pages: books as medium, catalyst, venue

Friday, November 19th, 2010 to Thursday, January 6th, 2011

On Friday, November 19, 6-9pm, Urban Culture Project hosts PAGES: Book as Medium, Catalyst, Venue at Paragraph gallery (21 E. 12 St.).  Curated by artist Amy Kligman and featuring work by 40+ artists, the exhibition celebrates the diversity of thought, process, and experience that can be revealed or inspired via the book.  All of the artists in this show draw inspiration from books in some way, and as a collection, the work demonstrates the potential of the book in artmaking, as a subject, tool, material, and or/springboard for other work.

For some artists in the show, the book is an inexpensive, unpretentious venue that one can carry anywhere and work on at any given moment.  For others, it is appreciated for its relationship to story and narrative, or for its nature as a multiple, to be published and distributed widely.  Still, others use the book as raw material to carve or sculpt, fascinated by its capacity to reveal secrets one page (or layer) at a time.  Some see the book as a record of facts, used to document process and discoveries. PAGES features the work of artists from the Kansas City area and around the country, including emerging as well as established artists. As part of the exhibition, Paragraph will include a “reading room” of work shown in a library-like setting, where visitors will be encouraged to engage in browsing artists’ books, sketchbooks, and zines.

For photos of the event, check out our flickr.