Time: 1 June – 31 August 2012
Opening: 15 June 2012, 6:00 PM
Location: San Francisco Center for the Book
Austin/Burch Gallery
300 De Haro ST STE 334
San Francisco, CA 94103-5165
United States
Curator: Daisy Carlson
SFCB is proud to announce its summer exhibition in the Austin/Burch Gallery, Exploding the Codex, a group show featuring the works of over 40 book artists from the collection of Mary Austin, curated by Daisy Carlson. The show explores the theater of the book and storytelling through structure. These books go beyond the traditional format to unveil new ways of presenting and telling stories. Often theatrical or stage-like in their presentation, they pull the viewer into their individual dramas and diverse varieties of form and presentation.
The exhibition explores the ways in which a book’s size and dimensions determine our relationship to it and what it is trying to tell us. One can choose between the intimacy of a tiny journal, private and curious, easily hidden as if keeping a secret between reader and teller; or we may choose to be awed by a ceremoniously large book that engages us in alto, the spine boasting of a grand celebration. The size, structure, and shape are the book’s octave.
Exploding the Codex explores information and presentation: in our lifetime, we have seen an incredible change in the way information is presented. As information becomes digitized, our relationship to information and access is evolving. The form of information is a large part of how we interpret the story. Despite the proliferation of digital information, there will always be room in our lives for theater, and for the privacy of the printed word and the luxury of paper between our fingertips. Books are monuments to consciousness and begin collective conversations that evolve our culture and our perception of ourselves in the world. As the Codex explodes so does our perception of our place in the world.
More info: http://sfcb.org/events/exhibitions/future-exhibitions