Bruno David presents "verso / recto", an exhibition of new altered books by Buzz Spector. This is Spector’s third solo exhibition at Bruno David Gallery.
What is a book in a frame?
For “verso/recto,” his latest exhibit at Bruno David Gallery, Buzz Spector is showing new framed and wall-mounted book alterations. Spector has made art with books as subject and object for more than forty years. He has stacked them by the thousands in installations on three continents, systematically torn pages from them to make what’s left into sculpture, and collaged portions of dust jackets in collages that refer to the posing repertoire of authors and the poetry to be found in the last lines of blurbs.
Another category of bookishness in Spector’s work are his torn paper “paintings,” in which fields of torn images evoke the pigment and texture of paint on canvas. The artist’s framed open alterations allude to his previous “paintings,” but also connect to his signature book alterations. The volumes Spector has altered refer to art or artistry in mediums associated with the idea of the book. An altered filmography of Michelangelo Antonioni includes a re-leafed scene from the Italian director’s great 1960 film, L’Avventura. The catalog/artists’ book from Displacement, Lawrence Weiner’s 1992 installation at Dia Foundation for the Arts, has been altered and re-leafed to make Displacement: after Lawrence Weiner, and another alteration, Sails and Sailing, transforms a selection of nautical photographs into pages in a paper storm.
Using the torn page as homage to other artists and to things in the world that themselves refer to reading and the passage of time, Spector continues his dedication to artistic affect that makes something more out of gestures of erasure or removal. In concurrence with the exhibition, Bruno David Gallery will publish a catalogue of the artist’s work with an in-depth exhibition history and bibliography.
Buzz Spector is an artist who also writes. From 2009 until his retirement in 2019, he was professor of art in the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. Spector continues an active exhibiting career, including “Buzz Spector: Alterations,” a 2020-21 show of his altered books and works on paper at the Saint Louis Art Museum. His installations incorporating stacked books and/or author photos have been exhibited in museums and art centers around the world, including his 2019 project, “Language is a River,” at the Qian Juntao Art Research Museum in Haining, China. Spector received his M.F.A. from the University of Chicago in 1978, combining studies in art and philosophy, and studied art and design at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, where he received the B.A. in 1972. Spector’s critical writing has been published in many books and journals, including, most recently, Brooklyn Rail, and he continues to serve as art editor of december, the St. Louis-based magazine of writing and art.
