Books Undone 2: the art of altered books

Visual art and books have much in common: They express and evoke emotions, educate, share new ideas, tell a story, and more. Such shared virtues make the book, as an art medium, powerful and complex. Thanks to Scott McCarney’s thoughtful selections, we present Books Undone 2: a diverse and compelling juried art exhibition that captures our cultural time and place. Discover themes such as social injustice, climate change, the human experience, and more through beautiful book-based forms. From full-sized dresses that scrutinize domestic violence to book installations that examine wrongful convictions in our country, from erased books that bring awareness to the loss of natural ecosystems to sculptures that probe the loss of history, from digital-based works that explore identity issues to intricately twisted book pages that investigate motherhood, the work is varied in form and concept. This group exhibition features 64 works by 41 artists from 20 states.

Juror: Scott McCarney is an artist, designer, and educator living in Rochester, New York. He received formal design training at Virginia Commonwealth University and earned an advanced degree in photography from the University at Buffalo/Visual Studies Workshop. His primary art practice has been in book form and spans many media, from offset and digital printing to sculptural and site-specific installation. His works are in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; and Yale University Art Gallery, among others. He retired in 2020 after 16 years of teaching in the College of Art and Design at Rochester Institute of Technology.