The Art Child: Artists' Books and Audiotapes

THE ART CHILD, an international exhibition of artists' books and audiotapes created for children, which includes bookworks by Western New York artists, opened at the Burchfield Art Center on Sunday, February 3, 1985. Henryk Gajewski, guest curator of the international projects, led a tour and a reception was sponsored by the Polish Arts Club of Buffalo.

The exhibition, before being expanded for its American premiere at the Center, was originally called Other Child Book when it toured Europe, Mexico, and Japan. While director of Remont Gallery, which was a major alternative gallery in Warsaw, Poland, Henryk Gajewski initiated the concept, contacted over 250 artists from 29 countries around the world urging the creation of bookworks for children and subsequently organized the resulting exhibition. The "books" were not conceived as illustrated texts in the traditional sense, but are works of art in a myriad of media that tap the core of creativity in the artistic process as well as elucidate conceptions that constitute basic artistic principles. For example, one can begin to sense the different quality of these bookworks by some of their titles: Children's Pocket Museum (by Mogens Otto Nielsen, Denmark), The Red Book (by Eugenia Balcells, Spain), Sistema de Transmutaciones (by Juan Luis Diaz, Mexico), and This Is a Story About a Very Thin, Soft and Delicate Piece of Paper (by Jenne van Eeghen, USA).

Under the title of THE ART CHILD, the Burchfield Art Center, working very closely with Gajewski, presented selections from both Other Child Book and Audiochild, as well as annotating with bookworks by area artists. There had been a flurry of interest in bookworks in Buffalo in the previous few years, partially influenced by Gajewski's visit to the city during the fall of 1982. He gave slide and film presentations at Buffalo State College and gave a workshop for children entitled, "Child as Author," at the P olish Community Center. (Gajewski presented similar children's workshops at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Please Touch Museum, and the Agnes Irwin School.) Lynne McElhaney Napieralski, artist and associate professor of design at SUNY Buffalo State, was curator of the Western New York additions. She was among the original committee formed in 1982 to help bring this exhibition to the Center; others include Leta Stathacos, formerly from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery; lawyer Dean Stathacos; Lori Christmastree, artist and associate professor of design at SUCB; Monica Polowy, arts consultant; Joanne Posluszny, artist and former gallery director; Wanda Winiarz, from the Polish Arts Club of Buffalo; and Edna M. Lindemann and Nancy Weekly, director and registrar/assistant curator respectively of the Burchfield Art Center.

Five related events led by Henryk Gajewski were free and open to the public. They included a "Workshop for Teachers, Librarians, and Artists," "Workshop for SUCB Students and Faculty" (funded by the SUCB Faculty-Student Association), "Talking Art, The Visual Book: Discovery and Surprise," with Gajewski and Napieralski, "Lunchtalk: Most of the Art Created Today Can Be Simply Shared With Children," and "Workshop for Elementary School Children."

The exhibition and related events were co-sponsored by the New York State Council on the Arts and the Polish Arts Club of Buffalo, Inc.