Pages Turning, group exhibit

Pages Turning, at NSCAD's Anna Leonowens Gallery, is a gutsy group exhibition that forces the viewer to question what our concept of a book is, and what a book is supposed to look like. Curated by graduating student Neil Kehler, a photography major with an obvious interest in the book form. This exhibition captures the zeitgeist of how new millennial art and design students conceptualize books.

These super-sized, in-your-face, works of art are 'one of a kind' editions. Unlike most "hands off" exhibitions, here viewers are encouraged "please handle the work... do so with tenderness and care."

Metal Frame as Book
Crisp, clean paper sheets are attached at each end to two vertical metal screw posts that stand about 2.5 feet tall. The square metal rod base is about a foot wide. Each sheet of paper is separated from the other by evenly-spaced hexagon metal nuts. The 36 alternating sheets cover both sides of the posts, gently overlapping and progressively covering each other, like tree branches. When lifted, each page reveals an imprinted single line of text that stands alone, yet connects to the preceding page and the page that follows. Symmetrical, graceful and precise is the overall effect of this pushing-the-boundary book.

Canvas as Book
A singular rectangular gessoed canvas sheet with frayed sides and edges hangs like a medieval banner on the gallery wall.

This quiet, simple and subtle book commands our attention by its imposing size (19.5" wide by 36" long) which is contrasted by its faintly painted and difficult to read black text, making the viewer stop, linger and investigate.

Collage as Book
Instead of being elevated on a pedestal, this collage book's enormous open size (65" wide by 52" tall) demands that it be displayed on the gallery floor. Five double-page spreads of bold collage pages (using paint, paper and photocopies) comprise this multi-layered, rough texture book.

"The book as sovereign," forces the reader to acknowledge this reverse power play by either bending over or kneeling down to engage with its huge 32.5" by 52" pages. The physical effort is worth the visceral and visual reward.

Quilt as Book
Traditional quilts play with pattern and colour. This quilt plays with letters and words. The medium is the metaphor - fragments of fabric comprise fragments of text. This imposing (48" wide by 64.5" long) 12-panel quilt features white fabric block letters appliquéd to a bold red fabric background. The resulting text message wraps around the quilt border and circles inward. Sometimes the words appear in black fabric, calling out for our attention, like bold face text. Curiously, sometimes the letters are not appliquéd, but pinned to the fabric.

Each quilt block (14" wide by 15.5" long) is held together, not by tightly stitched thread, but at its corners with safety pins. As a result, when hung, the quilt does not lay flat, but sags with huge gaps that look like pouches. Upon closer examination, this optical illusion disappears. Is the subtext that the weight of the message is too great for the fabric to bear?

Almost all book structures require the reader to hold the book close in order to read and comprehend the text. However, in this case the opposite holds true. The reader needs to distance themselves from the book (i.e., quilt) in order to read and comprehend the text. Traditional bookbinding studies primarily focus on structure. The Pages Turning exhibition books integrate content with structure in unexpected and innovative ways.

Kehler's curatorial statement offers: "As time rolls on books may take on new purposes and forms of which we cannot conceive, and it is conceivable also that our relationship to them will change."

The Anna Leonowens Gallery is located on the cobblestoned Granville Street pedestrian mall of the Fountain Campus of NSCAD University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Pages Turning is on display from July 11 to 15, 2023.

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Review by Charles Salmon