By Design @ Minnesota Center for Book Arts
Wednesday 04 September @ 10:32:19 |
 by Jenny Assef
Amid this week’s last minute back-to-school scurry, it seems appropriate to reconsider the book.
Having dragged myself and a heavy knapsack through school, I thought I knew the book well. It was, after all, a friendly object, comprised of seemingly basic elements—pages, binding, and text—combined to convey information. I knew the book could educate, tell riveting stories, and delight. I relished its silent neatness, standing in closed-covered rows on my shelves.
But all that changed when I entered By Design, an exhibit presented by the Minnesota Center for Book Arts.
I started to ask questions: What is a book, really, and what are pages but surfaces for thought? And what about text? Isn’t it alive inside us? Is it our experiences? Is it the objects with which we interact?
By Design features artwork by high school students who participated in MCBA’s mentorship program. Works range from relatively traditional to highly conceptual in terms of defining the word “book.” You will find text printed on paper, bound together in volumes of the library sort, but you’ll also find text on bed sheets, condom wrappers, rusted metal scraps, or the blades of a rotating fan.
Harleigh Gabrielson’s full-scale installation, “Maybe if Love is Put in a Book it will be Truer,” features a mounted medicine cabinet with open doors, inviting us to peek inside. When we do, we find tiny glass bottles covered in narrative text. “As a kid I’d watch,” claims one. “You’re hoping nobody hears,” says another. “Maybe if Love…” seems a meditation on both the site-specificity of our memories and the many secrets we keep.
Even the more traditional books in By Design are imbued with innovation. Alec Mueller’s melancholic “Epitaph” uses color and shape to evoke a sense of grieving that enhances our understanding of the book’s text. And Vanessa Hoff’s Seven Deadly Sins offers a new slant on an old theme, bringing us sins that neither terrify nor seduce, but simply flirt. We want to chomp that apple just because it’s cute.
Mentors I talked to said the learning went both ways. I feel educated just from viewing the show. From now on, I’ll see my bookshelves with new eyes.
By Design continues through Sept.14. Hours: Mon. – Sat. 8 a.m. - 8 p.m. ; Sun. 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. Upper level of the Open Book building, 1011 Washington Ave. S. Mpls. Applications are currently being taken for next year’s mentorship program. Any high-school-aged teenager may apply. Participants receive free instruction and a stipend for supplies. Call 612-215-2520 for more information.
|
|
 |
|
