PAGES exhibition in Kansas City

Detail of Book of Enid, pages 6-7

If you know anyone in the Kansas City area...

PAGES: Book as Medium, Catalyst, Venue
November 19, 2010 - early January 2011
Curator: Amy Kligman
Opening Friday, November 19, 6-9pm / Curator’s remarks at 6pm


Paragraph Gallery, an Urban Culture Project Space
23 East 12th Street
Kansas City MO 64105
Gallery Hours: 12-5 Wed, Fri, Sat; 11-6 Thurs


The two pieces I'll be showing are pages from my current project, Book of Enid.

Featured artists:
Cara Barer, Kelie Bowman, Joe Bussell, Caitlin Cass, Alicia Chester, Justin Cownden, Greg Crawford, Brian Dettmer, Christa Donner, Shea Gordon Festoff, Ben Finer, Julie Green, Julian Jason Haladyn, Tanya Hartman, Rob Hatem, Aimee Howard, Lisa Iglesias, Brooke Inman, Michael Krueger, Judith G. Levy, China Marks, Liz Maugans, Colleen Maynard, Ellen Mueller, Armin Mühsam, Mia Nolting, Jessica Owings, Nathaniel Parsons, Samantha Persons, Lee Piechocki, Caroline Pjecha, David Pjecha, Stephen Proski, Melissa & Lucy Powlas, Luke Rocha, Ryan Sarah Murphy, Tennille Shuster, Angela Silver, Sean Starowitz/Jordan Stempleman, the WAFA Collective, Courtney Weida, Corinna West, Donika Wiley, and David Williams/Kotaro Itami.

Pages: Book as Medium, Catalyst, Venue is an exhibition that 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 art-making, 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.

This exhibition will include all kinds of artist books, ranging widely in format and purpose. The hope is to present the book as an opportunity—as an entry point to one's own art practice, as a catalyst to new and evolved work, and as an object that even in an age of digital media still carries a certain aura of the limitless potential of all the worlds possibly contained within its pages.

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.