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upcoming: Book Arts Exhibition: Metropolis & Invisible Cities
October 21, 2016 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
October 21 – December 24, 2016
Opening Reception Friday October 21, 6 – 8pm
Metropolis is a handmade book venture in a spectrum of printmaking processed by artists from around the world, including two from Constellation Studios. The theme speaks to the broad contemporary urban experience and extends to the idea of the network of communication possible today.
The idea for this collaboration came from Berlin-based artist Andreas Kramer who prints at Centro Internazionale della Grafica (CIG) in Venice where Metropolis was realized under the guidance of master bookmaking Silvano Gosparini and where the Renaissance legacy of traditional Venetian book publishing continues.
Among the 303 interpretations of this theme, the reader is destined to discover reflections of one’s own meandering thoughts about ‘metropolis’. The leoporella (accordion) construction enhances this stream-of-consciousness effect as it stretches fully to 215 feel. Ideas circling forwards and backwards through compositional and iconic connections and diversions make an impression underlined by the haptic qualities of the media where ink makes sculptural lines on paper.
What lingers is a metropolis of the mind, a crazy-creative vitality mirroring the variability and vicissitudes of existence, and inspiring a continuing interaction, and a visually challenging mix.
Participants come from: Australia, Japan, Brazil, USA, Italy, Germany, Russia, Poland, Hungary, UK, France, Spain, Tunisia, Canada. The edition of three has been circulating on exhibition in Italy, Germany, USA and most recently in Sao Paolo, Brazil, most recently at the Katzen Rotunda Gallery, American University, Washington, DC. This is the premier exhibition in the mid-west.
CONCURRENT WITH Metropolis: An exhibit of Artists’ books and folios on the theme of Invisible Cities
Artists respond to the concept from a novel by Italian writer Italo Calvino, Le citta invisibili, published in Italy in 1972. In Calvino’s story Marco Polo reports on cities across the empire that he purportedly has visited, to the emperor Kublia Khan. Organized in a mathematical structure. Calvino’s descriptions are fantastical, of dream-like cities all named after women. Following each eleven descriptions, the two men discuss ideas brought forward by the tales such as notions of human nature and linguistics.
Artists from across the USA and international artist join to respond to Metropolis with a new project Invisible Cities. Over 200 artists have contributed a folio page to construct a new leporello book to be produced at Constellation Studios. Others have made their own artist book on this theme. Also included with be artist bookworks from Constellation Studios collection.
Contact:
Karen Kunc karen@constellation-studios.net 402-438-0049
Further information:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fREObY60_vY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Cities