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| | X Libris: Our 10th Anniversary Exhibition
The Center's 10th anniversary exhibition opens Friday July 28th with a reception from 5-9 p.m. in the Center's newly christened Austin/Burch Gallery. Called X Libris, the show offers insight into the broad range of expression possible in book form, including one of the world's first printed books, a "novel on the wall" installation, a book printed with a steamroller and the paste-ups for the first unexpurgated edition of Allen Ginsberg's Howl. Through its 10 displays, the exhibition also showcases the Center as a crossroads of activity in the Bay Area's burgeoning book arts community. The Center is taking the occasion of X Libris to honor the Center's co-founders by naming our gallery in their honor. X LIBRIS . . . Although the "X" refers to SFCB's 10th anniversary, the X also symbolizes the important crossroads that the Center has become. The book arts community scrutinizes, discusses, and creates an amazing number of books each year. The books shown in the Center's gallery over the past decade — almost 2,000 in over 50 exhibitions — demonstrate that the art of the book forms an intersection between creators and readers. And, because the Center celebrates the outpouring of creativity in the Bay Area's book arts community as well as throughout the world, X Libris showcases work that crosses boundaries and disciplines, reaffirming yet challenging assumptions about the definition and scope of the book. During the past 10 years, thousands have learned to love both the art of the book and the search for the essence of the book at the San Francisco Center for the Book. X Libris is an exhibition of extraordinary books from an ideal library — books of superb form and brilliant art as well as significant content and spirit, books that in some cases have altered the course of cultural and technological history. Through this exhibition, Austin and Burch hope to draw the public more deeply into a dialogue about the relevance and importance of the book in this technological age. This show is highly personal. It is not meant to be an academic look at book arts or a comprehensive survey of the field. These books are in many ways the catalysts that helped create the Center and have continued to inspire and focus its efforts. The 10 displays are Community Everyone has a personal history with books. Books are one of the dominant and powerful icons of our civilization — everyone has access to books and books are for everyone. One of the founding principles of the San Francisco Center for the Book is the principle of inclusiveness. Today, thousands of people come through its doors to take classes, view exhibitions, partake in community events, buy and sell their wares, use our equipment, and meet with like minds to celebrate a mutual love of the book. These walls are a celebration of the growth of that community.
Hyakumanto Dharani Scroll Relief printed scroll with wooden pagoda This Buddhist prayer scroll is one of the earliest known examples of printing. In 764 AD the Japanese Empress Shotoku commissioned one million scrolls to be made, driven by a belief in the power of the repetition of prayer. The task was completed in 770 AD, and each scroll was placed in a wooden pagoda-shaped container. Most of these scrolls and pagodas have been destroyed or lost over time. Only the Horyu-ji Temple (a monastery in the Nara prefecture) is known to own any. A Girl a Guy a Landscape: Novel on the Wall, Volume 2
Words by Melody Sumner Carnahan Paintings by Shelley Hoyt A Girl a Guy a Landscape, Volume 1 was the inaugural exhibition at the San Francisco Center for the Book. It was conceived by Sumner Carnahan, Kathleen Burch, and Michael Sumner, and featured the paintings by Patrick McFarlin. In conjunction with a retrospective at Mills College, Burning Books transformed the Center into a site-specific installation that riffed on the look of an artist studio on a grand scale - push-pinned paintings and typographic laser prints of Carnahan's sentences filled the walls - turning the Center into an enormous novel one could walk around in. The Center was a blank slate; this was its first exhibition. A Girl a Guy a Landscape, Volume 2, has been revived and reworked by Kathleen Burch for X Libris. Housed in the library of SFCB, it draws on a vision Burch had in 1999 at Bebelplatz in Berlin, where the Nazis burned books in 1933. When she walked across the Bebelplatz one evening, there was nothing to see but a square of light emitting from the center of the plaza. Looking down into the light, she saw a white square room with four bookshelves. The book shelves were also white, and they were empty. Reading the Cards
St. Francis Preaches to the Birds Fine Print Fine Print magazine was first published in 1975 as an eight-page newsletter for the arts of the book. Its initial purpose was to present bibliographic descriptions of fine letterpress books along with articles on bookbinding, papermaking, and calligraphy. Over the years, the magazine developed as one of the premiere publications among fine press printers and people interested in book arts. Many of the contributors were important minds and practitioners in the fields of printing, binding, calligraphy, and related arts. The covers were striking works of art, often collected and framed. Fine Print attracted a world-wide audience and helped develop an international community of people interested in the art of the book. The magazine suddenly ceased publication in 1990 because of the ill health of Sandra Kirshenbaum, its beloved founding editor and publisher, but the influence of Fine Print is still felt today. Contemporary Bay Area Artists' Books
The history of contemporary artists' books can be traced to the 1960's when artists began making multiple copies of cheaply produced work in order to disseminate and democratize their art. Artists' books offer a non-traditional relationship between book and reader. The Bay Area is particularly rich in book artists. These artists and their creations have been great influences, a strong guiding light for the Center over the years. See all the artists' books in the exhibition. Words and Process This process can take years to complete. For example, the influences that were directly responsible for Jack Stauffacher deciding to undertake the design and printing of Plato's Phaedrus occurred in 1972, but the book was not published until 1978. And Allen Ginsberg's Howl is shown here in two book design incarnations, decades apart, each illuminating the purpose and meaning of the text but in different ways.
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Yes I Will
