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The write stuff

Concordia fine arts graduates publish an exhibition in a book
April 4, 2011
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By Karen Herland

Source: Concordia Journal

The book, as both exhibition and object, will be on display in the Webster Library. | Photo by Concordia University
The book, as both exhibition and object, will be on display in the Webster Library. | Photo by Concordia University

“Two years ago, François Morelli asked his Studio Arts students to question the way art finds its audience. Two of them never stopped questioning.

Two students, Mariane Bourcheix-Laporte and Anne-Marie Proulx, continued to ponder the challenge posed in the class, Between the Wall and the Viewer. They eventually identified the book, as a form of “printed exhibition.”

“We were interested in alternative sites of art distribution and the book seemed like a good option,” recalls Proulx, who is now pursuing her MA in Art History at Concordia. Bourcheix-Laporte is studying in Vancouver. Proulx acknowledges a certain nostalgia in selecting an object/ venue that is seen as possibly obsolete in an age of iPads and e-readers.

Last fall, the pair published LETTRES/ LETTERS, an art exhibition in a book. The volume contains the work of 11 artists, including some of the other students in the course, their teaching assistant, Jim Holyoak, and their professor, Morelli. The editors, under the name MAAM (an amalgam of their names) invited other artists who they knew were interested in publishing to participate in the project.

The artists were asked to think about “the book as a place, a medium, a concept for creative production” according to MAAM’s website.

“In the end, each piece in the volume deals with the book, printed matter or with writing,” says Proulx. “We didn’t intend for that to be in the foreground, but it was. The book is what finally makes the individual projects become a whole; they exist together and dialogue with one another.”

Some of the works in the book take on more traditional book forms, like Holyoak’s zine and Étienne Tremblay-Tardif’s superimposition of two different texts. In other cases, print conventions are subverted, such as Adam Sajkowksi’s counterfeit title pages for invented philosophy publications, or even Proulx’s own re-visioning of contributor notes in the back of the book that present highly personal views of the other participating artists instead of the dry, third-person perspectives usually offered.

In conceiving of a book-as-exhibition, the object itself becomes important. The 114-page volume was published in a limited run of 300 copies. Each book has a tactile quality because it is wrapped in a textured, heavily embossed dust cover, designed by Tremblay-Tardif, featuring the names of the contributors.

The book will be on display at the Webster Library for the month of April. In order to facilitate the relationship between object and viewer, the display case exhibition will be supplemented by a video in which the works are revealed page by page.

The volume was published with financial support from the artist-run gallery Articule’s special projects fund, Mediation Sophilex, and contributions from around Concordia including the Fine Arts Reading Room, Fine Arts Student Alliance, Department of Studio Arts, Concordia Council on Student Life, Concordia University Alumni Association and the Vice-President Research and Graduate Studies.

The book is available at:
Articule (262 Fairmount Ave. W.)  http://www.articule.org/index_en.php
Librairie Le Port de tête (262 Mont-Royal Ave. E.) http://leportdetete.blogspot.com/
Drawn & Quarterly Bookstore (211 Bernard St. W.) http://www.drawnandquarterly.com/index.php



Related link:
•    LETTERS
 



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