Binding Desire: Unfolding Artists Books

Binding Desire: Unfolding Artists Books
25.01.2014 - 30.03.2014

Binding Desire: Unfolding Artists Books is a group exhibition featuring approximately 120 works from OTIS Millard Sheets Library’s Special Collection of 2,100 artists books dating from the 1960s to the present. The Otis Artists’ Book Collection is one of the largest in Southern California. It houses a wide range of works representing every genre of artists books by such luminaries as Vito Acconci, Joseph Beuys, and Ed Ruscha, as well as significant works from major centers of production like Beau Geste Press, Paradise Press, Printed Matter, Red Fox Press, and Woman‘s Studio Workshop. A foundational strength of the collection is its holdings of artists books made in the 1960s and 1970s—a time when this material was often not collected by libraries because so much of it was hard to define, catalog and house. The exhibition also includes a reading room showcasing new work produced by OTIS students in the Fall 2013 semester.