Ruth R. Rogers, Curator of Special Collections in the Wellesley College Library: "Layers of Perception: The Unwritten Language of Artists’ Books"

 An opening reception will follow at the Campus Center Wilson Atrium. 

Rogers says she, “will examine the contemporary artist book as provocateur and siren, offering multiple modes of reading -- through text and image, and material and form. Book historian Roger Chartier has emphasized that our understanding of a text is mediated through complex paratexts: physical form, language, typography, image, and cultural nuance. At a time when the dissociation of text and physical book is rapidly expanding through digital media, artists’ books continue to engage the reader’s senses in ways that are both ancient and novel: meditative, haptic, and associative.”

Ruth R. Rogers is Curator of Special Collections in the Wellesley College Library where she develops the collection and lectures on the evolution of the book as material culture, visual communication, and artistic form. Her interests include the critical reading of artists' books and their research potential in the academic curriculum, and she has curated several national exhibitions, including Seductive Alchemy: Books by Artists. March 24-April 15, 2016, Lesley University College of Art and Design, March 2016, "Reading with the Senses."  In May 2016, Rogers delivered the Arthur P. Williams Lecture at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia.