Assembling/Reassembling (Why books NOW? )

Conceived in 2016, Now Be Here exists to give visibility to women-identifying and non-binary artists, bringing equity to the art world.

Now Be Here

This discussion will tackle the history and current state of independent press and self-publishing by women artists making books as artform.

Why books NOW? Are books symbolic objects? Have books created political change? What is it that makes artists’ book a unique /compelling art form? Can artists’ books advance social justice for women? This panel discussion will tackle the history and current state of independent press and self-publishing by women artists making books as an art form. Though increasingly active in California publishing over the last century, as in so many areas, women have not always been as visible as their contributions deserve. Showcasing a diverse range of women artists and curators, this panel will address the ways in which women artists' publications create a distinct discourse, whether that arises from editorial ethics, curatorial decisions, feminist methods, specific topics and themes, or anticipated audiences. Most importantly, the panel will call attention to vibrant works of art being made in the book format, designed to bring transformative points of view into published form.Co-sponsored by Now Be Here, Guest Curator Initiative, X Artists’ Books, Scripps College, and the UCLA Center for the Study of Women. Please register for this panel discussion on Eventbrite. The Zoom link will be sent with the Eventbrite reminder before the event.

<h3>About the Panelists:</h3>Tia BlassingameA book artist and printmaker exploring the intersection of race, history, and perception, Tia Blassingame often incorporates archival research and her own poetry in her artist’s book projects for nuanced discussions of racism in the United States. In 2019, Blassingame founded the Book/Print Artist/Scholar of Color collective to bring Book History and Print Culture scholars into conversation and collaboration with Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) book artists, papermakers, curators, letterpress printers, printmakers for building community and support systems. Blassingame is an Assistant Professor of Book Arts at Scripps College and serves as the Director of Scripps College Press.Johanna DruckerJohanna Drucker is Distinguished Professor and Breslauer Professor in the Department of Information Studies at UCLA. She is internationally known for her work in the history of graphic design, typography, experimental poetry, fine art, and digital humanities. Drucker’s artist‘s books were the subject of a traveling retrospective, Druckworks: 40 years of books and projects, in 2012-2014. Her new titles include Visualization and Interpretation (MIT Press, 2020), and Iliazd: Meta-Biography of a Modernist (Johns Hopkins University Press 2020), and Digital Humanities: An introduction to Digital Methods (Routledge, 2021). Alexandra GrantAlexandra Grant is a Los Angeles-based visual artist who examines language and written texts through painting, drawing, sculpture, video, and other media. Her work has also been exhibited at the Orange County Museum of Art, CA, Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), and the Pasadena Museum of California Art, among others. She has received the COLA Individual Artist Fellowship and a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. She is the creator of the grantLOVE project, which raises funds for arts-based non-profits such as Heart of Los Angeles (HOLA), Project Angel Food, Art of Elysium, 18th Street Arts Center, and LAXART. In 2017, Grant co-founded X Artists’ Books (a publishing house for artist-centered books), which has published nine literary works of art to date and will be releasing four new publications in 2021.Marcia ReedPresently Chief Curator and Associate Director, Marcia Reed has developed the Getty Research Institute’s collections since its founding in 1983, acquiring many of its notable rare books, prints, and archives. Her award-winning catalogue of the GRI’s artists’ book collection Artists and Their Books, Books and Their Artists, co-authored with Glenn Phillips, was published in Summer 2018 to accompany the exhibition. Her most recent publication is a catalogue for the GRI's September 2021 exhibition on Dada, Surrealist, and Fluxus works: Fluxus Means Change: Jean Brown’s Avant Garde Archive. Susan SironiSusan Sironi is a Los Angeles-based artist. Since 2003, she has been using found books as a medium for her work, deconstructing them to emphasize the importance of how we communicate and what form it may take. She had her first solo show at Offramp Gallery in Pasadena in 2008. She has exhibited throughout Los Angeles as well as nationally and internationally including Craft Contemporary Los Angeles and the Carpenter Art Center at Harvard University Cambridge.Special thanks to Now Be Here's Guest Curator Initiative organized by Patricia Ortega-Miranda and Kim Schoenstadt.

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