BRIGHTON PRESS: THE ART OF THE BOOK
April 10-June 20, 2004
Curator: Teresa Ellis
The act of opening, reading and viewing a book is an act of engagement, a ritual involving touch, breath and deliberation. The artist books of Brighton Press in San Diego will be on view at Oceanside Museum of Art. Brighton Press has been creating books with a staff of artists, poets and craftspeople since 1985. The books are made by hand and are published in editions that range from ten to one hundred copies. Brighton Press books are sought by art collectors, bibliophiles, and print collectors, and have also been acquired and exhibited by over seventy museums and libraries, including Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Getty Research Institute, the Museum of Modern Art and the New York Public Library.
Brighton Press is actively involved in the life of a book, giving the artist exclusive use of the Brighton Press studio during the development. Intaglio, relief and letterpress printing are done on the premises. It is important to Brighton Press directors Bill Kelly and Michele Burgess, that a poem can be read in a museum and that an original work of art may be discovered in a library.