Posted on behalf of Mary Stark. For more information, please contact
her at [log in to unmask]
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“Sometimes a Book Is More Than a Book…”
The Beverly Hills Public Library invites the public to investigate a
selected sampling of the library’s collection of artists’ books.
The collection was begun in 1974 under the direction of art librarian,
Nicholas Cellini, with the support of the Friends of the Beverly Hills
Library. This show features more than twenty books from the library’s
collection of more than 200 artists’ books.
In the fifties many artists were active in printmaking, graphic design
and concrete poetry and began to make books reflecting these interests.
By the early 1960’s a few artists began to move from literary sources to
books as a conceptual whole--an “artist’s book.”
An early pioneer of the movement, conceptual artist, Ed ward Ruscha,
created books which are simply collections of related objects, as
exemplified in “Nine Swimming Pools and a Broken Glass”.
In “Four Basic Kinds of Lines & Colour,” artist Sol Lewitt explores the
variety of visual combinations offered by four kinds of lines, singly
and in all their combinations.
“Spiral Bound” artist, Steven Nossan, cuts the edge of a spiral
notebook in a curve which allows the open book and its content to become
a sphere with no beginning or end.
Other artists explore aspects of their personal life. Susan E. King
recollects the Sixties with small remnants of fabrics from her clothing.
Katherine Ng uses materials from a Chinese take-out box to bind a book
of anecdotes about growing up in a Chinese American family, and Scott
McCarney recreates the fragments of a damaged memory.
Other books create physical manifestations of objects and ideas. “A
Brief History of the Basket” is covered with woven paper strips and
includes specimens of baskets.
“Fresnel’s Tower” is a sculptural book in which cylinders are stacked to
create a lighthouse and pay tribute to the 19th century optical lens and
its creator.
The exhibition, curated by art librarian, Mary Stark , will be on
display in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Public Library through this
September.
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