From a 19th century Coptic Bible to a contemporary underground zine, certain printed materials have long shared a commonality: the medium itself as a work of art, both standalone and in conversation with the text.
In the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood’s “Book Bound,” dozens upon dozens of singular contributions—picture books, pamphlets, posters, canonical religious texts—explore the concept of printed material as painting, as sculpture, as installation, as entity above and beyond its utilitarian function as a vessel for the written word. Omnivorous in her approach to the theme, curator Meaghan Kent amassed work by blue-chip artists and outsiders alike for an illuminating, occasionally interactive celebration of the blur between visual and literary art.
The exhibition can feel almost overwhelming at first, and it rewards the patient visitor. Vitrines contain objects under glass, from illustrated vinyl record sleeves to a Purvis Young sketchbook to an original piece of word art by the droll minimalist Ed Ruscha. In other works, attendees are welcome to peruse the pages, carefully, with gloves provided at the front desk. Russell Maycumber’s “Rockwells Cherry Moon” is like a deconstructed scrapbook in three-dimensional space—a mirrored wooden box containing countless mini masterpieces and artistic detritus, some of it on material no larger than a Post-It note, and offering a maximalist look into the artist’s busy head.
The form of the book itself is playfully, ingeniously explored in pieces like Lou Ann Colodny’s “Tunnel Book,” whose painted narrative emerges through the book’s stretched, accordionesque presentation. Rosemarie Chiarlone’s “Residue” is an enormous book, its binding and contents sheltered, womblike, under bed sheets, complete with comforter and tiny pillows. “Intrinsic Poetry,” by Karla Kantavorich, is a Rauschenberg-style combine, in which leather, paper, mesh and fabric seem to spill from an ancient, yellowing book at the apex of the wall-mounted sculpture.
There are times, of course, when the words in the imagery matter, too. A series of concert posters by Kristen Thiele, conceived as advertisements, cleverly integrate the necessary text through novel illustrated conceits, the band names and other details spooling from a chemist’s beaker or blaring from a bullhorn. In Mary Larsen’s “Seeking a refuge,” narrative texture emerges through layers of paint, glue and found poetry. Jacob Wan’s moving “The Rabbit Boy” appears to be a dark tale of bullying, paranoia and otherness.
My favorite piece in the exhibition accomplishes a lot of heavy lifting, both physical and literary. In Yves Gabriel’s “Diary of a Straight Guy,” the words imagine a homonormative reality in which a heterosexual protagonist faces an existence of oppressions both obvious and subtle. By brilliantly, and simply, flipping the majority sexual orientation into the minority, it engenders empathy and compassion without the righteousness of a polemic. Moreover, the work has the heft and permanence of one of Moses’ Tablets of Stone: The words are printed on cut cloth inside rough and splintery wooden binding painted red—like the scarlet hue of a certain literary heroine.
When closed, the book, which is attached to an abstract wall painting, can be prohibited from view with an attached lock and key, like some forbidden object, its very ideas verboten (“Don’t Say Straight,” perhaps?).
It’s a fitting segue into the exhibition’s final gallery, a site-specific installation by Charles Jackson Adkins Jr., a kind of paradoxical safe space for ideas that challenge. It’s part library, part comfortable screening room, where news segments on the totalitarian nature of book banning share real estate with a small library from such banned authors—from Toni Morrison to George Carlin. It’s titled “Suggested Summer Reading,” and we couldn’t agree more.
“Book Bound” runs through Aug. 21 at Art and Culture Center, 1650 Harrison St., Hollywood. Admission is $7 general, $4 students. Call 954/921-3274 or visit artandculturecenter.org.
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