About the Collection

Karen Guancione, Book Arts, Installations & Assemblages, consists of media documenting artists´ books, installations and ensembles by Karen Guancione. A New Jersey artist, educator, curator, and longtime Artistic Director of The New Jersey Book Arts Symposium, Guancione has been making books for over fifty years, and collaborating with artists and workers all over the world on installations that adapt traditional book making techniques. The Archive originated in a major Rutgers exhibit, A Portable, Constant Obsession: The Book Art of Karen Guancione, curated by Michael Joseph in 2012.

Work by Guancione is on permanent exhibition at The John Cotton Dana Library, Rutgers University-Newark.

New Jersey Book Arts Symposium

The New Jersey Book Arts Symposium is an annual daylong event sponsored by The Rutgers University Libraries in late fall that presents contemporary work by living New Jersey artist and considers issues of current relevance to practitioners within the field of book arts, and to the cultural perception and definition of The Book and Artists' Books. The Symposium also provides hands-on workshops in all varieties of bookmaking crafts and a book artists´ jam for attendees to discuss their own handmade books.