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Uncommon Goods: Artist Book as Object

The Newport Beach City Arts Commission is hosting an exhibition featuring a reinterpretation of the book by 25 University of California, Irvine student artists. Students researched the history and creative production of the artist's books at the special collections department of UCI’s Langston Library. There they explored the infinite possibilities of constructing and organizing data, or in some cases interweaving visual narratives, using unusual materials, color, line, and form.  Their collective activity underscores what Johanna Drucker, visual theorist and cultural critic, suggests that “artist's books became a developed art form in the 20th century. In many ways, one could argue that the artist's book is the quintessential 20th-century art form.  Artists' books appear in every significant movement in art and literature and have provided a unique means of realizing works within all of the many avant-gardes, experimental, and independent groups whose contributions have defined the shape of 20th-century artistic activity.”

The exhibition will be on display on the 2nd floor of the Central Library during regular operating hours, April 7 through May 5, 2018. 

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