Book by Book is Bruce Silverstein Gallery’s first solo exhibition by the artist Keith Smith. Smith has been creating books as works of art since the 1960s, yet he has rarely shown his work to the public over the past twenty-five years.   We would like to take this opportunity to familiarize you with his work.

Click here to view Book 11, Up, by Keith Smith

This show is a mini-retrospective comprised of 30 books, all made between 1967 and 2010, which reveals the artist's interest in experimenting with new materials and processes. He designs books that allow the viewer to experience and question of the structure and very nature of the book itself. Often his books are made of string or covered in fabric, they unfold, illuminate, do not open, are unbound, or punched full of holes.   While a single book might be guided by one idea or one particular interest, when the viewer examines the artist’s complete body of work—currently over 280 books—images of certain people and places reappear, and Smith’s voice begins to emerge.

Smith was educated at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology.  He has taught at the Visual Studies Workshop, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the University of Illinois.  He is a recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships, and a National Endowment of the Arts grant and a Pollock/Krasner Foundation grant.