Text, features over 400 works from 71 artists from 11 countries who "address the complexity of this plural and heterogeneous territory." Through the prism of the relationship between the text and the photographic image, the exhibition shows the important role that this dialectic has played in Latin America. The connections between photography and literature have been explored by Horacio Fernandez who has underlined the importance of the use of photography for writers such as Pablo Neruda, Nicanor Parra...