The book form gives the visual artist a broad platform to explore important themes and visual ideas. The Artist Books in this exhibition are composed of text accompanied by drawings, collages, and prints, including etchings, drypoints, and direct transfer monoprints. The relationship of text to image can be uncertain. In some books, the text may be suggested by the artwork. In others, the images are imaginative renderings of existing or interpretive text.
Marc Shanker grew-up in the Boulevard Housing Projects in East New York, Brooklyn. He attended Thomas Jefferson High School, and studied Sociology at Brooklyn College. He has spent most of his work life working in the labor movement. After college, Marc began making art. He rejected a formal art education preferring, instead, to work alone toward a realization of his own unique style and content. Marc paints with acrylics, draws with pen & ink and wax crayon, constructs collages, and is a printmaker. Marc is the founder of Gravity Free Press. He is the author of “Traces of Sepharad, Etchings of Judeo-Spanish Proverbs,” and a number of artist books, including: “But a Bubble,” “Man, A Machine of Absurdity,” and “Cheap Gems. Precious Rocks.” His recent book is, “Message from the Memoirist,” poems by Paul Pines was published by Dos Madres Press. “Luna Park,” was published in 2017, and other Artist Books. Marc has an extensive exhibition history.
ARTIST TALK
Marc Shanker will discuss his creative process during a live conversation with a curator from the MET in his studio on Tuesday, June 29, 2021, at 5 PM.
Who Me, Yes You. Who Me
Drypoint print. 20 pages. 11 x 15. Fabriano Tiepolo paper. 2021
Prints into Poetry. Walking the Plank. Poem by Susan Sherman
Mixed media on print. 11 x 15. Fabriano Tiepolo paper. 14 pages (6 prints & 6 poems), 2018
Bring me a Toothpick, Homo Absurdus
Mixed media drawing. 12 x 11. 34 pages. Somerset paper. Unique edition. 2020
BACH
Mixed media. Image 8 x 6 on 11 x 10 page. Fabriano Tiepolo paper. 26 pages. Unique edition, 2020
Agamemnon. The Oresteia Trilogy by Aeschylus
Collage, paint on print. 8 x 10 on 11 x 15. 24 pages. 2018
Looking into the Eye of Doom, The Diary of a Greek Soldier in Troy
Direct Transfer Print. 11 x 15. 36 pages. On Rice paper mounted on Strathmore paper. Unique edition. 2020
Signs. Please Turn-off Your Cell Phones During the Execution
Drypoint. 8 x 10. 21 pages. Fabriano Tiepolo. 2017
Man A Machine of Absurdities. The Clock
Drypoint. 8 x 10 on 18 x 14. Fabriano Tiepolo. 14 pages. 2011
Who Lives with Cats Learns to Meow
Traces of Sepharad (Huellas de Sefarad), Etchings of Judeo-Spanish Proverbs. Etching & Aquatint. 8 x 10. 2008 (1)
ARTIST TALK
Marc Shanker will discuss his creative process during a live conversation with a curator from the MET in his studio on Tuesday, June 29, 2021, at 5 PM.
