Left to Chance: The Accidental Book Art Art Exhibit Apr 2–May 12, 2012

How has chance affected the book arts today? What are the ways in which luck, chaos, randomness, or other manifestations of chance are employed in the creation of a book art?

2012 marks the 100th centenary of John Cage - inventor, composer, printmaker, and mycologist - who spent every January of his last decade in the Bay Area (his favorite time for both printmaking and mushroom hunting), so what better time than this winter to launch an exhibition that takes its inspiration from Cage's chance operations and his use of the I Ching in music composition and printmaking, along with his mentor Marcel Duchamp's use of chance in the seminal work Three Standard Stoppages?

This invitational exhibition showcases new and old work by book artists who use technology (e.g., laser cutting, digital printing, video works) as well as hybrids that combine old and new technologies in innovative and creative ways. This exhibition is preceded by Get Lucky: The Culture of Change,exhibition at SOMArts, which opens December 17, 2011 and runs through January 26, 2012. It is curated by Hanna Regev and Justin Hoover, and builds on Regev's recent exhibitions Seduction of Duchamp: Bay Area Artists’ Response and SFCB's Banned and Recovered: Artists Respond to Censorship.