Williams Center Gallery Presents Altered and Assembled Jan. 2-25

Exhibit features modern artists inspired by the Beat Generation

Altered and Assembled: The Beat Goes On—New Perspectives, an exhibit exploring altered books and assemblage sculpture inspired by writers and artists of the Beat Generation, will run Jan. 2-25 in the Williams Center for the Arts Gallery.
Mixed-media artist and guest curator Maryann J. Riker will present two altered book workshops, one for children at 1 p.m. Jan. 10 and another for adults at 2 p.m. Jan. 18. Reservations are required for both events. Riker will also hold a talk during the exhibit’s opening reception from 3-5 p.m. Jan. 11.

January gallery hours are noon-5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 1-5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. For more information, contact Michiko Okaya, director of Lafayette art galleries, at x5361.

Inspired by the 1995 exhibition, Beat Culture and the New America, 1950–1965, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Riker has compiled altered art/books and assemblage art/sculpture by 27 modern artists. She says the artwork focuses on the Beats’ ideals of exuberance, spontaneity, invention through the use of everyday materials, and the collaboration between writer and artist.

“The artists selected for this exhibit continue the tradition of altered art/books and assemblage art/sculpture inspired by the Beats and bring to their work the fundamentals so critical to the Beat’s movement: a child-like wonder coupled with a street-wise realism that emphasizes process over finished work,” says Riker.

The Williams Center Gallery is presented under provisions of the Detwiller Endowment. The Williams Center and Grossman galleries are funded in part through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.