The Defector with the Sphinx. Archival pigment print. 8.53" x 12.8"
TWICE THROUGH THE MAZE is a mythic tale revealed in Michael Sumner’s photoworks and Melody Sumner Carnahan’s synopsis sending the viewer on parallel journeys through an ever-expanding maze. The characters have both “street level” personas and Greek god/goddess counterparts.
The exhibition includes related works by guest artists Serena Rieke, Orlando Leibovitz, and James Hart, with music by Max Neutra.
“Twice Through the Maze leads us into, but not quite out of, a labyrinth of beguiling narrative possibility. This journey through a brain-teasing maze is an amusing one, yet it’s utterly serious in its haunting overtones.”
—Diane Armitage, THE Magazine
“Twice Through the Maze, [is] a time-bending book ... with hauntingly beautiful imagery ... always engaging as it provides endless possibilities that will continually intrigue.”
—Raina Wellman, “Generation Next,” Santa Fe New Mexican
BURNING BOOKS, based in Santa Fe, is a self-described “artist-run, weirdness-driven organization dedicated to the production and publication of unmuzzled literature, music, and art.” It was founded in 1979 in Oakland, California, by writer / editor Melody Sumner Carnahan and artist / designer Michael Sumner who moved to New Mexico in 1989 where Burning Books continues to produce art in “obsolete delivery systems”—books, posters, pamphlets, postcards, and Seven Sins Soup. The pair has produced books in collaboration with other artists, including John Cage, Yoko Ono, Laurie Anderson, and Steina and Woody Vasulka.
Burning Books has published 33 books and numerous audioworks, and has produced many books for museums including the Guggenheim Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Michael Sumner’s work includes prints, film, and photographs, and has been shown at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the San Francisco Cinematheque, and in a Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition.
Melody Sumner Carnahan is an award-winning author with twelve books in print. She received an MFA from Mills College where she began collaborating with composers, performers, and artists to present her writing “off the page.”
A 56-page book, Twice Through the Maze, is available at Phil Space during the exhibition. Please visit
http://burningbooks.org/about
The Investigator in Japan. Archival pigment print. 11.4" x 15.2"
The Minister’s Illegitimate Daughter. Archival pigment print. 11.4" x 15.2"
The Minister. Archival pigment print. 8.53" x 12.8"
The Unreliable Witness. Archival pigment print. 8.8" x 12.5"
The Minister's Illegitimate Daughter and the Defector. Archival pigment print. 11.4" x 15.2""
The Defector and the Magistrate in the Dream. Archival pigment print. 11.4" x 15.2"
The Dreamer. Archival pigment print. 11.4" x 15.2"
The Heartthrob Outside the Theater. Archival pigment print. 11.4" x 15.2"
The Heartthrob Follows the Signs. Archival pigment print. 8.53" x 12.8"
The Heartthrob and the Box of Light. Archival pigment print. 8.53" x 12.8"
The Minister's Japanese Daughter. Archival pigment print. 11.4" x 15.2"
The Minister in Exile. Archival pigment print. 8.53" x 12.8"
The Sweetheart and the Heartthrob. Archival pigment print. 8.53" x 12.8"
The People Who Stayed at the Party. Archival pigment print. 8.53" x 12.8"