Art: Spotlight

OPENING

In Association: Collaboration in the Book Arts

Even as tablets, pads and other digital devices are seeking to make books-on-paper obsolete, artists are pushing the book form into novel territory. In four new exhibits, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts is showcasing collaborative book projects involving more than 50 artists, including several from Brigham Young University, who worked with a group from Tonga. The Brigham-Tonga collaboration resulted in 29 books and involved Tongan bark cloth as well as western-relief printmaking and bookbinding. Closer to home, a dozen Minnesota artists exchanged, altered, added to and subtracted from one another's work in a cross-fertilization process whose results have been dubbed "Working Title." Additional collaborations are between University of Minnesota art Prof. Thomas Rose and book impresario Wilbur H. "Chip" Schilling, and Minneapolis conceptual artist Harriet Bart with master printer Philip Gallo and binder Jill Jevne, among others. (Reception 6-9 p.m. Fri. Free. Minnesota Center for Book Arts, 1011 Washington Av. S., Mpls. The Rose/Schilling show runs through Oct. 21; the others end Nov. 4. 612-215-2520 or www.mnbookarts.org.)