It Is Almost That: A Collection of Image & Text Work by Women Artists & Writers

by Lisa Pearson (Editor)

A marvelously bold interdisciplinary anthology, It Is Almost That collects works by women artists and writers who have constructed hybrid environments that merge image and text. The works in this collection are supremely imaginative in both form and from the semi-autobiographical novel painted by a young artist who died in the Holocaust (Charlotte Salomon) to Alison Knowles' computer-generated chance operation for "imagining" houses and their inhabitants; from the pseudo-scientific examination of a conversation between a mother and a daughter (Eleanor Antin) to the dark, comic interrogation of violence against women (Sue Williams); from the transformations of newspaper headlines (Suzanne Treister) to the probing of animal consciousness (Cole Swensen & Shari De Graw); from the body maps drawn by South African women with AIDS (Bambanani Women's Group) to the alchemical transformation of the pregnant body into an evolving landscape and philosophical meditation (Susan Hiller). Other contributors to It Is Almost That include Fiona Banner, Louise Bourgeois, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Cozette de Charmoy, Ann Hamilton, Jane Hammond, Dorothy Iannone, Bhanu and Rohini Kapil, Helen Kim, Ketty La Rocca, Bernadette Mayer, Adrian Piper, Charlotte Salomon, Geneviève Seillé, Molly Springfield, Erica Van Horn & Laurie Clark, Carrie Mae Weems, Hannah Weiner and Unica Zürn.

Genres: Art, Womens, Nonfiction

296 pages, Hardcover

First published May 31, 2011

Reviews

[Frances King · Rating 5 out of 5]

a beautiful, thoughtful collection. if i ever have enough money to buy an art book for myself, it will almost certainly be this one. only wished there was more commentary and introductory text regarding the power of merging text with art. at the same time, there is certainly something powerful in only letting the artists speak and in the editor's perhaps conscious decision to remain hands-off

[Eli Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

borrowed from art college library and used as a reference, would like to go back and read more thoroughly at some point

[Leif · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this collection. Stylish, thoughtful, and very, very brilliant, with a great range of artists assembled in provocative clippings – my only criticism being that there was too little included!

Notable artists that I found amazing here include not just my own current fascination, Unica Zürn (dangerous, dangerous), but also Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Louise Bourgois, Cozette de Charmoy, Carrie Mae Weems, and Cole Swensen & Shari Degraw, among so many others.

Here's a sliver that strikes out some ground, charting a path – a bit of a cheat, actually, as it serves Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's "It Is Almost That" (1977) as an epigraph:

no other cure none other than words in talking
in speaking your mind in speaking up in speech in
discussion in instruction in contracts in commandment
prescription reclamation decree dictation mandate
pronouncement manifesto notification passport
citation plebiscite appeal title confession verdict

However, the epigraph is "from Temps Morts, 1980." Make of it what you will.

And then read the book.

[The Art Book Review · Rating 4 out of 5]

And the Deranged Pony Award goes to....

Sue Williams for “Are You Pro-Porn or Anti-Porn?” 1990-1992.

"Paintings about shit and sex, mostly in the vein of fucked-up. From this work, I learned the difference between a bitch and a slut."

-Lisa Anne Auerbach's on "It Is Almost That: A collection of Image + Text Work by Women Artists & Writers"

Read the full review here:
http://theartbookreview.org/2013/02/2...