A bit of a surprise arrived at my mailbox the other day: the catalog for the exhibition "The Photograph Unframed" at the Center for Book Arts. It was a little bit over a year ago that Pages (2011) was exhibited at the show. There is a paragraph of write-up about the piece in the catalog, which is quite nice, I thought:

Dennis is interested in examining artistic forms as a conceptual practice to discuss issues of self-reflection, memory and time. In Pages, Yuen has taken eight photographs of his own handmade books, resulting in 64 prints. In each image, the angle in which the book was shot has slightly shifted, providing a different perspective. The 64 prints are threaded together at the corners to create a hanging book. The photographed books are frozen in time. However, as the viewer walks around the object, different visual patterns appear, crating a fluidity of movement and time, yet maintaing a serene sensibility.

Friends know that I have a detest for the summer in New York. While I am still enjoying the last leg of spring, I am already dreading for the heat waves coming in the next few months. I am not kidding.

However, with two upcoming shows in the city this Summer, that would possibly make New York City Summer a more bearable for me! Hot!

Phoenix Gallery (June 22 - July 16, 2011)

Opening next week is my solo at Phoenix Gallery. The show will feature a number of pieces, including Hokusai's Yurei (2011) and Rapunzel #2 (2011). (To go along with the show, I will be writing about the process behind these two pieces in the coming weeks.)

From the press release:

No. 19 is Phoenix Gallery’s 19th Annual Juried Competition and is curated and juried by Renée Vara. The show, taking its cue from Bauhaus philosophy, suggests that the impulse to create an aesthetic that unifies fine art, design, and fashion, has come to full completion. Dennis Yuen was awarded the solo show. The exhibition will also feature 4 finalists – David Bogus, John Breiner, Heechan Kim, and Rebecca Rose.

The Center for Book Arts (July 6, 2011 - September 10, 2011)
Then throughout the rest of summer, Pages (2011) will be hung in the air-conditioned Center for Book Arts while I sweat like crazy on the streets. The show is entitled The Un(framed) Photograph, curated by Alexander Campos and Doug Beube.

This exhibition, featuring current members of CBA's artistic community and other invited artists whose work will further the discourse, will focus on how the art of photography, the photographic process, and related media such as video stills are used to convey content, form, text, and image within a broader context of book arts practices. Artworks featured in this exhibition will represent a broad range of book and related arts, including but not limited to books, prints, sculpture, mixed-media installation, new media, and performance art.

First of all, click on the image on the right to see a larger version!

Earlier in March I have posted an image of the photographic elements of this new piece that I've been working. It's been completed, and I am sticking with my initial working title, Pages.

Pages is constructed from images of eight of my earlier volumes. The images capture each book's unique structure and composition. Each image repeats eight times, offset slightly to create a shifting motion. Each level is both a page and an image of a page, and collectively they create a changing visual pattern as the viewer moves around the piece.

Traditional book forms have a fluid structure that changes as readers turn or flip through their pages. In this piece, the fluid structures of the original books, now frozen within a single fixed external form, are collectively transformed into a new visual structure, one made fluid by the changing perspectives of the readers who must circle the piece to gain its entirety.

Soon I will be posting images of the process. I have come up with a few techniques which I thought could be pretty useful for other projects as well.

The piece will participate in Center for Book Arts' Artist Members Annual Exhibition entitled "The Photograph Unframed" from July 6, 2011 - September 10, 2011.

I recently wrote a few reviews on Yelp for some bookart-related places. Check them out:

Center for Book Arts, New York
"I have taken a few courses at the bindery throughout the years and they were all extremely worthy."

Talas, New York
"As a bookbinder, Talas is the place to get all sorts of supplies and materials."

Kozo Arts, San Francisco
"As a book artist, they have a store that I'd want to to own one day: a store at the street level where I can work on my books and display them (and to sell, of course), and oh, maybe, to hold classes for you. That's my dream."

Today's Morning Edition on WNYC features Center for Book Art's current show, "Racism: An American Family Value". Listen to the story on WNYC's website and watch a video tour of the show.

The Center for Book Arts in New York has just announced its upcoming class offerings for July and August. Among them there are new classes such as, leather finishing techniques, hand-embroidered cover, and volvelle. A few leather-binding classes are also available.

I just came back from Berkeley and San Francisco for the Codex Symposium and Book Fair. I did see something interesting and remarkable. In fact, there are a few things that I'd like to write about here on CaiLun.

One of the most memorable moments was definitely when I saw Susan Mills at the Book Fair. Susan taught my first bookbinding class years ago at the Center for Book Arts, and I could say I attribute most of my basic bookbinding techniques to her: as basic as folding, gluing and making turn-ins.