Eric Rudd's Chapters: A Literary Exhibition
North Adams Project on Eagle Street
By: Eric Rudd - Aug 17, 2010
CHAPTERS: A Literary Exhibition
“The Circumstances of My Life: A Novel by Eric Rudd--Or how I’m looking for an agent, publisher, director, producer.”
FLATIRON ART SPACE 2
40 Eagle Street
North Adams, MA 01247
July 16 thru October 16, 2010
Wed –Sat 12-5 PM
Why do artists exhibit their work? Obviously, to sell, to promote and to test their artwork in a public venue. Why shouldn’t it be the same for literary work? Often writers will do test readings or publish a section of a longer work. Why not display parts in a gallery?
As an artist, I never had a problem finding interest for my work from galleries and museums, and during the first part of my professional career, I sold quite well. I had a respectable bio of one-person and group exhibitions and my work was included in many museum collections. But as my work evolved into room-sized sculptural installations while at the same time, I felt pressure from galleries that preferred small, colorful artworks to satisfy the majority of their cliental, I took an unusual step (in 1981) and ceased exhibiting/selling at commercial art galleries. I decided to limit sales to known collectors/collections and to limit exhibitions to museums, university galleries and alternative spaces.
Now, many years later, I have ventured into the literary world, and I don’t have the same connections with literary agents/publishers and film directors/producers as I had with collectors, dealers and museum curators/directors in the visual arts.
So when Art Space 2 became available, I thought, “why not?” Here’s a chance to make some noise.
But there is also a more detailed background to all this. As a visual artist, I was never much drawn to text in contemporary art. Of course, historically,” art” applied as text has always been interesting, including by example, cave drawings, Egyptian hieroglyphics, or even text references in Cubist paintings. Contemporary attempts at incorporating text have more often failed, in my opinion, as visual artists become second or third-rate writers. Several artists have quality of concept, paint or installation that overcome the weakness of the text (Motherwell, Holzer, Ruscha). Much too often, however, weaker visual artists use amateurishly written text or grab famous phrases from renowned writers to incorporate into their work. The latter seems to me trite, less original and out of context from the original meaning.
And so, as I avoided text for many years, I started to do a few things that made me use text. Twenty years ago, I created the Historical American Artists Markers that played upon the question of which people are selected to be on U.S. governmental historical markers and plaques (the actual work, planned for sites in and around Washington DC, has not yet been produced). A few years ago, I created a series of drawings called the ‘Spanish classes series’ that were inspired by my written notes combined with doodles, which filled my classroom notebook pages as I struggled to learn Spanish. Anyone with a beginner’s knowledge of Spanish will recognize the language context without needing to read all the words literally. I also wrote and illustrated several children’s books where the text and illustrations worked in unison.
Last year (and after six years of work on the first one), I completed two novels. As I had dismissed text-in-art earlier by judging many of the artists weak writers, I now had produced two original literary works I considered worthy of public exposure. At the same time, I started the process of finding an agent or publisher for publishing the books as well as a director and/or producer who might be interested in my novels for movies. In order to present the material, I started to also work on a film treatment, film script and storyboard. All this stimulated combining my writing skills and artistic skills into doing a storyboard as a major sculpture that will be 210 feet long when finished. As this is currently under development, I won’t describe the rest, except to say that the process made me realize how interesting literary works can be presented through different formats, including abbreviated and visual formats.
With the availability of Art Space 2, I looked at the shorter of the two novels and wondered how the first page of each chapter would read—and whether this would be enough of a ‘teaser’ to entice someone to ask for a closer look. Since I’ve spent my career around gallery spaces, I am enjoying using a visual space to present a literary product. It’s interesting to note that while it’s possible to “take in” a painting show in just a moment, it’s now necessary to spend sufficient time to read the 21 pages that are exhibited.
Since literary success is not coming to me as easily as artistic success came early in my career, I am exhibiting my literary work this way in hopes of getting attention. This concept of acknowledging what gallery shows are all about is part of the title of my show. Isn’t this really the reason for exhibiting art? I am just putting my cards on the table and admitting the basic truth. If this should lead to Hollywood success, one might imagine that there will be many more exhibitions of this kind by aspiring writers.
And what is the novel that this show is based upon?
The Circumstances of My Life
A novel by Eric Rudd
This is a romantic tale about a young writer, born with disadvantages, who experiences love, success, and tragedy. As he maneuvers through life’s complexities and circumstances in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, Los Angeles, the island of Phu Quoc, Vietnam, and the small beach village of Sayulita, Mexico, he is watched over by his mentor, actor Dustin Hoffman.
Alongside this teaser show, I’m making available for public reading (and purchase) is a short story that will be of interest to North Adams residents. There are several people whom residents might recognize (I fictionalized and exaggerated their personalities and with their permission used their real first names; despite what is said in the story, I do eat at the named eating establishment). For additional interest, the action takes place during the recent mayoral election.
Finally, if anyone reading this knows of a capable literary agent or movie director with connections to Dustin Hoffman, please do contact me as soon as possible.