Printed Matter and Information As Material (IAM) co-curated ‘Reading Matters’, a multipart project that asks, ‘Is it possible to practice an art of reading? And if so, what might it leave behind and how can we read reading as art?‘ IAM have always explored the conditions under which acts of reading try to answer these questions. This show span together several threads, including an opening reading event on Oct 29, a distributed poster exhibition, and an onsite installation and digital library of texts available for download at the Printed Matter store.
Opening Reception & Poetry Reading: IAM and Printed Matter present a series of short readings from poets across the language arts who are engaged in the politics of language and materiality, and/or with a practice of re-reading. Readers include Valérie Steunou (performing the work of Kate Briggs), Holly Melgard, Diana Hamilton, Judith Goldman, Felipe Cussen, Robert Fitterman.
New IAM titles: IAM launch two new publications at the event, Simon Morris’ (ed.) catalog Reading As Art and Craig Dworkin’s latest book of poetry Twelve Erroneous Displacements and Fact.
The exhibition and catalogue Reading As Art investigate the activity of reading: the forms it can take (silent reading, reading aloud, spontaneous reading, purposeful reading), the matter of reading (the book, the screen, the site of activity), as well as the bodies that engage in it and the circumstances in which it occurs.Twelve Erroneous Displacements and Fact gathers Dworkin’s collection of thirteen FACTs (2005-16), poems which list the exact ingredients of the materials used to inscribe the text, and the object on which the work is published. These poems have listed the make-up of everything from a xeroxed sheet of paper to a compact disc to a smartphone touchscreen to a Himalayan wool rug.
Reading Matters Library: Producing functioning libraries as art exhibitions has been a linchpin of Information as Material’s work since 2009. At Printed Matter, IAM presented a selection of past artist’s books from numerous writers and artists. A complementary selection of publications from Printed Matter’s inventory was also be assembled by director Max Schumann. Both selections highlight artworks that somehow foreground an interest in reading – its histories, theories, practices.
Poster Exhibition: Printed Matter and IAM have co-produced a large double-sided poster, published in an edition of 300 and downloadable for DIY printing here. The poster announces itself as a distributed exhibition – it takes place everywhere it is displayed simultaneously during the opening of the in-gallery show, October 28 until Dec 31. After the turn to 2017, the same poster becomes documentation of the exhibition it previously was.
One side of the poster features a short abridgement from Nick Thurston’s new essay, ‘Readography’, written for the catalog Reading as Art. On the other side is Craig Dworkin’s final FACT poem, a text that records the relative molecular weights of the neurotransmitters activated by the poem as it is being read. Posters will be distributed to libraries and institutions, and are available at Printed Matter.
LibraryBox: An onsite LibraryBox features free-to-download selections of related content in digital form, co-curated by digital archivists and editors Chris Mustazza, Danny Snelson and Michael Nardone. The files will be available via a local wifi network in the store until the end of the exhibition.
