June 15–August 11, 2012
Center for Book and Paper Arts
Columbia College Chicago
1104 South Wabash Avenue
Chicago, IL 60605-1996
Exhibiting artists
From Dieu Donné, New York: Polly Apfelbaum, Sonya Blesofsky, Mel Bochner, Nina Bovasso, Beth Campbell, Chuck Close, Ian Cooper, Glenn Ligon, Matt Keegan, William Kentridge, Jessica Stockholder, Richard Tuttle
Newly commissioned works by: Deborah Boardman, Annica Cuppetelli & Cristobal Mendoza, Dan Devening, Susan Goethel Campbell, Daniel Luedtke, Niall McClelland, Kate McQuillen, Zoe Nelson, Julie Schenkelberg, Ian Schneller, Matthew Shlian, Anna Tsantir
About the exhibition
Hand papermaking is an artistic process that begins with the raw materials pulp and fiber and ends in works on paper, sculpture, new media, performance, and beyond. This exhibition asks to consider not only the utility and potential of paper itself, but also the collaborative process of hand papermaking at the intersection of interdisciplinary arts and crafts.
For the exhibition, the Center for Book and Paper Arts asked thirteen artists to create new work using handmade paper produced to their specifications by graduate students in the Interdisciplinary Arts Department at Columbia College Chicago. At the core of the collaborative process was ongoing dialogue concerning not only the paper itself, but also each artist’s creative methodology and studio practice.
A second part of the exhibition features works created by artists in-residence at Dieu Donné, a New York-based non-profit artist workspace dedicated to the creation, promotion, and preservation of contemporary art in the hand papermaking process. There, residencies afford both emerging and established artists an opportunity to see how handmade paper can work for them in important ways.
In this case “handmadeness” points not to a certain aesthetic or visual trope, but to realms of possibility. Material Assumptions calls into question our expectations of handmade paper in terms of its aesthetic and raison d’être, dynamically affirming its relevance as an interdisciplinary and contemporary artistic mode of activity.
Public events: Friday, June 15
Opening reception: 4–7pm
Panel discussion: Group Effort: Hand Papermaking, Collaboration and Contemporary Art, 6:30pm
About the Center for Book & Paper Arts
The Center for Book and Paper Arts is dedicated to the research, teaching, and promotion of the interdisciplinary practices that support the book arts and hand papermaking as contemporary art media.
The Center is part of the Interdisciplinary Arts Department at Columbia College Chicago, and in addition to housing both graduate and undergraduate classes for that department, it publishes a critical journal and artists’ books, mounts exhibitions, hosts artist residencies, sponsors symposia and public programs, and provides advanced study through a workshop program.
Media Contacts
Steve Kauffman: T 312 369 7383 / [email protected]
Erin Purdy: T 312 369 8695 / [email protected]
Jessica Cochran, Curator of Exhibitions: [email protected]
*Image above:
Glenn Ligon, Self Portrait at Eleven Years Old, 2004. Courtesy, Dieu Donné, New York.
