Saturday, November 26, 2011

Winter News

Books & Pieces: Works by Scott McCarney 
from the Artists' Book Collection of the Cary Graphic Arts Collection Annotated with Ephemera Describing the Conception and Realization of the Work.

January 16 to March 23, 2012
Reception: Thursday, January 19, 2012, 4 - 7 p.m.
Gallery Talk*: Thursday, February 9, 2012, 5:30 - 7 p.m.

RIT Cary Graphic Arts Collection
The Wallace Center (2nd floor)

This should prove to be an interesting contrast to the Light Work exhibition, which featured mostly one-of-a-kind bookworks.  Kari Horowicz has installed pretty much all of RIT's holdings of my work, which consist primarily of open and/or small edition books. I contributed the pieces part of the exhibition's title: book dummies, maquettes, cutting dies, folding samples . . . all the stuff generated while working on a project that, by nature, I refuse to throw away.

Rumor has it that RIT catering will be using some of Lela McCarney's recipes (from A Selection of Cards) for the opening reception.

* This presentation is cosponsored by Artists & Audiences Exchange, a public program administered by the New York Foundation for the Arts  with leadership support from the New York State Council on the Arts.


Threads Talk with Keith Smith
While Keith was in New York for the opening of his exhibition at the Bruce Silverstein Gallery, Steve Clay of Granary Books invited him to give a talk as part of "Threads," a series of talks devoted to the art of the book. You can see the whole series here and scroll down a bit to access Keith's talk.








VisualBooks at Light Work
Some installation shots of my exhibition at Light Work made by Megan Charland, a graduate of RIT currently in the grad program at VSW. Check out her blog where these pics were originally posted.









































Monday, October 24, 2011

Fall News

VisualBooks
Light Work, Syracuse NY
November 1 - December 16

The gallery reception for my show will be November 3 (5–8pm)  and also serves as the kickoff event to the Society of Photographic Education (SPE) Northeast/Mid-Atlantic regional conference titled Photographers + Publishing, which will be hosted by Light Work and Syracuse University.



Light Work gave me a free hand in putting together Contact Sheet, their award-winning publication which serves as a catalogue/monograph for artists exhibiting in the main gallery. A special conference edition will be published in a run of 250 which includes an original work of art.

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Art of the Book
An exhibition in celebration of the Rochester Public Library 100th Anniversary
October 21 - December 4, 2011
Hours: Sun 1–5pm; Mon 12–8pm; Tue-Fri 10am–6pm; Sat 10am–5pm 

A book from the continuing "Hanging Index" series is on display at the Lower Link Gallery, Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County, 115 South Ave. (and was chosen as"best in show"[!]) This volume, Last Lines of Poetry, was deaccessioned from the Arnett branch and purchased through the Central Library bookstore. I highly recommend this store for your holiday shopping, if not for raw art materials.



















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YELLOW FIELD 


. . . a journal of Anglophone poetries showcasing the emergent, the established, the undersung, printed "Facebookers," four pages from "face book" in the Fall 2011 issue. Many thanks to Edric Mesmer, chief collator. 

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SMVB Catalog online


This year's New York Art Book Fair was a great success and a lot of fun. I managed to update my printed catalog for the occasion, adding half as many pages of new digital editions. Hannah Frieser, the director of Light Work and a veritable font of good ideas, prompted me to load it up to issuu.com  <>. It's basically my books-in-print that can be found on the website but viewable in a virtual page-turning book space. Check it out.
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COMING ATTRACTIONS:




Keith Smith: Book by Book



Bruce Silverstein Gallery, 535 W. 24th Street NYC
November 18, 2011 - January 7, 2010


This is a rare opportunity to see a collection of Keith's one-of-a-kind work and small editions. There is a nice preview of work on the gallery website.




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Stay tuned for an exhibition of my work at the Cary Graphic Arts Collection, Wallace Learning Center, Rochester Institute of Technology. Dates TBA.
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Have a colorful season.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Summer News

96F degrees and counting . . .

Things are cooking besides eggs on the sidewalk. An embarrassment of opportunity has made the heat more bearable.
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I've been named a 2011 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Printmaking/Drawing/Book Arts. A complete list of Fellows, Finalists & panelists can be found on the NYFA website
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Summer Teaching

THE DISEMBODIED BOOK MADE WHOLE (AGAIN)
Visual Studies Workshop Summer Institute
July 25-29
This is an iteration of the workshop I taught at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, Memorial University of NL last summer. I'm hoping the heat breaks so everyone will feel like working (myself included). 
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Summer Exhibitions
I'm represented in two (!) exhibitions at the Center for Book Arts in New York:
Organized by Alexander Campos, Executive Director, and Doug Beube runs from July 6 – September 10, 2011
AND
runs from July 6, 2011 - September 10, 2011.
The CBA collection is accessible online. Yellow Hanging Accordion Book Structure, which is in the show, can be seen there. Deirdre Lawrence, Principal Librarian at the Brooklyn Museum of Art wrote a flattering entry for my piece for the catalogue.
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Another Show of Interest


Keith Smith's latest work is on display through September 5, 2011, and can be viewed Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Hilfiker Gallery of Rare Books and Special Collections, Rush Rhees Library, 2nd floor at the University of Rochester.
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NEW BOOK!
Laundry In Public, 2011. 5.5 x 8.25 in., 24 pp. Two-section pamphlet bound in cloth cover.
Photographs of southern Tuscan hill towns made in October/November 2007.







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FALL PREVIEW

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September 29-October 2
I'll be participating in the sixth annual NY Art Book Fair, from September 30 to October 2, 2011, at MoMA PS1, Long Island City, Queens. A preview will be held on the evening of Thursday, September 29th. It's all free and open to the public. I took last year off and experienced the Fair from the other side of the table (the only time I'd been mobile since it started in 2006). It's easy to spend the whole three days (and many more dollars) looking at artists books and independent publications from around the globe.
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November 1 – December 15, 2011 
I'm working on an exhibition of my bookwork for Light Work in Syracuse. The show is in conjunction with the "Photography + Publishing Photography Conference" (November 3-5), a joint effort of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions of SPE (Society of Photographic Education). There will be an opening reception November 3, 5-7pm as a pre-conference event located in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center, 316 Waverly Avenue in Syracuse. 

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Mid-November

Scott McCarney: Books & Pieces (working title)
2nd Floor, Wallace Learning Center, RIT



Kari Horowicz is curating an exhibition of my work drawn from The Cary Graphic Arts Collection at RIT. Since I never throw anything away, I'll be lending bits and pieces in support of the finished works on display (metal dies, maquettes, original art and false starts). 

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Keep cool!

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Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Happy Spring (?!?)








It's snowing as I post this update of the season's VisualBooks activity. I photographed bees on the crocus just a week ago. Plenty of stuff going on to keep one's mind off the weather, however:


Made In NY 2011
March 26 - May 29, 2010
Opening reception Sunday, March 27, 3-5 p.m.

Two of my encyclopedia cover collages inspired by early 20th century French "fine bindings" are on display. 


VSW Benefit Auction
31 Prince Street, Rochester
Friday, April 8th, 6-9 p.m.
Preview: April 1, 2011, 6-9 p.m.

Support the Workshop and acquire some art. I donated a copy of "Various Fires & MLK," a new artists book, and "Corner Brook Cook Book," a photogravure/chine colle/letterpress embossed limited edition print. The print was made in collaboration with Marlene McCallum and David Morish last fall at their press in Newfoundland.



Arcades Project
Friday May 6, 2011 4 - 9 p.m.
The Commons, Ithaca New York

Arcades Project is a curated event featuring artists, designers, and independent presses
who are reconsidering the idea of text, writing, and the book. The event is part of Spring
(W)rites, an annual literary festival in Ithaca, and is founded by visual and literary artists in
Ithaca. I'll be one of many vendors offering books priced under $50. 



Continuing Exhibitions:

Embodied: Black Identities in American Art from the Yale University Art Gallery
The Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, New Haven CT
January 10 - April 26, 2011

The Art of the Book Collection purchased a copy of "Various Fires & MLK" for this exhibition.


Artists' Books as Document 
Curated by Natalie McGrorty
Centre for Fine Print Research
UWE Bristol School of Creative Arts
March 8 - April 25 2011

This exhibition brings together artists’ books from 23 practitioners across Europe and America. Each work embodies the activity of self-documentation, demonstrating in a variety of ways, the virtues of the book as a place to document a personal collection, experience, or period of time.


With Food in Mind
Center for Book Arts, NYC
April 13 - June 25 2011 
Organized by Nicole J. Caruth

The exhibition looks at uses of food as subject or medium in contemporary book arts, print, and digital media spanning the past two decades. A copy of "A Selection of Cards" is included.


Letter Forms: Functional and Nonfunctional Typography 
May 24 - July 10, 2010
curated by Kathryn Gremley
Penland Gallery, Penland School of Crafts, Penland NC

Copies of the deluxe and digital edition of "Lost Horizons" and a copy of "Saints & Sinners: Gay Pride & Straight Shame" will be on display.


On the Horizon:

ll Libro:  Art of the Handmade Book 
August 22 - September 24 2011
The Barton Art Galleries,
Barton College Department of Art and Design
Wilson NC 

Two sculptural bookworks, "Knowledge In Depth: West to East" and "Pre-Columbian Sacred" will be exhibited. These volumes were originally made for two exhibitions that consisted of full sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica, each volume having been altered by different artist.



Friday, January 21, 2011

Happy New Year 2011 Website Update

I'm not one for making resolutions, but I finished an update of ScottMcCarneyVisualBooks.com that might qualify as one. 


Thirty works new to the site (most created in 2009/2010) have been added. New digital editions can be found behind the "New Work" label; The whole of "Encyclopornia" shown in the Fall of 2010 at the Western New York Book Arts Center as part of Beyond/In Western New York has been digitized; and "Off The Shelf: Sculpture, Objects & Installation" finally has content after three years of "coming soon".

Thanks for visiting!