On June 16, Leslie Mutchler and Jason Urban will open their exhibition, Babel Unbound, in association with the Cork Printmakers’ FIRST EDITION Print Symposium. Mutchler and Urban have been serving as artists in residence in Cork, Ireland during the month of June and will discuss their creative methodologies and approach to an expanded field of print at the symposium on June 23-24, 2017.
Their new body of work, Babel Unbound, focuses on ephemeral editions, prints and printed multiples within the context of the library as a curated, collaborative and performed space.
A series of printed works, risographs, xeroxes and screenprints become a publication pulled apart, ephemeral and in-flux, lining walls. Photographs, 3D printed objects and large-scale digital prints break up the monotony of the splayed publication and help to loosely connect, by thread, by memory, by mark, pieces of text, re-paginated essays, screen-captured images, and scans of book spreads. The gallery becomes a circular space without hierarchy; with no beginning and no end; a confused noise made by a number of voices- babel unbound.
Performing the Book, a single-channel video, explores both the tactile handling of Babel Unbound, while bound, and references the magenta-fingered scanning process at Google Books Library Project. With the book in motion, relationships emerge and dissipate within seconds, making the magic of browsing visible and highly aesthetic.
Mutchler and Urban’s work will be on view at the CIT Wandesford Quay Gallery from June 16 – July 8, 2017.