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Show Me a Story: Children's Books & the Technology of Enchantment
In the Gallery Aug 20 - Nov 5, 2004
 Books from the exhibition
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The Structures of Enchantment — Past, Present and Future
This show is the result of a meeting Center for the Book co-founder Kathleen Burch and I called last year to discuss the possibility of an exhibition of children's books. So many good ideas were put forth by the committee that by the meeting's end we had come up with a plan to mount not one but three exhibitions, on alternate years. The first of these would focus on book structures and technology, the second on illustration, the third on narrative. This first exhibition is itself divided into three parts. The central component aims to show the influence of children's books in breaking down the ironclad codex form of the book into something open to a wider range of visual, and even narrative, expression. Contemporary book artists, inspired by the possibilities embodied in movable children's books, have made use of their devices in new and original ways, surprising and delighting adults as well as children with sculptural forms that move, and finding forms that tell stories in new ways. The most historically significant book in the exhibit is Lebende Thierbilder (ca. 1885), by the patron saint of the modern movable book, Lothar Meggendorfer. This copy was painstakingly restored by Joanne Page, with help from Andrew Baron. Meggendorfer developed ingenious, complex (and largely invisible) devices to imitate naturalistic gestures and make the pages of a book come alive. A second section of the show looks at the creation of a contemporary trade book, Knick-Knack Paddywhack!, published by Dutton, illustrated by the celebrated Paul O. Zelinsky, and engineered by Andrew Baron. It is this often-overlooked last feature, the engineering, that that we highlight in a display that looks at both Baron's intricate mechanical design and at the astonishing production process which executed it. The third component looks to the future, featuring research projects from The Reading Lab, high-tech marvels developed by scientist/artist Maribeth Back, which do things with reading and books that even Lothar Meggendorfer couldn't have dreamed up. Steve Woodall is Artistic Director of the San Francisco Center for the Book. |
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