Why the revolving door: the neighborhood, the prisons (opening, showing sculptural pop-up illustration), 1992, Beth Thielen. Getty Research Institute, 95-B116. © Beth Thielen
Pop Up/Stand Up: Artists Books and Social Justice
GETTY CENTER
Museum Lecture Hall
This is a past event
Many of us are familiar with pop-up books: we read them as children and remember how they brought stories to life. In this dynamic storytelling medium, some artists have recognized a unique opportunity for social activism. Join artists Colette Fu and Beth Thielen in a conversation with Rachel Rivenc, the Getty Research Institute's head of Preservation and Conservation, as they delve into how their art practices enact social justice.
Colette Fu makes complex three-dimensional compositions that incorporate photography and pop-up paper engineering. Her elaborately constructed pop-up books activate her photo-documentation of ethnic minorities in the Yunnan province of China to dynamically preserve their cultures and identities. Fu's pop-up books have received numerous awards including a 2023 Art Works Grant, a 2020 Joan Mitchell Artist and Sculptor's Grant, the Meggendorfer Prize, and a Fulbright award. She also creates room-sized pop-up installations where people can enter her books.
Beth Thielen has worked as an artist and educator with incarcerated and at-risk populations for over 30 years. Her artist books express the inhumanity of the prison system. Thielen's work and the work of her students are represented in the Getty Research Institute, the Hammer Museum of Art, the Library of Congress Special Collections, the Houghton Library at Harvard, and the Spencer Collection at the New York Public Library, among others. She is the recipient of awards from the Puffin Foundation, the Kalliopeia Foundation, and is a Blue Mountain Center and Rauschenberg residency fellow.
Dr. Rachel Rivenc is the head of Preservation and Conservation at the Getty Research Institute, where she oversees the conservation of the GRI's vast special collections. Previously she worked at the Getty Conservation Institute where she researched materials and processes used by contemporary artists and resulting conservation challenges.
The conversation will be available on the Getty Research Institute YouTube channel following the event.
Visit the Getty Research Institute's Exhibitions and Events page for more free programs.