A THOUSAND WORDS is a variable work which utilizes the Skeletons font to
produce both a book and an installation of the pages of the book 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. Owing to the ephemeral nature of the work, copies are
frequently destroyed when the work is removed from a given site.
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 Milwuakee, 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.
In this digital version clicking, on a word will randomly change it to
another. Clicking on the white background will automatically change the
words without any user interaction producing a uniquely temporal
reading/viewing experience. Double-click the white background to stop
the process.
If A Thousand Words doesn't appear on this page, download the
Shockwave
Player.
