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Image available at: http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/arts/CutlerShaw.htm
Newswise — In a unique and unprecedented collaboration, the University of California, San Diego Libraries and three other San Diego libraries will hold an exhibition Sept. 20 through Nov. 8 of current and retrospective works by San Diego artist Joyce Cutler-Shaw. An opening reception for the artist will be held Sept. 20 at UCSD from 5:30 to 7 p.m. on the main floor in the Geisel Library.
The Joyce Cutler-Shaw: Library Quartet exhibit will showcase the artist's works in four San Diego libraries: the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library (La Jolla); the Earl and Birdie Taylor Branch Library (Pacific Beach); the Mission Valley Branch Library; and the UCSD Geisel Library (Mandeville Special Collections Library).
The UCSD exhibit, Joyce Cutler-Shaw: Word Poems and Language Images from The Messenger Cycle, 1973-2003, is the most extensive retrospective of the artist's studio and public art works, with more than 150 works included, many of which are conceptually based and language-inspired. The exhibition will feature "The Alphabet of Bones," a copyrighted font of 26 characters inspired by the hollow bones of birds, in the artist's original calligraphy.
The exhibition's opening will be preceded by the creation and subsequent melting of a word sculpture in ice spelling the words "We the People." The ice sculpture will be staged in the Geisel Library Plaza with completion expected by approximately 1:30 p.m. Cutler-Shaw first proposed the "We the People" ice sculpture for a site adjacent to the U.S. Capitol Building during the U.S. bicentennial year. Unfortunately, the installation required congressional approval, and died in committee when Congress became embroiled in the Senator Wayne Hayes-Elizabeth Ray Scandal.
A model of the original "We the People" proposal, which was to include historic dates of the most important civil rights events, will be included in the UCSD exhibit along with a variety of drawings, artist's books, and public installations.
An internationally known multimedia artist, Cutler-Shaw has exhibited her work at a variety of local, national, and international venues. She became the first U.S. artist to serve as an artist-in-residence at a university medical school when she was offered the post at the UCSD School of Medicine in 1995. While at UCSD, she produced a mixed-media, interdisciplinary work called "The Anatomy Lesson," which reflects her ongoing interest in the body as the matrix for the human condition.
Cutler-Shaw's expansive and diverse body of work is represented in both museum and library collections throughout the world, including the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Albertina Museum (Austria), the Klingspore Museum (Germany), the Tyler Museum (The Netherlands), the Getty Museum (Los Angeles), the National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington, D.C.), and the UCSD Mandeville Special Collections Library. The UCSD Mandeville Special Collections Library is the single largest repository of Cutler-Shaw's work.
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