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Are you a CBAA member and interested in being considered for our featured artist section? Email a link to your website or 3 images of your work to artistofthemonth@collegebookart.org. We will contact you with more information.
Robbin Ami Silverberg
General website: www.robbinamisilverberg.com
Retrospective exhibition: https://www.robbinamisilverberg.com/read-me-like-a-book
Exhibition catalog: https://www.robbinamisilverberg.com/product-page
BIOGRAPHY
Robbin Ami Silverberg is an artist living & working in Brooklyn, NY. Her artwork is divided between solo & collaborative artist books and site-specific installations.
After a degree in art history & sculpture from Princeton University, Silverberg spent three years in the 80's training in bookbinding & paper design in Vienna, Austria. Presently, she is the founding director of Dobbin Mill & Dobbin Books. Dobbin Mill is a hand-papermaking studio and teaching facility. Dobbin Books is a collaborative artist book studio that publishes unique or small editions of books by Silverberg, in collaboration with international writers and artists. Silverberg has both exhibited and taught extensively in the United States, Canada, South Africa, South Korea, Mexico, and Europe. She is a professor for "Art of the Book" at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
2020 is the 30th anniversary of Dobbin Books. Silverberg has designed, produced & published more than 25 collaborative artist books along with circa 60 solo editions, 55 unique artist books, and about 20 artist book installations. Examples of Dobbin Books publications are found in over 130 public collections & many private ones.
Silverberg is involved in all aspects of the work: from creating content, whether as imagery or text, to designing & producing the entire book: design & production of the paper, printing, binding, and boxing. The desire to make all facets of an artist book publication is due to her intention to realize a whole coherent work of art and her love of the creative processes involved.
The exhibition Read Me. Like a Book is a retrospective exhibition with 68 books and three installations at Pratt Institute Libraries.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Although the basis for my work, whether artist book or Installation, is conceptual, much of my artwork stems from essential materiality. The artwork reflects my material sensibility as much as the content and issues that comprise their core. Paper has been my preferred material for over 30 years, and I have explored its potential as a non-neutral substrate in my image-making, bookmaking, and process.
Due to the pandemic, Read Me. Like a Book has been closed to visitors since mid-March. Fortunately, I was able to create a virtual tour. I had hoped that we would resume a modicum of normalcy and engagement in the US... and that many of you would have been able to visit the exhibition at that time. The show still exists, but sadly, it will be taken down the end of August before students return to campus so the Institute can disinfect the facility.
Only the stairs installation will remain: I transformed the stairs of Pratt Institute Library into an artist book that I call I write what I know on one side and what I don't know on the other. It is literally 'read' while moving up to the higher floors. The text creates a dialogue between 'stairs' and 'books,' where each riser becomes a page and locus for thought and the stairs a sequence of ideas that consider these two aspirational objects.
ARTIST'S WQRK
Project Descriptions
I write what I know on one side and what I don't know on the other, 2020 / Printed vinyl strips on two flights of 53 stairs in Pratt's Brooklyn campus library / (photographer: Ernst Fisher)
Memory Walk, 2018 / Varied edition of 8 / Archival inkjet & tempera on Dobbin Mill papers with tape cassette / (photographer: Dorka Hubner)
Living with Tassels & Trim, 2019 / unique in a series of 6 / Embroidery on cloth, tassels, trim, hanger, clothing / (photographer: Ernst Fisher)
Reading Hot Spots in New York City, 2017 / Varied edition of 10 /Archival inkjet photos on Dobbin Mill papers with embedded catalog cards / Found map & text. / (photographer: Dorka Hubner)
Continual Conversations with a Silent Man, 2014 / Varied edition of 10 / Archival inkjet photography & text on Dobbin Mill papers, underwear, aluminum foil / (photographer: Dorka Hubner)
Brush, 2014–19, Installation in the stacks (designed by Tiffany) in Pratt's Brooklyn campus library / Open series / Horsehair, wood, archival inkjet printing on Dobbin Mill papers, Mark Twain quote & dictionary definitions / (photographer: Dorka Hubner)
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