Note: the following is part of Glasstire’s series of short videos, Five-Minute Tours, for which commercial galleries, museums, nonprofits, and artist-run spaces across the state of Texas send us video walk-throughs of their current exhibitions. Let’s get your show in front of an audience.
See other Five-Minute Tours here.
MANUAL (Ed Hill / Suzanne Bloom): BEECH // BOOK; An Emblematic Pairing at Moody Gallery, Houston. Dates: March 9 – April 21, 2024.
Via Moody Gallery:
Moody Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new photographs by MANUAL (Ed Hill / Suzanne Bloom), in conjunction with the 2024 FotoFest Biennial. BEECH // BOOK, An Emblematic Pairing draws on work from their Guggenheim Fellowship, awarded in 2021. The exhibition marks fifty years of the artists’ collaboration and their nineteenth exhibition with the Gallery. Quoting the artists, “The crux of the project is the shared etymological roots of the words beech and book. The implications of this dynamic connection have sparked intellectual, imaginary, and artistic discovery, and extend to questions of humans’ relation with our planet. The realities of climate change prompted us to reconsider, reexamine, and reinterpret humans and trees as collaborative beings, with the book, in many ways, acting as an informing intermediary.” MANUAL (Ed Hill / Suzanne Bloom) began their artistic collaboration in 1974. Considered pioneers of digital photography, their photographs, videos, multimedia projects, and installations have been shown widely, both internationally and throughout the United States. Their work is represented in many permanent, private and public collections including major museums in Houston, New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, Arizona, and New Hampshire. A retrospective of their work, MANUAL: Two Worlds, The Collaboration of Ed Hill and Suzanne Bloom, organized by the International Center of Photography and shown there in 2002, was exhibited in an expanded form at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston in 2004. Their first exhibition at the MFAH, Suzanne Bloom and Ed Hill (MANUAL): Research and Collaboration, took place in 1980. FOREST\PRODUCTS, an extensive experimental multimedia installation, was mounted at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston in 1992. Bloom and Hill are the recipients of numerous grants, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and four National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. MANUAL has been represented by Moody Gallery since 1983.
