“I have always delighted in [the] relationship between words and images [and] thought of the book as a form of collage space.” — Jess
We take it for granted that you will go see the Jess: To and From the Printed Page at the Cooley Gallery (3203 SE Woodstock) at Reed College, a traveling exhibition we’re particularly excited about that includes painting, sculpture, collage, book arts and ephemera.
His life as interesting as his art, Jess in a former life was a chemist on the Manhattan Project. But he’s known as the visual artist whose work is tied in myriad ways to the fertile literary soil in which it grew in San Francisco in the 50s and 60s, through collaboration (his partner was poet, Robert Duncan), process, subject.
For pre-viewing homework, why not check out “Didactic Nickelodeon,” one of Andrew Maxwell’s literary product trials, which he calls “poetic fabric samples.” “Didactic Nickelodeon”s fracturations go head-to-head with images from the Jess’ “Jess’s Didactic Nickelodeon, Series Two, ‘The Guardian Angels’ Guidebook,’” (bouncing off Jess-isms like “The great knotted headpiece of the whole.”) which is in the show at Reed. You’ll have to click through Maxwell’s “Rookies” to get to it, but it can only do you good.
See also: for a completely different take on collage, check out Whiting Tennis’ giant collage as part of the Contemporary Northwest Art Awards Exhibition (requires a scroll) at the Portland Art Museum. We were getting nose-close to it checking out the source material which reminds one of old Letraset architectural textures (remember?) or maybe wallpapers that are way cooler than any wallpaper you’ve ever seen. But it turns out (we saw Tennis doing a demo for kids) that Tennis does relief prints of textures like woodgrain, carved surfaces, and composes from the results. !
WHAT TO DO NOW?