Tag: book

Bethany Collins in ‘Visual Record: The Materiality of Sound in Print’

Bethany Collins’ artwork is about language, specifically its potential to communicate or to completely fail to do so.  In the Print Center’s engaging fall/winter group exhibition ‘Visual Record,’ Collins presents ‘America:  A Hymnal,’ a book featuring one hundred songs set to the tune of ‘My Country Tis of Thee.’  Since the 18th century, new lyrics have been written for this song in support of such divergent causes as temperance, suffrage, abolition, and the Confederacy.  In Collins’ book, printed lyrics run below notes that have been burnt away by laser cutting, demonstrating that the classic tune has itself become a battleground for various ideologies.  (On view through Jan 21st).

Bethany Collins, America: A Hymnal, book with 100 laser cut leaves, 6 x 9 x 1 in, 2017.
Bethany Collins, America: A Hymnal, book with 100 laser cut leaves, 6 x 9 x 1 in, 2017.

 

 

 

Jorge Mendez Blake in ‘Borders’ at James Cohan Gallery

Borders are front and center in U.S. politics and at James Cohan Gallery where Jorge Mendez Blake’s ‘Amerika’ bisects the main exhibition space, arresting both visitors’ thoughts and physical progress through the show.  Mid-way along the base of the wall, Mendez Blake has placed a copy of Kafka’s ‘Amerika,’ the troubled tale of a European immigrant to New York, intimating that migration is a fraught undertaking from start to finish.  (On view at James Cohan Gallery’s Chelsea and Lower East Side spaces through Feb 23rd).

Jorge Mendez Blake, Amerika, bricks, edition of ’Amerika’ by Franz Kafka, 72 7/8 x 11 7/8 x 400 inches, 2019.

Barton Benes at Allan Stone Projects

Books are bound with covers of cigarettes or melted crayons, studded with nails like a fetish object or stuffed with garbage in Allan Stone Projects’ exhibition of Barton Benes’ book sculptures. This book from c. 72-74 is at the mercy of a giant safety pin, perhaps holding the book together, keeping it closed or treating it like a punk or a diapered baby? (On view in Chelsea through Feb 24th).

Barton Benes, Untitled (Book with Safety Pin), mixed media book construction, 3 x 6 x 3 inches, c. 1972-74.

Jukhee Kwon at Ierimonte Gallery

Italy-based Korean sculptor Jukhee Kwon gets a lot out of books, specifically paper sculptures created by slicing into volumes in geometric patterns that cause pages to descend to the ground or explode outwards. Here, a New Testament morphs into ‘Campana’ (bell), a gravity-defying cascade of a delicate form. (On view at Ierimonte Gallery on the Lower East Side through March 16th).

Jukhee Kwon, Campana, mixed media, 11 13/16 x 13 37/48 inch, 2017.

Anselm Kiefer at Gagosian Gallery

The heart of Anselm Kiefer’s latest exhibition at Gagosian Gallery is a series of large-scale handmade books crafted from cardboard covered in plaster and painted with watercolor. Titled ‘Walpurgia,’ after an 8th century English nun, this lush, flesh-colored rendering of flowers echoes the erotic nature of the new paintings. Though the subject matter seems like a departure for Kiefer, it continues work begun in the 70s for which he merged the landscape and female bodies. (At Gagosian Gallery’s 21st Street location through July 14th).

Anselm Kiefer, Walpurgia, watercolor and pencil on plaster on cardboard, 14 pages (six double page spreads, front and back cover), 34 ¼ x 25 9/16 x 2 ¾ inches, 2013.