The Art of the Book: Treasures from the Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries
Opening hours: Monday—Friday, 9:00 am—5:00 pm
Academic Symposium: Friday, April 12, 2024, 1:00—4:00 pm
Opening Reception: Friday, April 12, 2024, 5:00—8:00 pm
The Art of the Book: Treasures from the Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries is an exhibition showcasing a variety of artworks housed in the Special Collections Research Center at Temple University’s Charles Library. Organized through a curatorial collaboration between graduate students from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture, the exhibition examines how the format of the book has been treated across time and geography. A key question at the heart of this exhibition is, what constitutes a book? The 40 diverse examples featured in this show challenge our preconceived notions and expand our definitions of this type of object. Melding illustration, painting, object-making, calligraphy, and storytelling, the objects featured in The Art of the Book transmit a robust sense of time, place, and identity. Many of these books function as repositories of memory that simultaneously reflect the values, history, and available technologies of the particular cultural moment in which they were created. The thematic groupings in the galleries display the variety of ways in which artists from across the globe have dealt with similar subject matter and content. Highlights of the exhibition include a 4,000-year old Mesopotamian clay tablet; a newly-acquired Persian illuminated manuscript of Leili and Majnun; contemporary artist books from across the globe; a gilded Book of Hours on parchment; an Ethiopian Ge’ez book in its original leather satchel; and zines that address trans and LGBTQ+ issues.
The accompanying 167-page, full-color exhibition catalogue features essays that explore the hidden histories and complicated entanglements behind each of the objects on display. In addition to research by the graduate student curators, the catalogue includes guest essays by Dr. Müge Durusu-Tanrıöver, Dr. Ashley D. West, and Dr. Alice M. Rudy Price (Art History faculty, Tyler School of Art and Architecture); Özlem Yıldız (PhD Candidate, Art History, Tyler School of Art and Architecture); Dr. Mario Sassi (Romance Languages, Williams College); Dot Porter (Kislak Center for Special Collections, University of Pennsylvania); and Dr. Bryan C. Keene (Art History and Theater, Riverside City College).
Curated by graduate students from the Tyler School of Art & Architecture: Daniel Cappello (MFA Sculpture), MeiLi Carling (MFA GAID), Ivy D’Agostino (MA Art History), Bradford L. Davis (MFA Ceramics), Ana Matisse Donefer-Hickie (PhD Art History), Emma P. Holter (PhD Art History), Robin Morris (MA Art History), Mike Ray (MFA GAID), Ha Tran (MFA GAID), and Rachel Vorsanger (PhD Art History), with Dr. Joseph Kopta (Assistant Professor of Instruction, Art History) and Kimberly Tully (Curator of Rare Books, Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries).
Photography by Tyler School of Art & Architecture MFA Photography students Sophia Dell’Arciprete, Yaqeen Yamani, Natalia Purchiaroni, and William Toney, with Byron Wolfe (Professor and Art Department Chair).
Graduate Project Manager: Jackie Streker (PhD Art History); Design Assistant: Emily Feyrer (BFA GAID); Lesson Plans: Marcella Green (M.Ed. Art Education).
The Art of the Book: Treasures from the Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries is a collaboration between the Tyler School of Art and Architecture and Temple University Libraries. The exhibition is free and open to the public. It is supported by Temple University Libraries, the Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University’s General Activity Fund (GAF), the Jackson Fund for Byzantine Art, the Center for the Humanities at Temple (CHAT), the Art History Department, and two anonymous donors.