Elisabeth Tonnard

A little late with this post, seeing that the exhibition is already over, but still I am pleased to write that Dr. Lilian Landes of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek and Dr. Rüdiger Hoyer of the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte proposed my book An Empty Field for the 2019 edition of the Prix Bob Calle.

The 50 books that were chosen by experts from ten different European countries were shown at the library of the Beaux-Arts de Paris during March. Both the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek and the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte have substantial holdings of my work that they expanded on recently through new purchases. The Walt Whitman copy of the special edition of Song of Myself was purchased by the BSB, leaving Thoreau’s copy all by himself now, but I hear he doesn’t mind.

Speaking of Whitman, the pocketbook version of Song of Myself is currently on view in the exhibition Writers Making Books at the Spruance Gallery, Arcadia University, Glenside, PA. This show was developed in conjunction with Whitman at 200, a celebration of the bicentennial of Whitman’s birth taking place across the Philadelphia and Camden, NJ region.

Speaking of exhibitions, those of you interested in photo-text works could check out the small online exhibition currently up at the PHmuseum. Mariela Sancari curated this exhibition titled ‘Intertextual’ of photo-based works informed by literature.