
Polly Apfelbaum: For the Love of Una Hale
This publication is a comprehensive document of Polly Apfelbaum’s 2020-22 ceramics residency at Arcadia University and resulting installations (exhibited in the spring of 2022) in conjunction with a curated survey of works by folk artist David Ellinger (1913-2003). The book features over 160 illustrations, including color photographs of each of the 63 ceramic works Apfelbaum presented as well as multiple installation views along with documentation of two wallpaper projects. Reproductions of 40 works by Ellinger are also included.
Texts by: Tessa Bachi Hass, Wayne Koestenbaum, Lisa Minardi, Ezra Shales, Jenni Sorkin, David Pagel and Jenelle Porter with a transcription of a conversation between Apfelbaum, Shales, Elizabeth Ferrell, Gregg Moore, and Rachel Geisinger.
Edited by Richard Torchia and Katy Donoghue with an introduction by Torchia and an artist glossary by Donoghue. Designed by Conny Purtill, Purtill Family Business. Major funding provided by the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage.
Retail price: $45.00
Additional details:
Publisher: Arcadia Exhibitions, Arcadia University
City: Glenside, Pennsylvania
Pages: 200
Dimensions: 12 x 10 inches
Hardcover
Binding: Smyth-sewn
Printing: 4-color offset
ISBN: 978-0-9762154-8-6
The catalogue is now available for purchase in the Spruance Gallery.
Purchase Online
David Kettner: After the Fall
This large format publication includes reproductions of 66 collages dating between 2013 and 2023. The book features the transcription of a conversation between London-based collage artist John Stezaker and Kettner, who have been corresponding since 2013.
It also includes seven short texts by Philadelphia-based artist and writer Eileen Neff, whom Kettner has known since 1975 as a teaching colleague, and an introduction by exhibition curator Richard Torchia. The publication has been generously funded by the Edna W. Andrade Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation.
Retail price: $40.00
Additional details:
Publisher: Arcadia Exhibitions
City: Glenside, Pennsylvania
Pages: 120
Dimensions: 11 x 11 inches
Paperback (card stock)
Binding: Smyth-sewn
Printing: 4-color offset
Book is now available for purchase in Spruance Gallery.
Purchase Online
Pati Hill: Photocopier
“This publication [accompanied] a traveling exhibition that [reintroduced] the singular practice of Pati Hill (1921–2014). Untrained as an artist, Hill was a published novelist and poet before she began experimenting with the photocopier as an artist’s tool in the early 1970s. She was not alone in recognizing the creative possibilities of what she called ‘a found instrument, a saxophone without directions;’ however, her literal approach to the medium—‘having come to copying from writing’—coupled with her lucid texts about it, have proved prescient, especially regarding xerography’s potential for self-publishing and image-sharing that we take for granted today.
“Unlike many who experimented with this instant-duplication process—a technology whose convenience, affordability, and use of plain paper made it revolutionary—Hill sustained her commitment to xerography for 40 years.” (From the Preface by Richard Torchia).
Includes reproductions of the artist’s work as well as essays by Richard Torchia, Anthony Bailey, Marilyn McCray, Zachary See, Thomas McGonigle, Michelle Cotton, Sue Pierce, Matthew J. Rigilano, Fouzia Chakour, Thomas Devaney, Francesca Ferrari, Jessica Hough, Zachary Fruit, and Marie-Cécile Miessner. Major funding provided by the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage.
Retail Price: $30
Publisher: Arcadia Exhibitions
City: Glenside, Pennsylvania
Pages: 198
Dimensions: 10 x 13 inches
Softcover
ISBN 9780976215479
Book is available for purchase in Spruance Gallery.
Ai Weiwei: Dropping the Urn
This fully illustrated catalog features four commissioned essays appearing both in English and in Chinese translation. In addition to a comprehensive, first-hand account of the place of ceramics within Ai Weiwei’s larger multi-disciplinary practice by Philip Tinari, the book includes a text by critic Dario Gamboni (examining Ai’s strategies within the legacy of iconoclasm); an essay situating Ai’s work within the tradition of Chinese ceramics by Stacey Pierson (a noted scholar in the field), and a text by Glenn Adamson (head of graduate studies in the research department at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London) exploring Ai’s ongoing iterations of his Coca-Cola Vase.
The publication also includes the first English translation of an interview with Ai originally published in his White Cover Book (1995), the second in an influential trio of volumes that marked the re-emergence of the contemporary art scene in the mid-1990s. The exhibition catalog was produced in collaboration with Office for Discourse Engineering, a Beijing-based editorial studio. Major funding provided by the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage.
Retail Price: $30
Additional details:
Publisher: Arcadia Exhibitions
City: Glenside, Pennsylvania
Pages: 123
Dimensions: 7.5 x 10.5 inches
Hardcover
ISBN 978-9881736772
Book is available for purchase in Spruance Gallery.