EMMY CATEDRAL | DATE 7/17/2015

Robert Seydel: The Eye in Matter at Queens Museum

Robert Seydel: The Eye in Matter opens at The Queens Museum on Sunday, July 19 from 2-4PM. Curated by Peter Gizzi, Richard Kraft and Lisa Pearson of Siglio Press, this exhibition is the second stop of a three venue traveling retrospective of Seydel's work. The Eye in Matter originated at Smith College last year, and will travel to Chicago’s Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College in 2016. Scroll down for more information and event listings.

Image above is reproduced from Robert Seydel: A Picture Is Always a Book, published by Siglio.

The curators write, “Beginning in 2000, Seydel created a series of works using the alter ego Ruth Greisman who was inspired by his aunt of the same name. Robert Seydel: The Eye in Matter features a definitive selection from this fictional archive. Along with a selection of Ruth’s “journal pages” (now collected in Robert Seydel: A Picture Is Always a Book and almost 100 collages (many previously unpublished and unexhibited, with some previously appearing in Siglio's first Seydel collection, Book of Ruth), this exhibition features Seydel’s notebooks (Knot-books), open to pages that reveal glimpses of the process of making this visionary body of work.”

Ruth writes: “I’ll invent who I am, against what is. My time and name: a Queens of the mind.” The Eye in Matter brings Seydel’s imagined Queens into the borough itself. Four events are scheduled in conjunction with the exhibition, beginning with the Opening reception, followed by another three Sundays for Robert Seydel.

Image above is reproduced from Book of Ruth, published by Siglio.

EXHIBITION OPENING AT THE QUEENS MUSEUM
Sunday, July 19, 2 – 4PM
Readings of Robert Seydel’s writings by poets Peter Gizzi and Mónica de la Torre
Reading begins at 3 p.m. Open to the public and free

ROW / SEW: 3 SUNDAYS FOR ROBERT SEYDEL
A series of gatherings of artists and writers to address, to read, to perform, to pay homage to the life and work of Robert Seydel, his alter ego Ruth Greisman, and her friends Joseph Cornell, Marcel Duchamp, et al. Organized by Emmy Catedral with Nathaniel Otting in conjunction with Siglio and Ugly Duckling Presse.
All events start at 3 p.m.
Open to the public and a donation is suggested for museum entry.

JULY 26: Art a Grammar, Grammar a House: A Gathering (or, Artist-Writers: A Weaving)
An afternoon of short performances & shorter lectures by “artist-writers” (as in a page from Seydel’s Knot-books) delivered from the place where Stein’s “Arthur: A Grammar” meets Seydel’s “Grammar a house / or window in a house.” Happenings by Cecilia Vicuña, Maria Damon, and Emmalea Russo; gatherings by Rachel Valinsky & Lanny Jordan Jackson and Zanna Gilbert; and opening microreadings by Anna Gurton-Wachter & Alan Gilbert.

AUGUST 16: Plaid Duchamp Record in Magenta
A picture always wants to be something else —Robert Seydel
dream sacred plaid Duchamp record in magenta moleskin —Paolo Javier
A program of photographs, poetry and 8mm short films inspired by Joseph Cornell who figures large in the universe of Seydel’s Ruth. Flushing-based poet and filmmaker Stephanie Gray and former Queens Poet Laureate Paolo Javier will read and perform their collaborative film narration inspired by Joseph Cornell’s short films. Preceding Gray and Javier will be Harry Roseman, who captured Cornell and the details of his house in photographs. Roseman will tell a story of Cornell’s Utopia Parkway house and working closely with the artist.

SEPTEMBER 27: “Quail rise”: “R’s Queens” Reprised
My name & time: a Queens of the mind.
There’s an occult meaning in initials.
“Read in splendour” between these two lines from Robert Seydel‘s Book of Ruth. The eponymous Ruth Greisman writes: JC, MD, will never understand our distance from life—they’re pretenders in that. This restaging of a scene from last year’s Eterniday event has new players, including Ross Simonini and TK. Proceeding from the “occult meaning in initials,” the afternoon includes Songs of S with readings by Stefani Barber, Sarah Wang, Simone Kearney and TK.

The Queens Museum is located in the New York City Building at the Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, NY 11368.
Open Wed.- Sun., 12-6 p.m. All events are open to the public. Suggested donation: General $8 / Students $4
Subway: 7 to Mets-Willets Point (with a walk through the park—see the museum website for directions). T: (718) 592-9700