Buzz Spector: Off the Shelf at the Grunwald Gallery of Art, Indiana University

"The Grunwald Gallery of Art is pleased to announce Buzz Spector: Off the Shelf. This exhibition will open to the public with a lecture and reception, Friday, October 19, and be on view through Saturday, November 16, 2012. The exhibition is part of a broader discussion of the relevance and role of books and libraries in the arts and humanities. A panel discussion on October 24th "Books, Text and Information" will broach such topics as the future of the book, the importance of stacks and browsing, and forms of scholarly production and authorship. Panel members include Ron Day, Professor of Library and Information Science, Ian Meares, Visiting Assistant Professor of Ceramics, and Dawna Schuld, Assistant Professor in the Department of History of Art, and moderator Emilee Mathews, Interim Director of the Fine Arts Library. Receptions in the Fine Arts Library and the Grunwald Gallery will follow. 

Spector is an eminent figure in the artists' book and book arts communities and an internationally known artist and writer. He has published numerous artists' books as well as editing the critical volume The Book Maker's Desire: Writings on the Art of the Book. Spector has lent his critical voice to numerous publications, including American Craft, Artforum, Art Issues, Art on Paper, Exposure and New Art Examiner. He is also a co-founder of the magazine WhiteWalls. Among his many awards, Spector received a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in 2005. He also received Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Fellowships in 1991, 1982, and 1985, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Award in 1991. He is currently the dean of the College and Graduate School of Art in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. 

Buzz Spector: Off the Shelf features Spector's large, sculptural installations of books and his Polaroid works. The installations, including The Library of Babel, comprised of 4,500 books, and a piece featuring books by Indiana University authors, all borrowed from Indiana University's libraries. These installations invite commentary on the logic and poetry of the arrangement of books, and ask us to consider the function of the book object. His oversized Polaroid prints further investigate the themes of meaning and form, authorship and ownership, and the physical experience of reading.

He will be signing his recent book "Buzzwords: Interviews with Buzz Spector." This selection of six interviews spanning nearly thirty years showcases Spector's ideas about art, books, libraries and his own history of reading. Spector describes and elucidates his installations, book objects and photographs within an intellectually rich context, provoking stimulating conversation and thought. Spector has designed new page art especially for this publication, including a section that he has individually hand-torn for each book. 

This program is sponsored by the College Arts and Humanities Institute, Indiana University Libraries, the Fine Arts Library, and the Ruth Lilly Auxiliary Library Facility."

To learn more about this event visit Grunwald Gallery's website here.