Artist book by Joyce Lyon on display in the Library

In honor of visiting artist Joyce Lyon's lecture Thursday, Feb. 3, the Library is highlighting her artist book from the collection, Conversations with Rzeszow.  Through text and image Lyon "attempts to understand and accept the limitations to understanding her father's experience of the Holocaust."  The book is a complex construction of fold out and gate fold pages containing rich black and white illustrations and text.  The shape of the book changes as the pages are turned, and during the week a new page spread will be displayed daily to reveal the changing composition as the narrative progresses.

The book is in a display case in the Main Reading Room of the Library.  If you would like to examine it more closely outside of the case, please ask for assistance at the Circulation Desk.

More information about Conversations with Rzeszow including the artist's statement can be found on the website for the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota.

Recent work by Joyce Lyon is on exhibit now through -Feb. 26 at the Groveland Gallery, 25 Groveland Terrace, Minneapolis 


Kay Streng, Technical Services Librarian

Lars Martinson's Tonoharu Part Two

Nakasu-Kawabata at Sunset, front cover of Tonoharu part two

The Library is pleased to inform you that we have a copy of Lars Martinson's latest graphic novel, Tonoharu (Part Two).  It is the second in what will be a four-part series that tells the story of a group of foreigners living in Fukuoa-Ken, Japan.  Stop by and have a look at it before his lecture this Tuesday, Feb. 1 @ 1pm in auditorium 150.  It will be on display in the Main Reading room this week and available for regular check out after that period.

 

Pictured here is the cover illustration, Nakasu-kawabata at Sunset, the second in a series entitled Four Views of Fukuoka-ken, which according to Martinson is "informed" by the work of Hokusai.  Fukouoka-ken or Fukuoka City is the capitol of Fukuoka prefecture in the southern part of Japan.  Nakasu-kawabata is an area of the city known for its high end shopping as well as its red light district.  

Click here to see more illustrations from Tonoharo Part Two on Lars' blog.

Mon. Jan. 24: Get into the guts of the matter!

Thinking Out Loud lecture series,
 Monday, Jan. 24, 1pm Aud. 150


The following information was provided by Dr. Mark Olson Assistant Prof. of Visual and Media Studies at Duke University.  It is meant to give context and offer information that directly relates to the subject of his lecture at MCAD Monday, Jan. 24 at 1 pm in Auditorium 150. 

• Promotional material from Intuitive Surgical, one of the robotic systems that figures prominently in Dr. Olson's work:   The da Vinci Surgical System

• Information on  robots in medicine from Innovation TV

• Online journals:  Social Studies of Science  http://sss.sagepub.com/

                                  Journal of Robotic Surgery  http://www.springerlink.com/content/120470/

• Links to art:  Endo-Ecto, Phillip Warnell

 A Journey Inside: A look at the body's interior in post 1960s art  an essay by Dr. Cornelia Grockel, art critic and lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich.  It was published in issue 19 of Innovation Magazine

The artist's response to environmental disaster

Carole Fisher's exhibition in the MCAD Gallery

The Library is currently featuring a display of materials about environmental issues and some of the artistic responses they have generated.  Specific to the subject of Carole Fisher's work in the gallery are the best selling books, The Spill: Personal Stories from the Exxon Valdez Disaster and Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.  

Documentation of the toll of human made disaster and climate change can be seen in Robert Polidori's photographs: Zones of Exclusion: Pripyat & Chernobyl and in the book Vanishing Landscapes, the latter which captures the effect of climate change on the landscape in the work of  Burtynsky, Struth, Sugimoto and others.  Also included are the DVDs An Inconvenient Truth and Koyannisqatsi: Life Out of Balance.  Rounding out the display you'll find items on what artists and designers are doing to raise awareness and promote sustainability through good design.

Enjoy!

Artistic License: The Freedom to be Creative

In October the exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture opened at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in Washington D.C to critical acclaim.  The exhibition surveys how same-sex love has been portrayed in art from the 19th century to the present and includes works by Eakins, Duchamp, Johns, Goldin and Mapplethorpe to name just a few.  Within weeks the Catholic League and other conservative groups took issue with a video in the show by entitled A Fire in My Belly, by David Wojnarowicz.  Wojnarowicz was a gay artist who died of AIDS related complications in 1987.  The Smithsonian Institution, of which the NPG is a part caved in to pressure from these groups and A Fire In My Belly was removed from the exhibition.

The threat of artistic censorship is nothing new and with this recent high profile case we see that is not going away anytime soon.  As a reminder that this issue recurs with disturbing regularity, the Library is featuring material in a display at the Circulation Desk about artists whose work has been censored in the past, along with publications which address the importance of vigilance against the curtailment artistic freedoms.  Also included is the catalog from the Hide/Seek exhibition.  These items are now on display through the end of the month at the Library Circulation desk.

You may also view "A Fire in My Belly" and read the ongoing discussion about its removal from the NPG show on the Hide/Seek blog site.

We hope you will take a look at these thought provoking materials.

Kay Streng, Technical Services Librarian

Minnesota's Illustrators in the News

Wonderful linoleum cut illustrations by Duluth artist, Rick Allen must have contributed to Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman being named a Newbery Medal Honor Book for 2011.  The Newbery Medal is an award for the most distinguished children's book published in the previous year in the U.S.  See for yourself: YouTube.  To read more about the local connections to this year's Newbery award go to:Minnesota books win big at ALA award.

Also in the news is an exhibition "Beyond the Book" at the Bloomington Theatre & Art Center  of seven local illustrators. You can see the non-illustration art work of Nancy Carlson (MCAD 1976), Stephen Gammell, Mike Wohnoutka, Lauren Stringer, Derek Anderson, Beth Peck (MCAD MFA 2007) and Leslie Bowman now through 18 Feb. If you go at 7pm on 8 Feb you can take in a panel discussion and book signing too. You can read about it at the Star Tribune.

Check out our library collection for some books by or about these illustrators:

Nancy Carlson
Flashbacks : an alumni exhibition Pamph N6530.M6 F63 1990
Making art : interviews with ten Minnesota artists Pamph N6530.M6 M34 1986
Pictures from home : Minnesota illustrators of children's books Pamph NC965 .M6 1988
Henry's amazing imagination! PZ7.C216 He 2008
The Masked Maverick / by Jacqueline K. Ogburn PZ7.O3317 Mas 1994
Lenore's big break / by Susan Pearson PZ7.P323316 Le 1992

Stephen Gammell
Song and dance man / by Karen Ackerman PZ7.A1824 So 1988
Is that you, winter? : a story PZ7.G144 Is 1997
Monster mama / story by Liz Rosenberg PZ7.R71894 Mo 1993
Dancing teepees : poems of American Indian youth PZ8.3 .D36 1989

Beth Peck
A Christmas memory / by Truman Capote PZ7.C214 Ch 1989
The snow goose / Paul Gallico PZ7.G137 Sn 1992
Just like Josh Gibson / written by Angela Johnson PZ7.J629 Ju 2004
Music for the end of time / written by Jen Bryant  PZ9.B79 Mu 2005

Lauren Stringer
8 McKnight artists Pamph N6530.M6 E3 1992
Snow / Cynthia Rylant PZ7.R982 Sn 2008
Fold me a poem / Kristine O'Connell George PZ8.3.G45 Fo 2005

Thank you illustrators for making reading so much more enjoyable.

Eva Hyvarinen, Visual Resource Assistant
Minneapolis College of Art and Design Library