Let’s Do It: Twenty-three Years of Book and Paper, The Center for Book and Paper Arts, 1994-2017

Curated by Jessica Cochran

Let’s Do It presents newly commissioned projects by artists affiliated with the Center for Book and Paper Arts—alum, of sorts—alongside artwork, photographs, and documents from the Center’s archives. In siting the past alongside the present, we can form a picture of what a book and paper practice looks like today.

From artists’ books to installation, both newly commissioned projects and archival materials will reveal the spectrum of practices that thrived at the Center and that were presented through exhibitions, residencies, and publishing. It was through these activities that the Center made great strides in not only the “centering” of book, paper, and print from the margins of contemporary art, but also in helping audiences better understand these practices and mediums aesthetically and historically.

New projects by: Hannah Batsel with Audrey Niffenegger, Ben Blount, Brad Freeman and Johanna Drucker, Fata Morgana Press, Krista Franklin, and Melissa HiIIiard Potter

Additional works by: Jeff Abell, Laura Anderson Barbata, Alex Borgen, Felipe Ehrenberg, Sheroanawe Hakiiwe, Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr., Alison Knowles, Miller & Shellabarger, Cathy Alva Mooses, Ayanah Moor, Judith Poirier, Vida Sacic, Buzz Spector, and others.

A special edition of the Journal of Artists’ Books (JAB) will be published on the occasion of the exhibition. Edited by Brad Freeman, JAB46 features essays by Jessica Cochran, Brandon Graham, David Jones and Melissa Hillard Potter.

This program is presented by the Department of Exhibitions, Performance and Student Spaces and created with research support from Julia Arredondo and College Archives & Special Collections at Columbia College Chicago. This is supported by the Art & Art History exhibition Department at Columbia College Chicago and partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.