Central Booking art space opens in Brooklyn

[Maddy Rosenberg]

Hello All,

Please join me and my associates for the opening of Central Booking in Dumbo, Brooklyn, on Sept.17. The gallery will focus on artist's books and prints, but not to the exclusion of any medium (see below).

If you would like to receive emailings from Central Booking, just click on the website link and sign up for the mailing list (on the right panel): http://centralbookingnyc.com/

We're on Facebook, too: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=123904982305&ref=nf

Dating back to William Blake, who pioneered the genre, and central to the conceptual art of 1960s artists such as Sol LeWitt, “book art” has in recent years devolved into a niche art form. That situation is about to change when Maddy Rosenberg and colleagues inaugurate Central Booking – a unique international art space specifically and consistently dedicated to the entire breadth and scope of the book as art on September 17, 2009, 6-9PM.
Central Booking is located in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn at:

111 Front St. Gallery 214,
Brooklyn, NY 11201
347-731-6559
Hours: Thursday-Sunday, 12-6 PM
http://www.CentralBookingNYC.com

Central Booking’s Global Vision

A respected and accomplished artist and curator, Rosenberg says that she conceived Central Booking with a two-fold objective in mind: create a distinctive space where the virtually infinite forms and range of book art and prints can be seen in one place while simultaneously providing both established and emerging practitioners of the genres with an outlet for their work.
Central Booking’s overall mission, moreover, is global in scope: to serve as a catalyst for the integration of artist’s books into the mainstream art world where they are now often marginalized.

To achieve this mission, Rosenberg has arranged the physical lay out of Central Booking into two distinct but integrated spaces:

• Gallery I will be dedicated to Book Art and Prints.
• Gallery II will be reserved for curated thematic exhibitions. These exhibitions will showcase an unusually broad variety of genres while always integrating the participation/work of at least one book artist. The initial exhibition is Natural Histories, the first in a series of explorations of where art meets science.

Central Bookings Portfolio of Artists

Central Booking's innovative integration of spaces is organic, as many book artists work in other media as well: painting, sculpture, installation and video art. Indeed, book art often incorporates these other genres to create truly original multi-media works.
The artistic synergies between the two-gallery approach is intended to create spaces with distinctive identities which will nevertheless encourage an ongoing interactive relationship between the two.

Participating artists range from those who are well known to the New York audience to young and international artists who will be introduced. They include: Desirée Alvarez; Sara Garden Armstrong; Pinky Bass; Amina Bech; Zane Berzina; Doug Beube; Jay Bolotin; Stephen Bury; Travis Childers; Sang-ah Choi; Beatrice Coron; Mary Frank; Anne Gilman; Wendy Given; Judy Hoffman; Robin Holder; Kahn & Selesnick; Angela Lorenz; Joan Lyons; Gerhard Mantz; Martin Mazorra; Clifton Meador; Miriam Schaer; Buzz Spector; Holly Sears; Mary Ann Sampson; Susan Share; Joan Snyder; Mary Ting; and others.

A New Kind of Environment for Defining Book Art

The organizing principle of Central Booking is to define and showcase the ineffable art of the book.
“Book art,” explains Rosenberg, “can be anything from a pamphlet done inexpensively on a copy machine to a letterpress codex bound book integrating words and images to a sculptural piece that is an object itself.”

To make accessible something that might seem to many to be an abstract concept, as well as to underscore the affordability of book art, Central Booking’s layout combines the informality of a store with the selectivity and installation of a gallery.

Additional Attractions

Central Booking will host screenings, book launches, musical events, special lecture series, discussion panels and workshops on topics of interest to both a specialized audience and the general public.

Building on its own interactive orientation, Central Booking also has a major online presence that will continue to grow. The website is a virtual gallery with easy purchase of art work; a center of educational information, including a magazine highlighting the artists and their works, scholarly articles and related news items; a home for special web-based projects; subscription series for the purchase of certain works at limited-time special pricing; portfolios of prints of select artists available for purchase; and an events calendar for both the Central Booking site and space.

The Central Booking Team

As Executive Director/Curator for Central Booking, Rosenberg has surrounded herself with the following experts in their respective fields: Jon Coffelt, Curator; Agnes Murray, Consultant; Anica Archip, Publicist; Emily Bicht, Administrator; Heidi Neilson, Designer/Webmaster; Jennifer Chisnell, Editor/Researcher; John Avelluto, Registrar; Amee Pollack, Collections Coordinator.

“Brooklyn has taken its position as a major art center in the world,” says Rosenberg, “yet it still lacks a place where the public can have access to book and related arts on a continual basis.”

Central Booking promises to change that situation via a completely new approach, beyond that of the handful of galleries in the world where book art is usually exhibited intermittently or as only one of many genres.

[Alice Simpson]

You've come a long way, baby! Congratulations on your latest!

[Maddy Rosenberg]

Well, Robert,here's the first bunch! http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=124921&id=690157050

[Robert Heather]

Any photos yet?