More than words on pages

Art and literature-loving artists joined to produce a new show at John and June Allcott Gallery this week. "Southern Exposure: Academic Book Arts in the New Millenium (sic)" premiered yesterday.

The exhibition is made up of submitted works of book art from “faculty, staff and students of academic institutions in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia,” as detailed on the UNC's event page.

"Southern Exposure" is co-sponsored by the College Book Art Association and co-organized by Lisa Beth Robinson, a member of the exhibitions committee at CBAA and professor in East Carolina University’s School of Art and Design.

Robinson said in an email that organizing the event was a great experience, and that it was especially fun to work with people from CBAA and UNC, including Josh Hockensmith and art professor Jina Valentine.

Hockensmith is the art library assistant at the Sloane Art Library in the Hanes Art Center at UNC. He said the library is not officially involved in "Southern Exposure," but he volunteered time to help set it up.

He also has a book in the show, and described book art as all the art forms that go into creating a book. This includes papermaking, printing, letterpressing and bookbinding. With this particular show, the entire books are created by the artists themselves.

“It’s not just a collection of prints the artist likes, or showing off bookbinding,” Hockensmith said. “The book itself is a conceptual work of art as a whole.”

Alisa Golden, who is a member of CBAA and teaches at California College of the Arts, juried the show. Artists anonymously submitted pictures of their books on a slide, leaving it up to Golden to decide which ones would make it into the exhibition.

“I was looking for a few different things — technique and skill level being high, the materials being used in an interesting or sensitive way, so that all of the pieces of the book work together to say the same thing and support each other,” she said. “Jurying from slides is a little bit trickier because I couldn’t read (the books); I could only see the page it was open to.”

Robinson wrote that having the show juried by Golden — an academic professional from outside the region — makes it unique.

“('Southern Exposure') specifically focuses on work that is demonstrating excellence in craft and concept within an academic environment,” she wrote. “All (of the works) ask us to participate in the intimacy that only a book can provide.”

Hockensmith said this show is important for the UNC and Chapel Hill communities because it increases awareness of viewing books as art objects.

“It’s a lesser-known kind of art form, and any kind of exposure is great,” he said.

Robinson expressed a similar sentiment.

“My hope is that it will broaden the community’s definition of what a book can be and open a new door for thinking about ways to tell a story or convey an idea,” she wrote.

“I also hope it will expand people’s perceptions about the materials we use to communicate these narratives.”

@RIP_berniemac

arts@dailytarheel.com