"Artist and writer Robert Seydel often used various personas and fictional constructs in a vast and multi-layered body of work that incorporated collage, drawing, photography, narrative and lyric writing. His primary alter ego Ruth Greisman made hundreds of exquisite collages, a selection of which Seydel collected in the artist's book Book of Ruth (Siglio, 2011). As Ruth, Seydel explores the boundaries between the salvaged and the lost, the unknown and the unknowable, art that is made and art that is found. A Picture Is Always a Book is a first-person, fictional archive, collecting over seventy of Ruth's "journal pages," luminescent and startlingly original writings--typed up on paper purloined from old photo albums, adorned with drawings in colored pencils, oil pens, white-out and ink stamps--that penetrate Ruth's consciousness with visceral honesty and poetic precision."--Publisher's Web site (viewed 11/10/2014). Printed to accompany the exhibition "Robert Seydel: The Eye in Matter" at the Neilson Library, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts (September 2 - December 15, 2014), and the Queens Museum of Art, New York City (July 19 - October 26, 2015), and the Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago, Illinois (February 11 - April 9, 2016). Interview (pages 100-107) conducted in November 2010.
Contents:
[Pages from book of Ruth] / Savina Velkova -- About Robert Seydel. Lisa Pearson -- Interview with Robert Seydel / Savina Velkova -- About Robert Seydel.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.