Fall News

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Fall Book Fairs

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PUB FAIR

Saturday, September 13, 2014 Noon-7 pm

FREE and open to the public

Visual Studies Workshop

31 Prince Street, Rochester NY 

I'll be exhibiting at the second annual Pub Fair along with many other book artists, photographers, independent publishers, and DIYers. It takes place in the VSW auditorium, so it's a manageable size and has a relaxed pace for viewing work, talking to makers and other Fair goers. For more information, click here.

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New York Art Book Fair

September 25-28, 2014

Preview Thursday, September 25, 6-9 pm  

Friday, September 26, 12–7 pm  

Saturday, September 27, 11 am–9 pm  

Sunday, September 28, 11 am–7 pm

MoMA PS1

22-25 Jackson Avenue on 46th Avenue

Long Island City, NY

Skúta Helgason and I will be exhibiting as ScottatúkS again this year.  We're located on the second floor at table #R06.

*A super special note*

Bruce Silverstein Gallery is presenting Book by Book: 2nd Edition, an installation of Keith Smith's work. This is a featured exhibition at the Fair, so you won't want to miss it.

Click here for more info.

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Exhibitions

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personalpronouns

Opening Friday, September 5, 2014, 6-10 pm

Continues through October 19, 2014

Visual Studies Workshop
31 Prince Street
Rochester, NY 14607

Tuesday - Friday
10:00am - 4:00 pm

This fifteenth annual exhibition of ImageArt is dedicated to the concept of gender and gender identity. A deck of "gender cards" I designed especially for the show will be on display. The cards are also being issued as a boxed edition (see below).  ImageArt, a program of ImageOut, the Rochester Lesbian and Gay Film & VIdeo Festival, presents visual and literary arts events to promote awareness, foster dialogue and build community. Click here for more information.

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Transformational Imagemaking: Handmade Photography Since 1960

Opening Friday, September 19, 2014, 7 - 10 pm

continues through November 23, 2014

CEPA GALLERY

617 Main Street
Buffalo, NY 14203

Monday–Friday: 7 am – 9 pm
Saturday: 8:30 – 4:45 pm
Sunday: 10 am – 3 pm

"Transformational Imagemaking: Handmade Photography Since 1960, a companion exhibition to Robert Hirsch’s recently published book of the same title (Focal Press). This extraordinary exhibition features work by some of the most innovative photographers and imagemakers of the mid-20th century through today; artists who redefined the notion of photography as a medium and left an indelible mark on contemporary photographic practices." Click here for more information.

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New Books

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scraps

6 x 9 inches; 64 pages
Color cover, black & white on cream paper interior, perfect bound

scraps contains facsimiles of notes collected over the last decade and stored in a leaf-covered box. These seemingly random jottings on odds and ends of paper belie an interest in various forms of word play (anagrams, word squares, puns, malapropisms, portmanteau) as well as found and overheard texts. 

The notes in scraps are rendered typographically on the verso of the photographs — a back-to-back duel between photographer and typographer. Both sides are re-presented by digital media, (from camera and scanner to press) while the hand-written and the type-set stand their ground as hybrid word/images.

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The Gender Card Game

3.5 x 5.5 inches; 64 cards

HP Indigo prints loose in paperboard box

This deck of "gender cards" blurs that line between male and female with the distribution of words and images across the surfaces of 48 cards. Each of the cards is illustrated on one side with words describing feminine and masculine attributes. When arranged in a "proper" order, the verso of the cards form images of a male and female doll. However, the words are not strictly assigned to the image of their gender: some female attributes are printed on the verso of the male image, and vice versa. Conversly, when the terms are arranged by color and typeface, the images are not quite right.

The Gender Card Game was conceived for an exhibition entitled personalpronouns curated by ImageArt, the visual and literary arts component of ImageOut, the Rochester Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival.  

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T-SHIRTS

Designed & Bound by Scott McCarney, 2014

15 x 15 inches; 45 leaves

Silkscreen prints on cloth, stab bound

I've done a lot of design work for various arts and cultural organizations over the past thirty years, much of which has found its way onto the front and/or back of a t-shirt. This is a portfolio of sorts -- the pages being the printed designs cut out of the shirts and sewn together along one edge in book-like form. I'm utilizing the same idea on a related title, T-SHIRTS Collected & Bound by Scott McCarney, which gathers commemorative shirts of art related events I did not design.

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Publication

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afterimage Vol. 42, No. 1

I DO?! A Panel Discussion on Queer Cultural Activism

The transcript from an October, 2013 panel in conjunction with I DO?!, last years ImageArt exhibition organized around the theme of marriage equality. See the (late) Fall smARTnews entry below for a full brief on the exhibition and panel discussion. 

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Winter News

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Current Exhibitions

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Out of Print, an exhibition at Pine Hills public library curated by Judie Gilmore, was reviewed by the Albany Times Union. The exhibition is on view through the end of March. You can read the review here.

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Binding Desire: Unfolding Artists Books

Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design

January 25 - March 30

A nice thing about making books is they end up in collections and then in exhibitions without you really knowing about it. Having a virtual mid-winter presence on the west coast is the next best thing to being there.

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VSW AUCTION

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Visual Studies Workshop Annual Benefit Auction and Social

Preview: April 4, 2014, 6 - 9 pm and by appointment

Silent Auction: April 11, 2014, 6 - 9 pm

31 Prince Street, Rochester NY 

(585) 442-8676

This is a major fundraiser for VSW and a lot of fun for the community. If you're in or near Rochester, come buy some art and support VSW programming! More information here.

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Publication

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Transformational Imagemaking: 

Handmade Photography since 1960

by Robert Hirsch 

" . . . a groundbreaking survey of significant work and ideas by imagemakers who have pushed beyond the boundaries of photography as a window on our material world."  

Bob included an interview with me and several illustrations of work in his latest book. It should be available soon. More info can be garnered here. 

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Lectures & Workshops

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School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

April 10-11

Bonnie Donohue invited Keith and me to participate in her "Four Photographers Lecture Series."  Chantal Zakari arranged for me to meet with students in the Graphic Arts area as well so it should be a busy couple of days in bean town. 

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University of Southern Maine, Portland

April 25-26

In 1994, I spent the spring semester as artist-in-residence at the University of Southern Maine. It was an extraordinary experience, both personally and professionally. I've kept in touch with many of the artists I met that year, including Rebecca Goodale who is now the program coordinator for the Kate Cheney Chappell '83 Center for Book Arts at USM. She has invited me to return in April for a lecture and workshop, a twenty-year reunion of sorts. 

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New Book

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WHITEBOARDS: Autobiography #8

5 x 7 inches; 30 pages

HP Indigo

WhiteBoards: Autobiography #8 presents drawings made in 2012–2013 while teaching classes in hand bookbinding. It is part of an ongoing series of books that illuminate different aspects of my life through ephemeral evidence of everyday actions. Other books in the series include: Things to Do, Rejection Slips, Pictures of Me with Famous and Important People, Homemade Maps, C(a[e{I}o]u)P, HELLO my name is SCOTT, and Google Vanitas.

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(late) Fall News

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FALL FAIR ROUNDUP

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Echo Art Fair 

The Echo Art Fair was an enjoyable experience. The downtown Buffalo central library location perfectly framed my book and collage works. The selection of participating artists and organizations made for good company and conversation. I got the feeling artists and visitors alike were pleased with the whole affair. You can read what The Buffalo News had to say about it here. Founding director Frits Abell and Sarah Kolberg did a fine job pulling it all together.

To sit with a view in the comfort of a good periodical

was the collaborative site-specific installation Roberley Bell and I put together for Echo. When we did our site visit with John Massier of Halwalls (who coordinated the installation component of the Fair), the periodical nook off the library's main hallway appealed to us all. The fact Roberley had offered me her collection of garden magazines only an hour before sealed the deal. The wall label copy is below.  Many thanks to Courtney Grim for helping install, de-install, and coordinate the parking situation. 

ROBERLEY BELL & SCOTT MCCARNEY

For Echo, Bell and McCarney have created To sit with a view in the comfort of a good periodical, a semi-private environment within the larger public context of the library in which to experience sculpture-as-book and book-as-sculpture — an intersection of the art fair and library experiences. Bell's brilliant colors and bulbous forms adorned by a miniature bird interact with a piece created by McCarney fashioned from discarded magazines. Bell's forms reference contemporary architecture (blobitecture) whose organic structures are made possible with computer-aided design that is based, paradoxically, on nothing that exists in nature. McCarney's contribution parallels this concept by physically altering garden magazines to visualize the immateriality and speed of accessing digital information. A glass rock-formed vase filled with fresh flowers reveals the passing of time, reinforces the "slow" experience of reading a book and introduces found natural form to the scene.

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VSW Pub Fair

This first (hopefully) annual independent publishing fair was a smashing success. Skúta, who came up from New York for the day, called it "the fairest of them all."  Housed in the VSW auditorium, it was small enough to prevent the panic visitors often feel at large book fairs, but did not skimp on interesting vendors and knowledgeable visitors. I got a chance to turn the camera on Gerry Szmanski, fresh from a 19th Century fashion show, fairing with newly house-proud Alice Carver-Kubik and Jamie Allen: 

Skúta traveled by train from Manhattan for the fair, carrying his People's Editions in a vintage leather valise – a dedicated Willy Loman without the angst. He paused for a portrait in front of Thievin' Stephen's Wall Therapy mural on Cayuga Street before heading back to the station on Sunday:

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NY ART BOOK FAIR

This years Fair was more of a crush than ever. Skúta and I shared a table, as usual, and branded ourselves "ScottatúkS" in hopes of encouraging more collaborative projects down the road. I tried something a bit different by bringing more boxed multiples and some prints, which wasn't much of a success. Skúta attracted a big crowd of hipsters with his "People's Editions" valise, so I got a buzz from that. Our neighbors included J.A.B., VSW Press, Purchase Center for Editions and Warren Lehrer – just like old times.

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EXHIBITION ROUNDUP

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Memory Theatre 2013

This exhibition celebrating the Memorial Art Gallery's centennial continues through December 29, 2013, and is well worth a visit.  A review in CITY Newspaper can be viewed here.

Memory Loss, Material Meditation on Mending Al=Mutanabbi Street, and A Selection of Cards are exhibited in the case at the right of this installation picture provided by Marie Via, curator of the exhibition.

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ImageART 2013: I DO!?

ImageART's fourteenth iteration was hosted by Visual Studies Workshop in their newly renovated front building galleries. The theme of marriage equality assembled a more diverse group of artists and work than ever before -- men, women, gay, straight, local and from out of state. Three works of mine were on display, two pictured in context below. Co-chairs Alice Carver-Kubik and Jeffrey Cougler, along with the committee of committed volunteers, deserve a hand for their tireless efforts. (Thanks to Jeffrey for the installation photographs, too.)

Above: MARRIED (far left). Below: Balls & Chain (far right)

I DO!? Panel Discussion: 
Marriage Equality and Art's Engagement with Social and Political Movements

Nigel Maister coordinated this event for the exhibition's closing weekend. The panel consisted of Anne Tischer and Bess Watts, long-time LGBT rights advocates based in Rochester; Douglas Crimp, Fanny Knapp Allen Professor of Art History at the University of Rochester; Jonathan D. Katz, director of the doctoral program in Visual Studies at University at Buffalo, and me. Douglas provided a critical framework to express a queer questioning of marriage as an institution, the "question mark" of I DO!?, which was not directly addressed in the exhibition. Anne and Bess showed us where the rubber hits the road in grass-roots activism with dedication and compassion. Jonathan moderated with historical insight and personal experience. The whole evening was streamed live and can be experienced in it's entirety on vimeo by clicking here.

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think small 7

October 25 - December 22, 2013

artspace

Zero East 4th Street, richmond, VA

This international invitational biennial exhibition is a fundraising event for artspace, a non-profit gallery for the visual and performing arts. All the work is miniature (no larger than 3 inches in any direction). Chuck Scalin, an artist and educator in Richmond (he was my teacher at VCU back in the good old days) would assign his illustration students to create a work that was 3 x 3 inches. He transposed that idea to this fundraising event for the artist-run gallery in 2011, and extended the invitation to me. Making work for it is always a fun challenge and a great way to contribute to a good cause. My piece for this year's show, A Penny for Your Thoughts, is pictured below. An index of the participating artists and their contributions can be found here.

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Out of Print: Winter Art Exhibition

November 1, 2013 - March 29, 2014

Albany Public Library, Pine Hills Branch

517 Western Avenue, Albany New York

Judie Gilmore, who curated this exhibit, came to Rochester for a studio visit last July. It was fortuitous timing as she has worked for the City of Philadelphia MuralArts Program and the South Wedge was freshly graced with Wall Therapy mural projects. We had a nice tour of the work in my neighborhood and around Market View Heights before it started to rain. 

Judie cholse several Hypertext prints and a framed version of The Swimmer, along with a rare Diderot/Americana volume from the '90s plus two Encyclopedia Britannicas for inclusion in the show. She also met Doug Manchee while visiting and includes prints from his Due Date series.

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NEW BOOK

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MARRIED

While I was organizing pieces for the ImageArt I DO!? exhibition this summer, Keith came into the studio and started flipping through the prints before they were framed. That was the inspiration to make this book. The portrait was made by Mark Watts in my garden and rendered in the style of the "Pictures" series by Gilbert and George. The book comes sewn into it's own bridal veil mesh bag, like the jordan almonds I remember pocketing off tables at wedding receptions as a kid.