An exhibition of artworks exemplifying intellectual dialogue and collaboration, the tenets of great research schools like the University, christens a building that itself brings together three academic departments and one interdisciplinary powerhouse. That powerhouse, the Institute for the Humanities, gathers graduate students, fellows and faculty from various disciplines to research in a collaborative setting. It features lectures, symposiums and exhibitions, such as the current one, that reflect this emphasis on collaboration.
The institute’s new home is the recently completed Thayer Building, which also houses the Center for Jewish Studies, Near Eastern Studies and Asian Languages and Cultures.
The new space opens with an exhibition of “artists’ books” from French artists and writers of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Their subjects range from reinterpretations of works from antiquity to biographical tributes to their contemporaries. Softly cradled by canvas supports under their glass cases, most books lie open, but some are closed to display notably creative or striking bindings.
The books seem to promise exceptional versions of that infinitely pleasurable experience, reading a book. The limitations of a museum setting, of course, prevent this, bringing the medium’s power to evoke to the fore.
“This exhibit is about the synergy between word and image, which is central to the Institute’s concerns, making it a perfect opening show for us in the new building,” said Daniel Herwitz, the institute’s director.
In addition to giving the institute a more central location than its former offices in Rackham, the building allows for a superior exhibition space, one with excellent lighting and climate control.
“Thanks to LSA we now have a proper museum space that allows for the presentation and security of museum-quality objects,” Herwitz said.
Books as collaborations between writers and visual artists may strike most visitors as exotic or a thing of the past, and to some extent, both are true. As the works displayed and the exhibit’s pamphlet make clear, these books are a phenomenon mainly of European artists, from a tradition that began in the last quarter of the 19th century. Only about 250 copies were printed of most of the books, making them valuable limited editions and of more practical interest to art dealers and collectors than to someone browsing Shaman Drum.
The visual art to be seen here offers a rare opportunity to see the range of popular artists, as many of the pieces are in mediums and styles atypical for greats like Picasso, Matisse and Manet. One book from 1930, a play, features etchings by Pierre Bonnard, an artist famous for his busy and bright oil paintings. The spare black-and-white etchings are an illuminating contrast to the works for which he is best known.
Books are often grouped in their cases by similarities in subject or a visual component. Elisabeth Paymal, the Institute’s curator, explained some of her curatorial decisions: “Chronology is something, but affinities of work are perhaps more relevant,” Paymal said.
An exhibition last March of an book by the popular artists Jacques Prevert, a French poet, and Alexander Calder, an American sculptor, offered similar insight, but lacked the pleasing scope and professional display quality of the current exhibit.
An 1875 printing of Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “The Raven” with illustrations by Edouard Manet, is the most prominently displayed work. According to collector Jim Beall, from whose extensive collection the works are drawn, it’s this book that began it all. “This is the granddaddy,” he said, wielding a facsimile of the large text, for visitors of the Nov. 29 public opening reception to flip through. “This started the movement of artists’ books.”
Eugenie Beall, the wife of Mr. Beall and his partner collector, described the singular quality of this art form: “The tactility of a book is something you cannot get from a work hanging on a wall. It is yours, it is part of your life, your daily milieu.”
French Artists’ Books
Running through Dec. 20
At the Institute for the Humanities