PLEASE NOTE: as of March 17th, SFCB and the exhibition gallery will be temporarily closed to the public, due to San Francisco's "shelter in place" mandate.
Exhibition Run Dates :: February 7, 2020 – May 31, 2020
Jurors :: Alisa Golden (never mind the press / author, Making Handmade Books)
Lisa Beth Robinson (East Carolina University / Somnambulist Tango Press, Greenville, NC)
Steve Woodall (Achenbach Collections Specialist, Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco)
Curators :: Maureen Forys and Jennie Hinchcliff
Artists are frequently inspired by the past and aim to make work which speaks to future audiences, subsequent generations. Tandem processes of introspective questioning and retrospective storytelling often come together in the artist book format—giving reader and creator the opportunity for personal reflection. Artists books tell us stories by using narrative, structure, materials.
(retro)(intro)spection explores the crossroads where artists books and artistic process intersect. When do our amorphous ideas become real, at what point? What is the role of introspection and one’s personal past when applied to artists books? In the act of looking back as well as in, artists are inspired by their body of work, regarding the path or discovering the throughline which brings them to the present.
This exhibition, juried by Alisa Golden (never mind the press / author, Making Handmade Books), Lisa Beth Robinson (East Carolina University / Somnambulist Tango Press, Greenville, NC), and Steve Woodall (Achenbach Collections Specialist, Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco), showcases artists books which look backward, inward, outward, and forward in a variety of ways. Artists books tell us stories by using narrative, structure, materials. Each of these aspects help the artist to communicate a perspective, one that is singularly unique to themselves and the work. --Maureen Forys and Jennie Hinchcliff
Exhibiting artists: Shazia Ahmad :: Servane Briand :: Sarah Bryant / Big Jump Press :: Rebecca Chamlee / Pie In The Sky Press :: Aaron Cohick / Divya Victor / The Press at Colorado College :: Insiya Dhatt :: Dong Dong :: Linda Ekstrom :: Jennifer Farrell / Starshaped Press :: Cari Ferraro :: Isabelle Fleurelien and Stephanie Russ / Seepress :: Catherine Gamblin :: Frances Hackney :: Eva Hejdström :: Brooke Holve / ath’wart press :: Sue Huggins Leopard / Leopard Studio Editions :: Julia Johnson / Anna Redwine :: Hannah Kraus :: Oliya Maicoh :: Zea Morvitz :: Elise Nicol :: Bettina Pauly :: Lisa Rappoport / Littoral Press :: Jaime Robles :: Keri Schroeder / Coyote Bones Press :: Jessica Spring / Springtide Press :: Lorna Stevens :: Sally Schluter-Tardella :: Kay Weber :: Kyung Eun You / Women’s Studio Workshop
Click here for (retro)(intro)spection gallery checklist
Exhibition Sponsors ::
Grants For The Arts | The Kahle Austin Foundation | Anonymous
Related Programming For This Exhibition ::
NOTE: Full registration details and information related to accessing online events can be found by clicking on the title of each event.
glean, gather, group: Jody Alexander and the Santa Cruz SCRAP residency (this event has already passed)
Date: Thursday, February 13, 2020 :: 6 – 8 pm; presentation starts at 6:30 pm
Location: San Francisco Center for the Book, 375 Rhode Island Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
Description: Jody's recent residency at the Santa Cruz Resource Recovery Facility (a.k.a the dump) resulted in her installation titled "out in the distance there is a glow". This installation consists of the workspace and personal library of a fictional character of Jody's own creation who is responding to the time in which he lives. This character's story emerged as Jody worked with found materials gleaned from the recovery facility. Exploring the idea of rescuing or gathering cast off items, Jody's installation gathers together physical objects that speak directly to each other, creating a shared history and narrative that previously didn't exist. Jody will show images from her experience and discuss the challenges and benefits of working in such an environment. A portion of the library will also be present and on view.
ONLINE: (retro)(intro) Artists in Conversation with curators Maureen Forys & Jennie Hinchcliff :: Catherine Kumlin Gamblin (this event has already passed)
Date: April 8, 2020 :: 5 - 5:30 pm; this event took place online.
Description: (retro)(intro)spection artist Catherine Kumlin Gamblin discusses her book I Promise Not To Get a Tattoo in SFCB's weekly series of online coversations (retro)(intro) artists. "Maybe I started this book on a whim, but I soon realized the relationship between the words and the self portraits were moving me through the experience of separating from my son. I drew every day for 45 days. I started with the self portrait. The self portrait then told me what words to write...I listened every day for dialogue, feelings, dreams, or thoughts that were just passing through. I had to capture the words each day because they would disappear if I didn't." -- Catherine Kumlin Gamblin
ONLINE: (retro)(intro) Artists in Conversation with Curators Maureen Forys & Jennie Hinchcliff :: Sarah Bryant of Big Jump Press (this event has already passed)
Date: April 15, 2020 :: 7:30 - 8 pm; this event took place online.
Description: (retro)(intro)pection artist Sarah Bryant discusses her book The Radiant Republic in SFCB's weekly series of online coversations (retro)(intro) artists. "(My book)The Radiant Republic is a cyclical project. Each portion of a five-part city building narrative includes a section of an interlocking landscape with no fixed beginning or end. Platonic solids, a set of five shapes made up of equilateral faces set at equal angles, feature heavily in the printed imagery. Since ancient times, these shapes have been held up as a physical manifestation of perfection of form. But one cannot create a perfect object, and one cannot build a perfect city. This book is a retrospective. It describes patterns of the past and connects them to a troubling present." -- Sarah Bryant
ONLINE :: (retro)(intro)spection Artists in Conversation with Curators Maureen Forys and Jennie Hinchcliff :: Isabelle Fleurelien & Stephanie Russ, Seepress (this event has already passed)
Date: April 22, 2020 :: 7:30 - 8 pm; this event took place online.
Description: Description: (retro)(intro)pection artists Isabelle Fleurelien and Stephanie Russ discuss their book Boat Stories in SFCB's weekly series of online coversations (retro)(intro) artists. "Boat Stories began as a way to hear the voices that lived by the water, traveled on it, subsisted and explored it. The collaboration entailed our reaching out to others for their retrospective stories that in some way related to their travels and experiences on water. The humpback barnacle attaches itself to the body of a humpback whale and through this symbiotic relationship spends its life travelling the ocean. This natural collaboration between whale and crustacean inspired our desire to work with others and seek out their stories relating to their experiences on water. These unique stories are housed in the ceramic vessel creating a new collective experience." -- Isabelle Fleurelien, Stephanie Russ
ONLINE :: (retro)(intro)spection Artists in Conversation with Curators Maureen Forys and Jennie Hinchcliff :: Insiya Dhatt (San Francisco, CA)
(this event has already passed)
Date: Wednesday, May 6, 2020 :: 5:00 - 5:30 pm; this event took place online.
Description: "This particular work is an interpretation of my experiences growing up as a Muslim girl in India. To escape Mumbai during summer, my family spent most of our summer vacations visiting hundreds of mosques that were full of intricate Islamic tiles of bright and vivid colors. Entry to these tranquil mosques required women to be covered by the burqa with our sight obscured and bodies hidden...these memories are bittersweet and warm but are always interleaved with the pain of being hidden and lesser as a woman. " --Insiya Dhatt, speaking about her work The Heart Longs
ONLINE :: (retro)(intro)spection Artists in Conversation with Curators Maureen Forys and Jennie Hinchcliff :: Sally Schluter-Tardella (Birmingham, MI)
(this event has already passed)
Date: Wednesday, May 20, 2020 :: 5:00 - 5:30 pm; this event took place online.
"This book is single edition, a continuous drawing covering 28 pages. On the facing pages of the book I combine photocopies, ink, whiteout, gouache and color pencils. The back pages are covered with research notes and personal stories. Floor is a linear panoramic study of tile and linoleum patterns, a banal subject, presented up close, the way it is seen from a crawling position--cleaning on hands and knees perhaps.
I make work about place--altered maps of specific locations in my memory. I was there. Was I there? Thinking now about something in the past, I examine the terrain of a remembered room or space, walking and flying through it, seeing the elevation and floor plan views." –Sally Schluter-Tardella, speaking about her work floor