A Perverse Library, a major exhibition of conceptual writing at Shandy Hall. Supported by In a word.

Saturday, 4 September to Sunday, 31 October 2010

Image, Scott Myles: Full Stop 2006 © the artist. The last full stop in Tristram Shandy from the first edition, blown up using photomicography at the University of Glasgow

The Perverse Library was a major exhibition of 'conceptual writing' and a partnership between The Laurence Sterne Trust and artist-publishers information as material. Drawing from collections of work by internationally renowned artists and writers that includes Kathy Acker, Ed Ruscha, Jen Bervin, Christian Bök, Pavel Büchler, Craig Dworkin, Kenneth Goldsmith, James Joyce, On Kawara, Sherrie Levine, Klaus Scherübel, the exhibition was held at Shandy Hall, Coxwold, North Yorkshire between 4 September and 31 October 2010.

Conceived and curated by artist, teacher and founding editor of information as material, Dr Simon Morris, the exhibition was the first of its kind in the UK, and showed works by a generation of artists who have sought a radical reconsideration of the relationship between literature and the visual arts.

Unfolding around Craig Dworkin’s book collection of 2,427 titles, many of them pricelessly rare objects, displayed on Invisible Bookshelves designed by Canadian architect Michael Farion, the exhibition included:

  • ‘A Bibliography of Ugly Cousins’, for which Simon Morris drew together critical examples of appropriated writing, or ‘rip-offs’, that expose the parasitic relationship between conceptual writing / writers and their histories;
  • A collection of carbonised books contributed by artist and collector Greville Worthington, entitled ‘The Black Library’, from the remains of which vegetables were to be grown for consumption in the Shandy Hall Library;    
  • Bouvard et Pécuchet’s Invented Desk for Copying by the young Canadian artist Gareth Long who, working with furniture maker and designer Wilf Williams, presented a copying desk as the latest in his series of sculptures developed from the unfinished pages of Gustave Flaubert’s last novel, Bouvard et Pécuchet; and
  • The launch of six new works, including print editions, publication and a new documentary film.

‘A Perverse Library’ built on a legacy of residencies and exhibitions co-organised by information as material and held at Shandy Hall, the former home of the celebrated 18th-century English writer Laurence Sterne, now a museum dedicated to exploring his astounding and continuing contribution to the arts. “Through our exhibitions, and by hosting residency programmes, we are enabled to explore how contemporary artistic practice, whether text-based, visual, sonic or otherwise, can help visitors to the museum unlock the Trust’s collection of 18th and 19th-century literature”, says the museum’s curator, Patrick Wildgust. “Our aim is to encourage an inventive exploration of Sterne’s legacy and experimental spirit, in the context of the artefacts of his estate.”

Recent Shandy Hall exhibitions had included ‘The Black Page’ for which Wildgust commissioned 73 artists, including John Baldessari, Cornelia Parker and Rachel Whiteread, to re-produce the 73rd page of Sterne’s monumental novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy: Gentleman, in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the book’s publication.

As part of A Peverse Library, American poets Kim Rosenfield and Rob Fitterman spent a week as poets-in-residence at the hall.

A Perverse Library was co-organised by information as material, The Laurence Sterne Trust and In a word. The exhibition was made possible thanks to the generous support of Arts Council England through their Grants for the arts programme, The Henry Moore Foundation and York College.

With funding from  In a word... a free bus service ran throughout the exhibition, taking people from York train station to Coxwold.