solo presentation by Lisa Anne Auerbach
The Art Show
Park Avenue Armory, NYC | Booth C10
November 1 – 5, 2023
For the 2023 Art Show, GAVLAK Gallery is pleased to present a solo presentation of knitted tapestries by Los Angeles-based artist Lisa Anne Auerbach (b. 1967). An important, yet overlooked woman artist, Auerbach’s practice has always been politically charged, unapologetic in taking on issues of bodily autonomy, democracy, and free speech.
Auerbach is interested in the understanding of books as an expansive field, and she believes the deep engagement with knowledge books provide cannot be understated. In 2012, Auerbach began the project Bookshelf, where she created an intimate list of all the books in her possession, that culminated to create an anthology of her experiences, interests, and obsessions. Bookshelf was later followed by Bookshelf 2, which was commissioned for the 2014 Whitney Biennial. From the Bookshelf projects, she expanded to her knitted bookshelf works. Auerbach’s series, Libraries, was centered on the idea of books as a portrait of an individual, based on the libraries and collection of books from real people.
Lisa Anne Auerbach’s new series to be presented at the 2023 Art Show, Banned Books expands on her work in Libraries to shine a light on the growing list of banned books and ideas within the United States.
“Book banning, a form of censorship, occurs when private individuals, government officials, or organizations remove books from libraries, school reading lists, or bookstore shelves because they object to their content, ideas, or themes.” 3
In the 2021/2022 school year, 2,532 books were banned, and 139 books have been added since the start of the 2022/2023 school year, according to PEN America, that supports the right to open expression through literature and writing. A majority of the books banned represent LGBTQ+ and BIPOC characters in addition to books covering race and racism in American history and today, LQBTQ+ identities and sex education.1 Book bans infringe on a student’s right to knowledge and representation in the classroom. “Children deserve to see themselves in books, and they deserve access to a diversity of stories and perspectives that help them understand and navigate the world around them.” 1
Banned Books highlights the expansive and systematic banning of books in the United States today. Auerbach will create tapestries of books that have been pulled from school bookshelves, to exist as a monument to what has been censored. Auerbach “prints” each work in her studio using large, nearly archaic, knitting machines. As part of the process, Auerbach strips each book of its original graphic design, size, and color, and remakes them into flat, almost pixelated, knitted rectangles with handwritten or occasionally typeset titles. These stark bookshelves piece together a profound image of what is lost.
Observing the knitted bookshelves stacked with books banned in school systems across the US reveal patterns and themes of what ideas and people are being silenced. Stories and histories related to LGBTQ+ and race related books are being targeted, and the people they represent.
The banning of these books is undemocratic and concerning. There are definitive polls that show Americans of all political persuasions oppose book bans.2 These bans are not from concerned citizens rather systematic actions by groups to censor specific books and ideas to match their belief and ideologies. Many of these groups are associated with Christian Nationalist views.
As with all of Lisa Anne Auerbach’s oeuvre, Banned Books act as a means of disseminating information to a larger audience. Auerbach is pronouncing how students right to access literature, information, and ideas are being limited. Banned Books stands as protest and truth on who and what is being erased in these book bans. The visual weight of all these books is a record to this political moment. There are no book burnings in the streets, but these book bans chip away at the bedrock of American democracy, education, and free speech. We cannot be passive to these attacks as “the dynamics surrounding school book bans are a canary in the coal mine for the future of American democracy, public education, and free expression.”1
Bibliography
- Friedman, Jonathan, and Nadine Farid Johnson . “Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Ban Books.” PEN America, 19 Sept. 2022, https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/.
- Backus, Fred, and Anthony Salvanto. “Big Majorities Reject Book Bans – CBS News Poll.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 6 Apr. 2022, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/book-bans-opinion-poll-2022-02-22/
- Webb, Susan L. “Book Banning.” Book Banning, https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/986/book-banning#:~:text=Book%20banning%2C%20a%20form%20of,content%2C%20ideas%2C%20or%20themes