Aziumth: Writing on Walls at THE LAND

Azimuth: Writing on Walls
June 6 - July 17, 2009
Opening reception June 6, 6-9 pm

A text-environment based on a free renga by poet/writer, Miriam Sagan, and fourteen other poets at THE LAND/an art site gallery in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Miriam Sagan is the author of more than twenty books, including the recent Map of the Lost from University of New Mexico Press. Beginning with excerpts from poetry she wrote during her residency at THE LAND/an art site, she created this gallery-sized, collaborative poem with JB Bryan, Paula Castillo, Abigail Doan, Ephia, Dale Harris, Phyllis Hoge, J. A. Lee, Sabra Moore, Terry Mulert, Steve Peters, Suzanne Sbarge, John Tritica, Stefi Weisburd and Mera Wolf.

Opening a Book Exhibition Photos

THE LAND/gallery, Albuquerque, April 2009

Basia Irland (foreground), installation view

Basia Irland

Abigail Doan

Kathy Bruce

Mary Ellen Long

Mary Ellen Long

Curator notes, Jeffrey A. Lee

THE BOOK is, then, the container of provocation.[1]

Consider a book as a sequence (of texts, images, objects, ideas) bound or otherwise contained so that it’s kept together and in order. The binding or container also preserves its contents.

The book for me should be without limits, like the desert, thus an exploded book… a desert form whose only limits are the four horizons.[2]

Consider the sequence of seasons, of growth and perpetuation, of metamorphosis, or any other natural sequence. What binds it together or contains it? What preserves it? What interrupts or disturbs it, and what are the consequences?

Books, like ecologies, are local systems. Like an ecosystem, any part removed from a book compromises the whole. Unlike an ecosystem, anything put into a book can belong there.

THE SPACE we love is unwilling to remain permanently enclosed. It deploys and appears to move elsewhere without difficulty…[3]

I know from my experience that books ultimately convey their own unspeakable language to the solitary reader.[4]

A book is a sequence of spaces.[5]

[1] Dick Higgins
[2] Edmond Jabès
[3] Gaston Bachelard
[4] Harry Reese
[5] Ulises Carrión