Center for Book Arts Invitation (1993)
(Item #D17) (transcription)
craft tradition. Each year the Center offers over 120 courses, workshops, and seminars, as well as services to artists which include a lecture series, publictions [sic], an intern and apprenticeship program, and a schedule of emerging artist exhibitions. The Center for Book Arts ensures that the ancient craft of the book – that container which preserves and transmits the knowledge and ideas of a culture – remains a viable and vital part of our civilization.
The CENTER FOR BOOK ARTS is supported in part by grants from the J.M. Kaplan Fund, Herman Goldman Foundation, the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, Consolidated Edison of New York, The Cowles Charitable Trust, public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, and the members of the Center for Book Arts. All contributions are tax-deductible as allowed by law.
626 Broadway, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10012
(212) 460-9768
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NEW YORK, NY
PERMIT NO. 397
the opening of the exhibition
AGRIPPA
(a book of the dead)
Friday, April 23, 1993
six to eight in the evening
Book Arts Gallery
CENTER FOR BOOK ARTS
626 Broadway, 5th Floor
New York City
The exhibition will be on view April 24-June 19
Gallery Hours: 10-6 Monday-Friday, 10-4 Saturday (212) 460-9768
AGRIPPA (a book of the dead) is a collaborative work by the award-winning science fiction author William Gibson (NEUROMANCER, COUNT ZERO, and MONA LISA OVERDRIVE) and artist Dennis Ashbaugh, a Guggenheim Fellowship recipient who is best known for his large computer virus and DNA portrait paintings.
Gibson and Ashbaugh, along with publisher Kevin Begos Jr., have created an artist’s book that defies conventional notions of how a book is supposed to function, since it is designed to be read only once – and then self-destruct! Within its pages, Ashbaugh’s original copperplate engravings of DNA accompany an auto-biographical story by Gibson about his dead father. This text, however, is located on a floppy disc found in a special niche made into the book. This disc contains not only the narrative of the book, but is also encrypted with a program that destroys the text as it scrolls across your computer screen. The reader is therefore confronted with an irreversible decision: to know the story of AGRIPPA that links to the artwork, or to save it, for the text cannot be stopped, copied, or printed once it is set in motion. As well, some of Ashbaugh’s images disappear as you touch the pages of the book. Though this book has been written about in numerous magazines, including Esquire, Art & Auction, Vanity Fair, and USA Today, this is the first extended exhibition with the book on view to the public.
The exhibition AGRIPPA (a book of the dead) will be accompanied by a lecture series dealing with issues related to the book and technology. All lectures will be held at 7pm at the Center, and are free.
April 27: CURSES, COPYRIGHT, AND THE POLITICS OF INFORMATION CONTROL
Speakers: John Perry Barlow and Greg Elin.
JOHN PERRY BARLOW is one of the founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a Washington, D.C. and Cambridge, MA group that promotes discussion of privacy, freedom of information, and copyright issues in electronic mediums.
GREG ELIN is a master’s candidate in NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program who is working on a thesis on the history of copyright.
May 4: THE WRITER AND THE ELECTRONIC BOOK
Speaker: Marshall Blonsky
MARSHALL BLONSKY teaches literary theory at New York University and the New School. His books include ON SIGNS (Oxford University Press) and the forthcoming ABC’s FOR THE MILLENNIUM.
May 18: DIGITAL PUBLISHING FOR THE SMALL PRESS AND WRITER: SOLUTION OR DISASTER?
Speaker: Kevin Begos Jr.
KEVIN BEGOS JR. is a publisher of both trade and limited edition books who brought together William Gibson and Dennis Ashbaugh to create AGRIPPA.