University Communications
Emory University
Atlanta, GA 30322

Release date: Nov. 2, 1999
Contact: Deb Hammacher, Assistant Director of University Communications, 404-727-0644, or dhammac@emory.edu

Emory Hosts International Art Exhibit and Symposium On "Samuel Beckett and the Visual Text" Nov. 11-13

Few contemporary authors have inspired as many works of visual art as Samuel Beckett has, and Emory University will host an international exhibition and symposium on this symbiotic relationship Nov. 11-13 titled "Samuel Beckett and the Visual Text." Included in the exhibition are artists' editions of Beckett's texts, including fine press and graphic work by such well-known artists as Avigdor Arikha and Jasper Johns. The exhibition will be on display in Schatten Gallery of Emory's Robert W. Woodruff Library, 540 Asbury Circle on the campus. The exhibit and symposium are free and open to the public.

"Samuel Beckett and the Visual Text" is a collaboration between Woodruff Library and the Beckett Correspondence Project, which has been based at Emory since 1990, and is preparing the definitive scholarly edition of the author's letters. More than 35 artists' editions of Beckett texts plus photographs, letters and other documents revealing the creative process of the artists represented will be on display through Dec. 20.

A two-day symposium will bring together scholars and some of the artists whose work will be on display to discuss the relationship between Beckett texts and visual art. The keynote address will be delivered at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 12 by Marjorie Perloff, the Sadie Dernham Patek Professor of Humanities at Stanford University, who will discuss "'Seeing' Beckett's Language, 'Reading' Johns's Images." Her address will take place in special collections of Woodruff Library.

On Saturday, Nov. 13 there will be presentations by three scholars (a detailed schedule is attached):

o Breon Mitchell of Indiana University, author of the forthcoming bibliography of Beckett's printed texts, will give a gallery talk of the artists' editions.

o Lois More Overbeck, director of the Beckett Correspondence Project, will discuss Beckett's relationship with film and television.

o Dalia Judovitz, professor and chairwoman of French and Italian at Emory, will discuss the use of word-image interplay in the avant garde.

Five of the artists with work in the exhibition will take part in a panel discussion of their art from 3-5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 13. The panelists are Danish artist and publisher Hans Brøndum; Sorel Etrog, a Romanian painter and sculptor who emigrated to Israel and has been living in Toronto since 1961; German painter, illustrator, graphic artist and photographer Manfred Garstka; American teacher and printmaker Dellas Henke; and American printmaker Charles Klabunde. This will be the first trip to the United States for Garstka and Brøndum.

In conjunction with the symposium, Theater Emory will present "justplay.[s]," a collection of theater pieces by Beckett in the Mary Gray Munroe Theater, Dobbs University Center, 605 Asbury Circle on campus. Directed by Brenda Bynum, each evening will have a different selection of works that will include "A Piece of Monologue," "Act Without Words I," "Act Without Words II," "Come and Go," "Ohio Impromptu," "What Where" and "That Time." The production completes the performance during the last few years of the entire Beckett canon in Atlanta. Performances will be 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 11; 4 and 9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 12; and 3 and 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 13. Tickets are $12 general admission; $10 seniors, Emory faculty and staff, non-Emory students; $6 Emory students with i.d. For information or tickets, call the box office at 404-727-5050.

To see a map of campus, go on-line to www.emory.edu/MAP. For more information about "Word and Image: Samuel Beckett and the Visual Text," call 404-727-6840.

Complete schedule of events:

Thursday, Nov. 11

5-7 p.m. Opening of exhibition, Schatten Gallery, Robert W. Woodruff Library, 540 Asbury Circle, Emory.

7:30 p.m. "justplay.[s]" by Theater Emory, Mary Gray Munroe Theater, Dobbs University Center, 605

Asbury Circle, Emory.

Friday, Nov. 12

3-6 p.m. Graduate student panels of projects in process, Jones Room, Woodruff Library.

7 p.m. Keynote address: Marjorie Perloff, Stanford University. "'Seeing' Beckett's Language, 'Reading'

Johns's Images." Special collections, 10th Floor, Woodruff Library.

4 & 9 p.m. "justplay.[s]" by Theater Emory, Mary Gray Munroe Theater

Saturday, Nov. 13

10:30 a.m. Breon Mitchell, Indiana University. "Gallery Talk: Samuel Beckett and the Livre d'artiste."

11:30 a.m. Lois More Overbeck, Emory University. "Through the Aperture: Film, Television and Samuel

Beckett."

2 p.m. Dalia Judovitz, Emory University. "Word-Image Interplays in Avant Garde Experimentation."

3-5 p.m. Artists' panel: Hans Brøndum, Sorel Etrog, Manfred Garstka, Dellas Henke and Charles Klabunde

8 p.m. "justplay.[s]" by Theater Emory, Mary Gray Munroe Theater

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