CommaBox Premieres CommaRoom at Haas Gallery, Bloomsburg University

FSU Art Associate Professor Judy Rushin and Professor Carolyn Henne are Co-Directors of CommaBox. Each year, a select group of artists and writers collaborate on a new edition of the annually published CommaBox. Beginning with an open-ended conversation, they go on to develop a theme and work on a collection of small objects in a customized container. Commabox aims to build community around these themes through pop-up shows and exhibitions featuring the boxed collections and the work of the CommaBox artists.

Following on their September 2018 pop-up gala at Happy Motoring, they are now premiering their first formal CommaBox exhibition, CommaRoom, an exploratory amplification of the CommaBox project.

CommaRoom contains every artist who has contributed to a CommaBox. It expands on the idea of a boxed collection, but instead of asking the artists for new works (as in the boxes), Judy and Carolyn chose pieces from the artists’ studios. Foregoing the standardized construction of the gallery’s pre-existing walls, they build their own sculptural armature for grouping the artworks. With the permission of the artists, the artworks are treated as raw material for a new sculptural form that is both collaborative and individual – an assemblage of artworks that become something new.

Viewers are invited to walk through the exhibition, sit and spin on the viewing seat, thumb through Andrew Epstein’s book, Attention Equals Life; look through the viewfinder, and handle CommaBox, vol. 2 situated at the desk behind the screen.

The exhibition at Haas Gallery at Bloomsburg University opened on 12/20/18 and closes with a reception and gallery talk on 2/5/19.