Alison Knowles Retrospective at Grey Art Museum Traces Fluxus Artist's Bookmaking Legacy
At the Grey Art Museum, situated at 18 Cooper Square in Manhattan, you can check out an exhibition dedicated to the Fluxus artist Alison Knowles, curated by Karen Moss. This showcase, brought together by the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), is open until January 30, 2027, and celebrates Knowles's impressive sixty-year journey in bookmaking. It features early works like the 1960 screenprint "Room," made with George Brecht, along with announcements from her 1962 Judson Gallery show. Highlights include food-themed pieces like "Variation #1: Make a Soup" (1964) and interactive works such as "The Big Book" (1966) and "The House of Dust" (1971), plus later creations like "Paper Gongs" (1998–99) and "Being with Paper" (2022).
Key facts
- The Alison Knowles retrospective is curated by Karen Moss and organized by the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA).
- The exhibition is on view at the Grey Art Museum, 18 Cooper Square, East Village, Manhattan, through January 30, 2027.
- The show frames Knowles as an author, tracing her work through bookmaking concepts including binding, paper, sequencing, and narrative.
- Knowles's 1962 exhibition at Judson Gallery is documented in a vitrine of announcements at the exhibition entrance.
- In 1962 Knowles toured Europe with Fluxus founder George Maciunas and collaborator Dick Higgins, and footage from the Fluxus Festival in Wiesbaden, West Germany, is shown.
- "Proposition #2: Make a Salad" (1962) was first performed at London's Institute of Contemporary Art.
- "The House of Dust" (1971) was first presented at a New York housing development in 1969.
- Knowles's last work on view is "Being with Paper" (2022), a grayscale close-up of a footprint in dust.
Entities
Artists
- Alison Knowles
- Karen Moss
- George Brecht
- George Maciunas
- Dick Higgins
- Lynda Benglis
- Michelle Stuart
- Bruce Fleming
Institutions
- Fluxus
- Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
- BAMPFA
- Grey Art Museum
- Judson Gallery
- Institute of Contemporary Arts
- Institute of Contemporary Art
- Tate Modern
- Hammer Museum
- Hyperallergic
- New York University
Locations
- New York
- United States
- East Village
- Manhattan
- Wiesbaden
- West Germany
- Germany
- London
- United Kingdom
- Berkeley
- California
- Southeast Asia