Turning HATE into beauty.

SAN Francisco (Calif.); CALIFORNIA; UNITED States

Reversing Vandalism exhibition organized by Jim Van Buskirk, manager of the San Francisco, California main public library's Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center, premiered in San Francisco in January and ran through May 2, 2004. The exhibit came into being when in 2001, the library discovered that more than 600 queer-related books in the library had been mutilated by a vandal with a small sharp instrument. The librarians felt that discarding them would complete the vandal's crime. Instead, word went out to the art community that the mutilated books were available as raw material for works of art, and over 200 creative individuals responded from around the country. The concept picks up a collage idea that goes back at least as far as cubism and runs through U.S. assemblage art of the 1950s. Many artists responded to the bookness of the object presented to them, dissecting it, unthreading the binding, or reintegrating the pages in a myriad of pieced-together formats. Some of these are held together with healing materials and some are further gashed and painted as if bleeding. Other artists transformed the sad pages so that they are unrecognizable as books. Artists' statements on the nature of tolerance personalize and complete the impact. In a full-circle gesture of largesse, the artworks will be auctioned off in September 2004 as a benefit for the library, which will use the funds to buy more books.