Artist's Booksand the Burning Question | |
| 27th annual conference of the Southern Graphic Council at Arizona State University in Temple | |
| Karen Kunc, Lincoln - Nebraska |
| artists books | |
|
Karen Kunc: is Professor of Art at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She holds an MFA from Ohio State University and a BFA from the University of Nebraska- Lincoln. Kunc has made bookworks for over 20 years at Blue Heron Press in a career that parallels and expands her work as a printmaker. Her books and prints have recently been exhibited in solo shows at the Women's Studio Workshop and at the Atrium Gallery, St. Louis. Group shows include: Artist's Books of the 90's, University of Missouri, Kansas City, Dressing the Text: the Fine Press Artist's Book, Art Museum of Santa Cruz and national tour; Art of the Book '98, touring through Canada; Califia Books, San Francisco. Her bookworks are in the collections of the Victoria and Albert National Art Library; The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; the New York Public Library; the Walker Art Center; the Library of Congress; the National Museum of Women in the Arts; the Allen Library of the University of Washington, Seattle. Her prints are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modem Art, New York; National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution; Alvar Aalto Museum, Jyväskylä, Finland; Hafnarborg Institute of Culture and Fine Art, Iceland. |
Here I am, crowded into a packed lecture room, sitting on the floor, at a session of the 27th annual conference of the Southern Graphics Council at Arizona State University in Tempe. We are all here in great sympathetic company to hear presentations about Artist's Books of the 90's by panelists Sandra Kroupa, the Book Arts Librarian at the University of Washington, Seattle; Helen Frederick, Director and founder of Pyramid Atlantic, Riverdale, Maryland; and Harry Reese, Professor of Art, University of California, Santa Barbara. The size of the underestimated audience indicates the burgeoning interest in the book arts throughout America by a wide range of artists in all disciplines, growing out of printmakers, papermakers, photographers, poets, calligraphers, graphic designers and craft artists. It was a distinct pleasure to be in the audience that day among other book art aficionados, some well known - such as Enid Mark, Maritza Davila, Barbara Metz, Mary Phelan, 4nita DeAngelis, John Risseauw - and others new and eager to see what is currently happening. And, I suspect, to come to their own understanding of the burning question - why artist's books? The panel didn't exactly debate what artist's books are, having taken the past discussions about definitions, the different different categories, and various historical links as resolved and accepted. The operative definition for Sandra Kroupa is ultimately "pretty big!", allowing for all possibilities to be equally embraced, as a very open medium, including as many variations as there are artists, and approaches from the traditional to the inclusion of digital technology practices. Instead, these presenters introduced new work by some new and |
  |
|
Next Page Art Prints Kara Art Home F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F | |