Doug Spowart and Victoria Cooper document Personal Histories at UNSW

Fellow Australian book artists

Doug Spowart and Victoria Cooper

Image: Doug Spowart + Victoria Cooper wotwedid blogsite

have posted a wonderful reference to their experience of 

the Personal Histories Opening Night Event at UNSW Canberra on their wotwedid blog site.

The post includes a written overview of their thoughts on the exhibition, documentary photographs including images of participating artists Judy Bourke and Tracie Toohey, also links to video footage of a walkthrough of some of the exhibition -

including a guest appearance by Canberra based artist
 Caren Florance and opening speeches from Selena Griffith, Lisa Morisset (UNSW Library) and Robyn Foster.

This is a marvellous resource for any one who could not physically get to visit the exhibitions and I highly recommend following the link to have a look at this post and to explore the wealth of information in other posts.

I can't thank Doug and Victoria enough for making the journey to the Canberra opening and for generously creating and sharing this documentary resource with all of us.

Doug Spowart was 2014 Siganto Foundation Research Fellow at the Australian Library of Art, State Library of Queensland.

Dr Victoria Cooper is 2015 Siganto Foundation Research Fellow at the Australian Library of Art, State Library of Queensland. 

(footnote re footage: I was a little disturbed to see one lovely person's blatant disregard for gallery etiquette, but I can assure everyone {especially Janet Braun-Reinitz - whose artwork was in imminent peril}, no artworks were harmed during the making of this footage)

End of Redland Art Gallery Exhibition

The doors have closed today on the

100Book: A Personal Histories International Artists' Book Exhibition

at Redland Art Gallery.

It has been a brilliant exhibition with lots of positive feedback from gallery visitors and staff.

Since the opening night event we have had two artist's floor talks, three guided walk throughs and one bookmaking workshop.

I have been very remiss in not putting any posts up on the blog over the run of the show, but I hope you will be bear with me as I get back on track.

I would like to share with you some of opening speaker, Jan Davis', words about the exhibition and about the practice of artist book making:

This exhibition of books is presented in a climate we are constantly told, of diminished reverence for the book,  for the feel of the book, a time when people are supposedly turning away from reading a bound object held in their hands, turning towards reading from a screen.  The 100book exhibition brings together artists who aspire to reignite our relationship with the book.

Why do artists make books?

There are many answers, but I want to talk about just two reasons that are powerfully demonstrated in this exhibition, (and I don't use that adjective lightly).

1. books can tell a story: they are open to presenting a narrative in a way that many single stand-alone works of art, such as a painting, a print or a piece of sculpture are not.  A sequence of pages (not necessarily covered in words) gives an opportunity to develop a concept, to draw out or build an idea.  And many artists, as you will see in this exhibition, have a complex story to tell.

2. books are intimate: they are quiet objects of contemplation.  They take time, time to make, and they reward time spent reading them.  They feel intimate in the making, they lure we bookmakers into revealing quite a lot about ourselves and others.  Being with a book takes us to a very private place.

Viewers of this exhibition will recognise the narrative and the intimacy in the books and in the artists' statements that support them.

CATHERINE KIRKPATRICK (USA) writes that in creating these images her immediate family and ancestors came into her mind, their births, their life's journeys that led to her being born in New York City.  She writes "I see their triumphs and struggles, and in my work I honour them'.

JAQUELINE BALMER - UNITED KINGDOM (LANCASHIRE) in describing her project "Was she the one who?", which involved working with old family photographs, writes 'Names were forgotten, or attributed to the wrong face, anecdotes were confused and embellished.  Now, not knowing who these people were, we read stories into their images based on their expressions, their clothing or surroundings.  Some of the stories you may read in these images are more accurate than others'.

HELEN SANDERSON (AUSTRALIA) in her work 'My grandmother was a Dear: The female line - Tracing the invisible women and those who came later', her 4th book records some of the lace passed down to her from these women.  Lace pressed against their skins - Narratives and intimacy indeed!

This exhibition also demonstrates a key aspect of the artist's book community and that is their capacity to build and sustain communities of makers.  Robyn (Foster) has tapped into existing national and international networks of artists making books to invite participation in this project and to also promote and disseminate information about the exhibition.  She has created new communities and is continuing to do that.

Installation Week & Opening Night - Redland Art Gallery Cleveland

 100 Books: A Personal Histories International Artists' Book Exhibition

has opened to a very enthusiastic audience at 

Redland Art Gallery Cleveland (Queensland, Australia).

Congratulations to all the contributing artists involved.

It was an honour and a pleasure to have Jan Davis officially, and very eloquently, 

open the exhibition with Redland Art Gallery Director Stephanie Lindquist (in the blue dress below) acting as MC.

 

Exhibiting artist's books since the late 1980's,  

Jan Davis has undertaken duties as an Adjunct Associate Professor at Southern Cross University, is Vice President of the Print Council of Australia and is one of two Siganto Foundation Fellows currently based at the Australian Library of Art ( State Library of Queensland).  As part of her fellowship, Jan has chosen to research historical diaries and farm records from the John Oxley collection which she will transfigure into artists' books. 

The Redland Art Gallery exhibition holds 110 works in total 

with contributing artists from 16 countries.

100 works form the main body of the exhibition along with 10 works in an adjunct display which focuses on the centenary of WWI from a perspective of personal/family connections.

As the exhibition coincides with school holidays here, there is a dedicated area for children to create and display book art, with books referencing childhood in close proximity (all safely under perspex covers - of course).  We already have some wonderful examples after an enthusiastic response from the young people in attendance last night.

There is a reading table area where books are able to be read and touched.

I will be hosting a floor talk at the gallery at 11.30am Sunday 29 March 2015. 

Helen Malone will host a floor talk focusing on the WWI artworks at 11.30am Friday 24 April 2015.

Workshops are planned for this afternoon as well.  For details contact the gallery directly.

There are also artists' groups who have organised guided, white gloves tours throughout the run of the exhibition after having had tours of the first Personal Histories exhibition at Redland Museum in October 2014.

Many thanks to the Redland Art Gallery staff for their tireless efforts and skill in making exhibitions like this a reality.

Exhibition runs through until Sunday 10 May.

Redland Museum - Over and Out

The Personal Histories Exhibition at Redland Museum has drawn to a close, 

with the last day of viewing being Sunday November 30.

I send a huge thanks and congratulations to all artists 

who have been involved with this first stage of the project.

The exhibition has been a huge success with a great deal of interest being shown in each and every artwork, the overall concept of artists' books, the variety of constructs and mediums employed by artist book makers and also the personal stories contained within the artworks.  There have been a well attended opening, a large number of visitors throughout the run, private group viewings, curator talks, a one-day workshop and visits from participating artists from both Australia and overseas (notably Sara & Theresa from Michigan, USA and Kyoung from Busan, Korea).

The exhibition will remain permanently online on the Personal Histories Website for all to view.

(The online catalogue is still a work in progress due to a file problem, and lack of time to sort it out properly, but hopefully this will be fixed shortly.  Apologies if this has caused anyone inconvenience.)

The exhibition has been dismantled and now comes the huge task of packaging and posting artworks back to artists, approaching institutions to house donated artworks, and/or storing artworks for the Personal Histories exhibition in Canberra in late 2015. 

One contingency I didn't factor in is that parcels being returned may get caught up in the Christmas post deluge.  Hopefully this doesn't impact negatively upon anyone.

Of course, the story is far from over with the next Personal Histories exhibition (with a working subtitle of 100book) opening at Redland Art Gallery on 27 March 2015.

I will be emailing gallery forms to be completed by those participating in this next leg of the project shortly, with a reminder that works are to be delivered by Friday 13 March 2015 at the latest.

Redland Museum Online Exhibition

The Personal Histories Redland Museum 

Online Exhibition has been uploaded to the website.

Below is a direct link:

Personal Histories Website Online Exhibition

There is a pause button to the top left of the image space (when you run your mouse over the screen) so you can take a bit more time to read the accompanying text.

There are still two artists pages that need to be included,

but hopefully I will have images sorted out over the next couple of days so I can add them to the mix.

Please let me know if you spot any errors or omissions.

NEWS ARTICLE

                   Redland City Bulletin - Wednesday November 5 2014         

REDLAND MUSEUM EXHIBITION OPENING

Apologies for taking so long to post about the 

Personal Histories Redland Museum Exhibition Opening.

Influenza and fatigue got the better of me.

The exhibition opened in the 

Dunn Wing of the Redland Museum on Sunday 12 October 

with works from 64 artists living in 18 different countries.

(Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Korea, Latvia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States of America, Wales).

The exhibition was formally opened by Rick Thomason (Exhibitions Officer and Curator - Redland Museum) and Myann Burrows (Textile and Artists Book maker).

Kay Faulkner (textile artist), Robyn Foster (Coordinator Personal Histories), Myann Burrows (opening speaker), Rick Thomason (Exhibiitons Officer & Curator - Redland Museum)

It has taken 12 months of organisation to bring the exhibition to this point with communication mostly via email, website and blog.

Thanks must go to Rick Thomason and the ever supportive Redland Museum community as well as to each contributing artist for all their hard work in making and transporting their works.

Museums are time capsules of public human history and the concept for this exhibition was to allow individuals working in the forum of book arts the opportunity to share their own personal, private narratives in a public space.

Artists' books utilise the format or concept of a book in the form of artwork.  In our age of technology, artists books help connect us to a familiar, tactile past and a changing relationship with how we share and store information and images and give us the ability to creatively record our own stories.

Book Artists:  Virginia and Terence Uren (Canberra), Helen Malone (Brisbane - back to camera), Robyn Foster (Redland). (background) - Fiona Dempster & Barry Smith (Sunshine Coast), Annique Goldenberg (Northern NSW) 

The books in this exhibition vary widely in their construction and content and are a testament to the creative breadth of artists' book craftsmanship.

  

Some are handmade, some commercially printed, some altered book works, 

some unique works and some editions.

The form of the books range widely - with traditionally bound books, concertina fold formats, spiral bound books, pop-up books, unbound pages encased in slipcases, framed works, wall hung works, flag fold books, stitched books, wearable art, scrolls, books made of paper, books made of cloth and books made of natural fibres.

There are letterpress printed books, etched books, linocuts, cyanotype prints, hand drawn and painted books, digitally printed images, collaged books, hand cut books, woven pages.

There are myriad differences in the construction methods and techniques used to create these books, but each relates a tale of personal history and experience in a unique and original way.

Virginia and Terence Uren (Canberra book artists)

Whilst most books are encased or positioned for viewing,

there are a selection of books available for viewing on a supervised reading table.

An international textiles exhibition entitled "Exposition" opened alongside the Personal Histories exhibition, giving a great dynamic to the Museum space, with both exhibitions marrying well.

The exhibition runs until Sunday 30 November.

Exposition - Textiles Exhibition

REDLAND MUSEUM - EXHIBITION PREVIEW

The first Personal Histories exhibition opens tomorrow at 10am.

Heartfelt thanks to all the artists 

who have put their trust in this project over the last 12 months

 and contributed works to make this excellent show become a reality.

There are some truly amazing artworks (and personal histories) here.

Herewith a few snapshots taken at the end of installation this week.

Hopefully a few better quality images will be taken at the opening tomorrow.

I look forward to meeting all the artists who are attending tomorrow and throughout the show.