Book FOR[u]Ms: 2001/2002 BOOK ARTIST SPEAKER SERIES
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CECILIA VICU�A |
Cecilia Vicu�a is a Chilean poet, filmmaker, book artist, performance artist and sculptor whose work often confronts the contemporary realities of ecological disaster. Vicu�a works in the tradition of the oral poetry of the High Andes. She has published thirteen books of poetry and has performed "ritual readings" throughout the U.S., Europe and Latin America. Hailed by the Village Voice as a poet whose work melds the political and the sensual, Vicu�a, Laura Hoptman tells us, also "uses the metaphor of the book to describe a large number of her works, perhaps all of them."
At 3:30 pm on Friday, September 28, Vicu�a will give a free public lecture at Curtin Hall 175, UW-Milwaukee. That evening at 7:00 pm there will be a reception and a showing of her films at Woodland Pattern Book Center (720 East Locust Street, Milwaukee; 414.263.5001). From 10:00 am–noon on Saturday, September 29, Vicu�a will hold a Master Class entitled "perCeive" at Woodland Pattern ($20, includes a free ticket to the poetry reading). At 8:00 pm on Saturday, September 29, Vicu�a will give a poetry reading at the same venue ($6/$5 members or in advance). An exhibit of Vicu�a's bookwork is on display at Woodland Pattern from September 28, 2001 until December 31, 2001. All these events form part of the Book FOR[u]Ms
For more information, please contact Max Yela, Special Collections, Golda Meir Library at (414) 229-4345.
Charles Alexander is a poet, letterpress printer, book artist, critic, and publisher. Alexander was educated in part at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he worked with legendary book artist Walter Hamady. In 1980 Alexander founded Black Mesa Press in Madison, which he operated until he moved to Tucson in 1984. In 1985 he established Chax Press in Tucson, which he continues to direct. Through this imprint, Alexander produces hand-made, letterpress books and literary trade editions, both of which explore the conjunctions of innovative writing and book forms. From 1993 through 1995 Alexander was also executive director of the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, one of the nation's premier centers for the arts of the book.
A poet as well as an editor and critic, Alexander's books of poetry include Hopeful Buildings (Chax Press, Tucson, 1990) and arc of light/dark matter (Segue Books, New York, 1992), which have received high praise form his literary colleagues. The poet Robert Creeley has written that in Alexander’s work he "hears a complex literacy of literalizing words." The poet and critic Ron Silliman writes that "Charles Alexander pushes the envelope of what is possible in writing even further, to the ends of the universe."
As part of the Book FOR[u]Ms series, Charles Alexander will participate in a free writer's dialogue presentation in association with the UWM Creative Writing Program on Friday, October 12, 2:00-3:00 pm in Curtin Hall 468. He will also offer a free public presentation on his bookwork in Special Collections from 7:00-9:00 pm on Friday, October 12. Alexander will give a bookmaking workshop at Woodland Pattern (414) 263-5001 from 1:00-4:00 pm on Sunday, October 14. The cost is $30/$25 members plus a $10 supplies fee.
For more information, please contact Max Yela, Special Collections, Golda Meir Library at (414) 229-4345.
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MICHAEL KOPPA |
Bad Water Book Club member and Milwaukee native, Michael Koppa began his career as "Son of Koppa," working at his parent's grocery store, Koppa's Foods on Farwell Avenue. There he founded the world's first, and so far only, grocery fanzine, The Sphere, which ended its two-year run at fame in 1995.
Koppa is a graduate of UW-Madison, where, like Charles Alexander, he worked with Walter Hamady. Under his imprints, Dead Art Ltd. and Kopralalia Press, Koppa produced two volumes of a Milwaukee-area chapbook, CRUX (1996), set on a Linotype machine, hand-printed letterpress, and hand bound.
Koppa's interest and research in typography and book design recently led him to acquire foundry type and a Vandercook proofing press, on which he produced an exquisite hand-set, hand-bound, limited-edition presentation of David Steingass's Native Son at Home (2000), under his current imprint Heavy Duty Press.
Koppa is also a noted collage artist, and his substantial body of work has been shown in numerous venues, including the Charles Allis Art Museum and Grava Gallery.
This Fall Koppa will be a visiting Fellow at Writers & Books in upstate New York. He will also be participating in Oak Knoll Fest 2001 in Newark, Delaware, and exploring letterpress work at the Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Michael Koppa will offer a free public presentation on his bookwork, and a report from the field, in Special Collections from 7:00-9:00 pm on Wednesday, November 7.
For more information, please contact Max Yela, Special Collections, Golda Meir Library at (414) 229-4345.
Brad Freeman is director of Nexus Press in Atlanta and editor of the Journal of Artist Books (JAB). Nexus Press, a programming division of the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, is a non-profit, award-winning, cooperative press. Devoted to producing and publishing affordable, experimental, limited-edition artists' books, Nexus Press is one of the premier book presses of its type in the United States.
Brad Freeman is also a photographer, a master offset lithographer, and one of the leading proponents for the use of offset printing in the book arts. Over the past 20 years, Freeman has produced a range of work which includes silver gelatin prints, highly-wrought digital prints, and complex artist’s books. In whatever medium he works, Freeman produces visual and textual narratives that explore the ever-shifting interface of private space and public sphere.
Freeman will discuss his photo-based work at an open session in the Photography Area of the UWM Department of Visual Art on Thursday, November 29 at 3:30 pm. He will offer a slide presentation on Nexus Press and his own bookwork in Special Collections, Golda Meir Library, from 7:00-9:00 pm on Friday, November 30.
For more information, please contact Max Yela, Special Collections, Golda Meir Library at (414) 229-4345.
This program is co-sponsored by the Golda Meir Library, the Friends of the
Golda Meir Library,
the UWM Departments of English and Visual Art, the UWM Cultures and Communities Program,
and the Woodland Pattern Book Center.
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