Wednesday, April 12, 2023 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm
Presenter: Kiera O'Brien and Kate Joranson
Frick Fine Arts Library Browsing Room
Join Kiera O’Brien, Graduate Student Assistant at the Frick Fine Arts Library, and Head Librarian Kate Joranson in a hands-on exploration of selections from the artists’ book and zine collection. Together we will consider how artists’ books can be conceived as instructional texts that directly prompt embodied applications by the reader/user, inviting real-world interventions and interactions that exceed the edges of the page. Drawing on examples by Yoko Ono, John Cage, and others, O’Brien and Joranson will discuss the ways in which artists have reappropriated the forms and formalities of technical field guides, manuals, exercise books, and how-to guides. How do such interventions take up the genre of the instructional text as a site of power, possibility, and play?
Kiera O’Brien (she/her) is a third year MFA candidate in poetry in the Writing Program. During her tenure as the inaugural graduate student assistant at the Frick Fine Arts Library, O’Brien has focused on developing new points of access to the artists’ book collection. Her research with the collection is in direct conversation with her artistic practice, which encompasses poetry, book arts, video, and hybrid forms. She is currently at work on her first full-length poetry collection.
Please note: This colloquium will take place in the Frick Fine Arts Library Browsing Room and will involve engaging with rare materials. Attendees are asked to wash their hands in advance. Food, beverages, and pens are not permitted.
Image:
Mud Book: How to Make Pies and Cakes
John Cage and Lois Long, 1983