Wednesday Exhibitions-Opening Tonight!

Our spring exhibitions are almost complete, and the wine is chilling in the bindery. It's almost time for a reception! For those of you who haven't witnessed gallery installation here at the Center first hand, I thought we'd give you a short glimpse into what's been going on for the last week and a half.

Above is artist Anne Gilman working on the installation of her Featured Artist Project The Jolly Balance, with the help of intrepid workstudy volunteer Matt Colbourn. The exhibition consists of fourteen individual panels of waxed ledger paper,  along with individual prints, drawing, and a print portfolio. Last week she and Alexander Campos, our director, spent many hours determining the choice, spacing and order of the individual panels. Gilman will join us on May 9th to talk more in depth about her project, which took as a starting point  a series of drawings she made on a handwritten physics journal from 1918. Join us at 7pm and you can enjoy the series of works as a whole.

Here's curator Lauren Haaften-Schick, putting the finishing touches on a library case in the main gallery. Her show, 'Canceled': Alternative Manifestations and Productive Failures examines cancelled or otherwise prohibited exhibitions that now exist as publications or in other formats.Her research into several different artist projects, which for different reasons didn't take place as planned, has resulted in a mix of projects and publications, all tied together by the use of printed material as a means of documenting that which didn't happen. Today in the gallery Lauren and Alex are putting the finishing touches on the installation, and adding the wall text and labels which will help visitors put the work on display into context. It's a mad rush to get everything up in time for the preview at 6pm, where Lauren will give a short tour and presentation of the show, the culmination of much writing, research and reflection on her part.

Here's 2011 Artists in Residence James Case-Leal and Heidi Neilson, negotiating with Alex during installation of their work. Last Friday we talked more about the residency program in general. Every spring we show the results of the previous year's residents work in our studio galleries; our four workspace artists spent all of 2011 taking classes, using the studios and experimenting with new techniques, materials and formats. The end results of their work are on display through the end of June. Join us tonight for the opening, and you'll be able to see some of Heidi's collaged linoleum prints commemorating historic now-defunct satellites in Earth’s orbit, and her two artist books, Tranquility Base and Atlas Dream Sequence.

James Case-Leal is working here on installing his piece The Light Day-A Generative Lexicon. This project uses random number sequences generated by Atmospheric Background Radiation, the remaining particle energy from the Big Bang. These sequences are then used to generate letter sequences, which Case-Leal presents as text, which the reader then seeks to interpret as words to be read.

We'll host talks, screenings, and events throughout the spring in conjunction with these three exhibitions, and you can find out the details on our website on the events page, here In the meantime, we hope to see you tonight at 7! 

Can't wait for our next opening? Have a favorite piece from a previous exhibition? Want to give us suggestions or comments? Just want to say hi? Comment on this post, email us at info@centerforbookarts.org, visit us on Facebook (/centerforbookarts) or follow us on Twitter (@center4bookarts). Can't wait to see you there!