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with a locally generated exhibition,” by focusing on works pro-duced
in California or made by California artists.21
" In many ways her decision reflected a new level of maturity
for the discipline of artists’ bookmaking in her adopted state. The
early books of Ed Ruscha had led the way toward a fully-fledged
body of work from a diverse range of artists and bookmakers. Col-leges
had begun to adopt courses in book art; the first MA in Book
Art in the country was initiated in 1983 in the San Francisco Bay
Area by Mills College. Otis itself offered a course in mail art as
early as 1979, taught by Wayne Kuwada, a gallery curator and
graduate of the Otis MFA program.
" Unlike the 1978 open call for Artwords & Bookworks, the works
for California Bookworks were chosen by Hugo from the Otis library
collection that she had fostered so lovingly. Of the more than 230
works in the exhibition, many were, in the words of Director of Ex-hibitions
Al Nodal, free access works (which he notes in his Appre-ciation
will be “lovingly handled, I hope, by you!”)22 In her brief
introduction, “the last five years”, Hugo says of the exhibition:
To provide the broadest possible context and to provoke discussion about
the nature of the book, I have included in the contemporary section objects
which incorporate books as materials in a book-like format. These stretch
the definition of book beyond accustomed limits . . .yet one has only to
recall the history of the book from painted stones and cylinder seals to Me-dieval
jewelled covers and Russian Futurist books on wallpaper, to see
how flexible these limits actually are.23
" In her erudite accompanying essay, Frances Butler, the
Berkeley-based artist and scholar whose own work was repre-sented
in the exhibition, writes that these boundary-stretching
works display a high degree of craft literacy:
Appreciation of the skilled movement of the hand as well as the eye, and
attention to all aspects of the intimate relationship of the book to the
reader’s body, both serve as attack units in the Artist’s Book maker’s [sic]
ideological warfare against the theft of individual consciousness of body,
mind, and time to mass communications systems.24
" Butler’s work, Occult Psychogenic Misfeasance (1983) repre-sents
a type of “filled moment” that Butler suggests is at the basis
of some artists’ books. This book juxtaposes letters received by But-ler
from a person who was rather terrifyingly stalking her at the
time with photo self-portraits that make pointed references to the
14
Object Description
Description
| Title | Page 15 |
| Full Text of PDF | with a locally generated exhibition,” by focusing on works pro-duced in California or made by California artists.21 " In many ways her decision reflected a new level of maturity for the discipline of artists’ bookmaking in her adopted state. The early books of Ed Ruscha had led the way toward a fully-fledged body of work from a diverse range of artists and bookmakers. Col-leges had begun to adopt courses in book art; the first MA in Book Art in the country was initiated in 1983 in the San Francisco Bay Area by Mills College. Otis itself offered a course in mail art as early as 1979, taught by Wayne Kuwada, a gallery curator and graduate of the Otis MFA program. " Unlike the 1978 open call for Artwords & Bookworks, the works for California Bookworks were chosen by Hugo from the Otis library collection that she had fostered so lovingly. Of the more than 230 works in the exhibition, many were, in the words of Director of Ex-hibitions Al Nodal, free access works (which he notes in his Appre-ciation will be “lovingly handled, I hope, by you!”)22 In her brief introduction, “the last five years”, Hugo says of the exhibition: To provide the broadest possible context and to provoke discussion about the nature of the book, I have included in the contemporary section objects which incorporate books as materials in a book-like format. These stretch the definition of book beyond accustomed limits . . .yet one has only to recall the history of the book from painted stones and cylinder seals to Me-dieval jewelled covers and Russian Futurist books on wallpaper, to see how flexible these limits actually are.23 " In her erudite accompanying essay, Frances Butler, the Berkeley-based artist and scholar whose own work was repre-sented in the exhibition, writes that these boundary-stretching works display a high degree of craft literacy: Appreciation of the skilled movement of the hand as well as the eye, and attention to all aspects of the intimate relationship of the book to the reader’s body, both serve as attack units in the Artist’s Book maker’s [sic] ideological warfare against the theft of individual consciousness of body, mind, and time to mass communications systems.24 " Butler’s work, Occult Psychogenic Misfeasance (1983) repre-sents a type of “filled moment” that Butler suggests is at the basis of some artists’ books. This book juxtaposes letters received by But-ler from a person who was rather terrifyingly stalking her at the time with photo self-portraits that make pointed references to the 14 |
