September 14, 2005
Contact: Christine Kuper
Cal Poly University Art Gallery
(805) 756-1571; ckuper@calpoly.edu
Unique Book Exhibit To Kick Off University Art Gallery Season
SAN LUIS OBISPO – A unique exhibition of artists books –
works of art in their own right – made from unusual objects
will kick off the University Art Gallery season at Cal Poly.
The exhibit, titled “Every Force Evolves A Form,” runs
Thursday, Sept. 29, through Saturday, Oct. 22. Artists-publishers
Harry and Sandra Liddell Reese will give a free public talk from
6 to 7 p.m. Sept. 29, in Room 227 in the Dexter Building. A reception
in the University Art Gallery will follow.
“See for yourself how materials like tar and eucalyptus leaves can make a book much more than a good read,” said Christine Kuper, Cal Poly University Art Gallery coordinator.
The books are produced by Harry and Sandra Reese at Turkey Press, which publishes limited-edition books of poetry, prints and art. The couple also founded Edition Reese in 1990 to focus on individual and collaborative projects, primarily artist books.
The husband-and-wife-team set the type by hand, print with hand presses, and produce art projects featuring their own papermaking, traditional and digital printmaking, edition binding, innovative book structures and collaborations with poets, artists, writers and thinkers.
“The intimacy of the artist book and the intense isolation of private reading allow the viewer to participate in a unique way, to become part of the content of the work of art,” said Harry Reese.
The Reeses have collaborated with many artists, including William T. Wiley, Antonio Frasconi, Ann Hamilton, Jud Fine, Kiki Smith, Joan Tanner and Yoko Ono. A partial bibliography and color reproductions of their books are included in “The Rocket Four: Making Artist Books Today,” a 1999 catalogue of four contemporary artist book publishers for an exhibition that has traveled throughout Europe, South America and the United States.
Turkey Press has received grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council and the American Institute of Graphic Arts. Many major museums and libraries in the United States and Europe collect its publications. The press archives were acquired by the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities (now the Getty Research Institute) in 1992.
Harry Reese has been a professor of art at UC Santa Barbara since 1978. The experimental print and book courses he taught in the College of Creative Studies at UCSB became the basis for a program he founded in 1985 that offers the only undergraduate major in book arts within the University of California system.
A native of California, Sandra Liddell Reese graduated from Denver University in 1969. She taught science and art to sixth graders until she met Harry Reese in 1975 and began making books. She does most of the printing and edition binding for their publications in their Isla Vista studio.
Free Public Events
Thursday, Sept. 29 – Friday, Oct. 21, weekdays 10 a.m. to
2 p.m.
View and handle Turkey Press and Edition Reese books in the Special
Collections department, fourth floor of Cal Poly’s Kennedy
Library, 756-2305.
Thursday, Sept. 29, 6-7 p.m.
Artists’ Talk, Room 227, Dexter Building, followed by a reception
in the University Art Gallery.
Thursday, Oct. 6, 7 p.m.
Poetry reading by Michael Hannon in the University Art Gallery.
Visitors can see “Every Force Evolves A Form” during
regular gallery hours: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday,
and 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday. For more information, call 756-6038 or
756-1571.
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