A THOUSAND WORDS is a variable work which utilizes an original digital typeface Skeletons, to produce both a book and an installation of the pages in paper "tile" form. As an unbound book, the work may be installed in any number of various ways and patterns, depending on the site and the preference of the curator. Because of the ephemeral nature of the work, copies are frequently destroyed when the work is removed from a given site.
Full Description
Each page consists of one word relating to human existence in general and more specifically, as represented by the skeleton letters, the image thus qualifying the text. The work suggests several questions. Is a picture "worth a thousand words"? Are a thousand words worth one picture? Where is the picture? What is the picture?
Initially exhibited in 1991 at the C.A.G.E. gallery in Cincinnati and at the University Memorial Center, University of Colorado at Boulder, it has been exhibited several times since then. In 1993 it was installed at the Walker's Point Center for the Arts in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and was acquired by the Denver Art Museum. It was exhibited in their "First Sightings, Recent Modern & Contemporary Acquisitions" exhibition in that same year and again in "The View from Denver", at the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, in Vienna, Austria in 1997. It has recently been exhibited as part of the Denver Art Museum's Contemporary and Modern collection in 1999-2000.
In 2004 the work was shown at the Amos Eno Gallery in New York City and in 2006 as part of the "Decades of Influence" exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver. A THOUSAND WORDS has been cited in 1992 in Leonardo, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 93-94, San Francisco, and in 1991 in the online journal FINEART Forum, Vol. 5, No. 5, Berkeley.
Work metadata
- Year Created: 2011
- Submitted to ArtBase: Monday Feb 21st, 2011
- Original Url: http://spot.colorado.edu/~johnsoja/1KWords.html
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Work Credits:
- jimjohnson, primary creator
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