Gallery
Gallery
The Gallery at Columbia Book & Paper Center is located at 1104 S.
Wabash, 2nd. floor. Gallery hours are 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday
through Friday. The gallery is free and open to the public. We welcome
visits from school and community groups; please call the Center at
312-344-6630 to arrange a time for your class or group to view the exhibits.
Gallery hours have been extended for the Jack Kerouac: On the Road exhibition
M - F, 12 - 7;
SAT + SUN, 12 - 5.
Please see below.
CURRENT EXHIBITION:
REALLY BIG PAPER + POSTCARD ART COMPETITION
June 6–July 12, 2008
Reception: June 6, 2008 5:30 - 7:30
Jill Littlewood Peter Sowiski
Jill Littlewood and Peter Sowiski, two nationally known artist/papermakers make VERY large paper. Put them together and you get REALLY BIG PAPER. Jill Littlewood’s full room installation is called Death and Other Lives. As she says, “I chose death as a topic because I wanted something big enough to be both mythic and encyclopedic. It was a good choice–death takes you everywhere.” Peter Sowiski’s large scale art grew out of his experiments with pulp painting and his “All American Boy” interest in army planes and their weapons. He investigates size with his large-scale studies of these nightmarish fantasies of what we now call WMDs.
The Curt Teich Postcard Archives at the Lake County (IL) Discovery Museum sponsors a biennial “design a postcard” competition. The winners get their art reproduced as a real post card and the collection forms the POST CARD ART COMPETITION EXHIBITION. When this traveling show arrives at the Center its international response brings to the gallery a great variety of art, wit and chicanery.
UPCOMING..
5th INTERNATIONAL BOOK & PAPER ARTS
TRIENNIAL EXHIBITION
July 25 - September 12, 2008
CLOSING RECEPTION: Friday, September 12, 5:30–7:30PM
A catalog of the exhibition will be available for purchase during the
Closing Reception.
Fifty-nine art works from the book arts field--some of the most interesting
produced in the last three years--will be shown in this 5th international,
juried exhibition. Fine, letterpress printed and bound books, broadsides,
artists’ books, book objects, sculptural paper, pulp painting and altered
books make for a very exciting exhibition. Paper vessels that dangle from
ceiling to floor; sculpture that is 2” tall; a book “written” in broken
glass; another containing the mnemonic bird calls of Midwest songbirds;
etchings of Paris gardens; a taxonomy of urban fowl (of the human kind);
illustrated poems; corn stalks made of paper; a photo journey through a car
wash–all can be observed and enjoyed.
Forty-four finalists:
Lyn Ashby, M.K. Augustine, Alice Austin, Fairley Barnes, Jana Brubaker, Rob Buchert, Elaine Chong, Margaret Couch Cogswell, Archie Granot, Karen Hanmer, Mary Hark, Mary Heebner, Judy Bergman Hochberg, Craig Jobson, David B. Johnson, Peggy Johnston, Wendy Kawabata, Ellen Knudson, Carole Kunstadt, Angela Liguori and Silvana Amato, Elaine Langerman, Claudia Lee, Marie Marcano, Kim Matthews, Daniel Mellis, Tim Mosely, Elizabeth Munger, Sabina U. Nies, Jan Owen, Anne Pelikan, Sumi Perera, Sandi Rigby, Regula Russelle, Scripps College Press: Kitty Maryatt, Shawn Sheehy, Richard Shipps, Areujana Sim, Tricia Smout, Diane M. Stemper, S.C. Thayer, Jennifer Vignone Laura Wait, Beata Wehr, Linney Wix.
Jurors: Robert McCamant, Pam Paulsrud, and Max Yela.
JACK KEROUAC: ON THE ROAD
+
EXPERIMENTAL LITERATURE AND THE INTERSECTION WITH ARTISTS' BOOKS
October 3 - November 30, 2008
OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, October 3, 5:30 – 7:30PM
GALLERY HOURS: M – F 12 – 7; SA + SU 12 – 5
Jack Kerouac’s manuscript scroll of his iconic novel, On the Road (published in 1957), is the centerpiece of a college-wide initiative investigating the disparate group of poets, artists, filmmakers and musicians known as the Beat Generation. This first draft of On the Road was produced by Kerouac in a 20-day writing marathon between April 2 and April 22, 1951. The manuscript is a continuous scroll of semi-translucent paper, 120 feet long by 9 inches wide, created by Kerouac by pasting and taping together separate, 12-foot-long strips in order to feed the scroll through the typewriter without interruption. In honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of On the Road, the exhibition offers visitors the rare opportunity to see the original draft, containing Kerouac’s own edits in pencil, and using the real names of those depicted in the published novel including Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs.
In conjunction with Jack Kerouac: On the Road, this curated exhibition highlights the ongoing exploration of writers/artists in the area of experimental literature vis-a-vis artists’ books. Co-curated by Kyle Schlesinger and Craig Dworkin, the exhibition's point of departure is Kerouac's now iconic On the Road manuscript. The catalog for Experimental Literature and the Intersection with Artists’ Books will be produced as JAB24 (the Journal of Artists' Books #24). Rather than focusing specifically on the Beat culture and literature, the curators have chosen to allow contributors to elucidate and interpret the terms "experimental literature" and "artists' books" for themselves. Essays by Alastair Johnston, Susan Vanderborg, Tate Shaw and Chris Burnett will be included.
PAST EXHIBITIONS:
JAB - THE HISTORY OF THE PUBLICATION
March 7 - March 22. 2008
Reception: March 7, 5:308:00
The HISTORY OF JAB (The Journal of Artist¹s Books) will present the
historical route the magazine has taken through a variety of conceptual and
aesthetic trails over a 13-year period as the only national publication
devoted to the subject. JAB¹s primary question and the reason it continues
to stimulate discussion is: What is the form of the book? While this
question does not occur to most of us, upon further inspection, the question
of a book¹s form, especially when it is applied to the Œartist¹s book¹,
opens a fascinating look into new approaches by artists in the exploration
of one of our oldest means of cultural communication. JAB is now produced
and published out of Columbia College Chicago¹s Center for Book & Paper
Arts. The exhibition will feature alongside archival copies, manuscripts,
texts, film, plates and press sheets, artists¹ books reviewed in past issues
and various other ephemera.
THE BOOK OF ORIGINS: A SURVEY OF AMERICAN FINE BINDINGS
January 12 - February 23, 2008
The Book of Origins: A Survey of American Fine Binding has its genesis in an international binding exhibition organized by one of the prominent Canadian book arts organizations. The bilingual letterpress printed text tells the creation story of the Huron people in French and in English. This traveling exhibition features twenty contemporary fine bindings of this text, by ten American binders. The group includes established masters as well as gifted emerging artists. Two works are presented by each binder: their binding in response to the Book of Origins text, and an additional example of their work.
The binders represented in The Book of Origins: A Survey of American Fine Binding have noted that the majority of book arts exhibition opportunities in the United States are limited to nontraditional book forms. They are committed to presentation of, and education about, the art and craft of fine binding.
Past Exhibits:
2006
2007
Gallery hours have been extended for the Jack Kerouac: On the Road exhibition
M - F, 12 - 7;
SAT + SUN, 12 - 5.
Please see below.
CURRENT EXHIBITION:
REALLY BIG PAPER + POSTCARD ART COMPETITION
June 6–July 12, 2008
Reception: June 6, 2008 5:30 - 7:30
Jill Littlewood Peter Sowiski
Jill Littlewood and Peter Sowiski, two nationally known artist/papermakers make VERY large paper. Put them together and you get REALLY BIG PAPER. Jill Littlewood’s full room installation is called Death and Other Lives. As she says, “I chose death as a topic because I wanted something big enough to be both mythic and encyclopedic. It was a good choice–death takes you everywhere.” Peter Sowiski’s large scale art grew out of his experiments with pulp painting and his “All American Boy” interest in army planes and their weapons. He investigates size with his large-scale studies of these nightmarish fantasies of what we now call WMDs.
The Curt Teich Postcard Archives at the Lake County (IL) Discovery Museum sponsors a biennial “design a postcard” competition. The winners get their art reproduced as a real post card and the collection forms the POST CARD ART COMPETITION EXHIBITION. When this traveling show arrives at the Center its international response brings to the gallery a great variety of art, wit and chicanery.
UPCOMING..
5th INTERNATIONAL BOOK & PAPER ARTS
TRIENNIAL EXHIBITION
July 25 - September 12, 2008
CLOSING RECEPTION: Friday, September 12, 5:30–7:30PM
A catalog of the exhibition will be available for purchase during the
Closing Reception.
Fifty-nine art works from the book arts field--some of the most interesting
produced in the last three years--will be shown in this 5th international,
juried exhibition. Fine, letterpress printed and bound books, broadsides,
artists’ books, book objects, sculptural paper, pulp painting and altered
books make for a very exciting exhibition. Paper vessels that dangle from
ceiling to floor; sculpture that is 2” tall; a book “written” in broken
glass; another containing the mnemonic bird calls of Midwest songbirds;
etchings of Paris gardens; a taxonomy of urban fowl (of the human kind);
illustrated poems; corn stalks made of paper; a photo journey through a car
wash–all can be observed and enjoyed.
Forty-four finalists:
Lyn Ashby, M.K. Augustine, Alice Austin, Fairley Barnes, Jana Brubaker, Rob Buchert, Elaine Chong, Margaret Couch Cogswell, Archie Granot, Karen Hanmer, Mary Hark, Mary Heebner, Judy Bergman Hochberg, Craig Jobson, David B. Johnson, Peggy Johnston, Wendy Kawabata, Ellen Knudson, Carole Kunstadt, Angela Liguori and Silvana Amato, Elaine Langerman, Claudia Lee, Marie Marcano, Kim Matthews, Daniel Mellis, Tim Mosely, Elizabeth Munger, Sabina U. Nies, Jan Owen, Anne Pelikan, Sumi Perera, Sandi Rigby, Regula Russelle, Scripps College Press: Kitty Maryatt, Shawn Sheehy, Richard Shipps, Areujana Sim, Tricia Smout, Diane M. Stemper, S.C. Thayer, Jennifer Vignone Laura Wait, Beata Wehr, Linney Wix.
Jurors: Robert McCamant, Pam Paulsrud, and Max Yela.
JACK KEROUAC: ON THE ROAD
+
EXPERIMENTAL LITERATURE AND THE INTERSECTION WITH ARTISTS' BOOKS
October 3 - November 30, 2008
OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, October 3, 5:30 – 7:30PM
GALLERY HOURS: M – F 12 – 7; SA + SU 12 – 5
Jack Kerouac’s manuscript scroll of his iconic novel, On the Road (published in 1957), is the centerpiece of a college-wide initiative investigating the disparate group of poets, artists, filmmakers and musicians known as the Beat Generation. This first draft of On the Road was produced by Kerouac in a 20-day writing marathon between April 2 and April 22, 1951. The manuscript is a continuous scroll of semi-translucent paper, 120 feet long by 9 inches wide, created by Kerouac by pasting and taping together separate, 12-foot-long strips in order to feed the scroll through the typewriter without interruption. In honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of On the Road, the exhibition offers visitors the rare opportunity to see the original draft, containing Kerouac’s own edits in pencil, and using the real names of those depicted in the published novel including Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs.
In conjunction with Jack Kerouac: On the Road, this curated exhibition highlights the ongoing exploration of writers/artists in the area of experimental literature vis-a-vis artists’ books. Co-curated by Kyle Schlesinger and Craig Dworkin, the exhibition's point of departure is Kerouac's now iconic On the Road manuscript. The catalog for Experimental Literature and the Intersection with Artists’ Books will be produced as JAB24 (the Journal of Artists' Books #24). Rather than focusing specifically on the Beat culture and literature, the curators have chosen to allow contributors to elucidate and interpret the terms "experimental literature" and "artists' books" for themselves. Essays by Alastair Johnston, Susan Vanderborg, Tate Shaw and Chris Burnett will be included.
PAST EXHIBITIONS:
JAB - THE HISTORY OF THE PUBLICATION
March 7 - March 22. 2008
Reception: March 7, 5:308:00
The HISTORY OF JAB (The Journal of Artist¹s Books) will present the
historical route the magazine has taken through a variety of conceptual and
aesthetic trails over a 13-year period as the only national publication
devoted to the subject. JAB¹s primary question and the reason it continues
to stimulate discussion is: What is the form of the book? While this
question does not occur to most of us, upon further inspection, the question
of a book¹s form, especially when it is applied to the Œartist¹s book¹,
opens a fascinating look into new approaches by artists in the exploration
of one of our oldest means of cultural communication. JAB is now produced
and published out of Columbia College Chicago¹s Center for Book & Paper
Arts. The exhibition will feature alongside archival copies, manuscripts,
texts, film, plates and press sheets, artists¹ books reviewed in past issues
and various other ephemera.
THE BOOK OF ORIGINS: A SURVEY OF AMERICAN FINE BINDINGS
January 12 - February 23, 2008
The Book of Origins: A Survey of American Fine Binding has its genesis in an international binding exhibition organized by one of the prominent Canadian book arts organizations. The bilingual letterpress printed text tells the creation story of the Huron people in French and in English. This traveling exhibition features twenty contemporary fine bindings of this text, by ten American binders. The group includes established masters as well as gifted emerging artists. Two works are presented by each binder: their binding in response to the Book of Origins text, and an additional example of their work.
The binders represented in The Book of Origins: A Survey of American Fine Binding have noted that the majority of book arts exhibition opportunities in the United States are limited to nontraditional book forms. They are committed to presentation of, and education about, the art and craft of fine binding.
Past Exhibits:
2006
2007