Book + Art: Artists' books from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture

Introduction

Papaya Lesson

Papaya Lesson. C.J. Grossman, 1995.

Artists’ books combine traditional arts such as graphic design, printmaking, and bookbinding with the full spectrum of contemporary art practice and theory.  These books transmute the private experience of reading into a public exhibition, requiring the reader to physically interact with the structurally complex book before her.  The artists presented here have expanded upon the book form to interrogate social inequities, subvert conventional forms, and explore the nexus of creativity and gender.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Dave Wofford of Horse & Buggy Press for designing our posters, to Mark Zupan for photography and design work, to Megan Lewis for cataloging many of these books in record time, to Mike Adamo and Alex Marsh for digitizing images, to Merrill Shatzman and her students for bringing these books to life in their creative videos, to Meg Brown and Beth Doyle for their care and handling of the books, to Andy Hull for his technical expertise with the online exhibit, to Laura Micham for her support of this endeavor, and to the members of the planning committee: Meg Brown, Beth Doyle, Merrill Shatzman,  Andy Armacost, Bill Fick, Lee Sorensen, Heather Gendron, Beth Grabowski, and Josh Hockensmith, for brainstorming and collaborating on this joint project.

Sponsorships

The exhibit and programming are generously sponsored by the Vice Provost for the Arts, the Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies, the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, the Professional Affairs Committee of Librarians Assembly, Duke University Libraries, and the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture.

 

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