The Traveler

Issue date: 2/25/09 Section: Lifestyles

Media Credit: Veronica Pucci The Four Square Art Gallery, located on the square, displays various artists books by local artists.

Several exhibitions of artists books will be on display at the UA and at the Four Square Fine Art Gallery during the month of March.

"Artists books" is a unique genre of art making that uses the book format as the original artwork.

"The book itself is a container of work," said Michael Peven, a UA professor of art. "It is a combination of art, words, design and materials - it incorporates all of art. It is a physical manifestation.

"[The books] can have a distinct texture or odor, which some artists like to work with to evoke a specific smell," he said. "The books engage the viewer on a conceptual and visual level."

This distinct art expression dates to the late 1700s and early 1800s, when poet and painter William Blake published limited edition books, such as "Songs of Innocence" and "Songs of Experience," which were written, illustrated, printed, colored and bound by Blake and his wife Catherine, according to a press release. "Songs of Innocence" consists of poems describing the innocence and joy of the natural world while "Songs of Experience" directly contrasts it, dealing with the loss of innocence after exposure to the material world.

This method set the precedent for later artists books, connecting self-publishing and self-distributing with combinations of text, image and form. In the 1950s and '60s, the books became a popular form of contemporary expression through the works of Dieter Roth in Europe and Ed Ruscha in the U.S., Peven said.

"The books are used as a specific way to preserve art," said Peven, who was introduced to artists books in graduate school.

Peven's own artists books are on display at the Four Square Fine Art Gallery, located in the downtown square. His most recent book, which is featured at the gallery, preserves the memories of his heart surgery. The book opens in the middle, like a chest, and shows the process of the surgery, which includes images of stitches and X-rays of his chest.

The physical process of bookmaking "depends on the extensive [subject]," he said. "It could take about two or three hours to create a book."

The Four Square Fine Art Gallery will display the artists books through March 14. Other artists represented in the show include Tanya Johnston, Sean Fitzgibbon, Cindy Wiseman and others.

The exhibits on the UA campus will run from March 2-25 and will feature books created by students in Peven's bookmaking class in the summer of 2008. They will be displayed in the cases in the Fine Arts Center and an exhibit in the Helen Walton Reading Room of Mullins Library curated by Peven from the Fine Arts Library, Mullins Special Collections and the UA Art Department's artist book collections.

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