Joel Moskowitz:
Old Catalog Cards, New Meanings

10 December 2014 – 31 January 2015

Can you remember searching for a book title without the aid of a computer? For a younger person, such a notion can be as incomprehensible as having to adjust TV reception by playing with a set of “Rabbit Ears.”

Along with the telephone booth and the manual typewriter, the old system of indexing the library inventory has become a relic of the pre-digital age. As with other outdated functional objects, the handsomely crafted drawer cabinets remain desirable as curiosities and collectables, but the cards they contained have largely vanished.

Discarded library catalog cards see new life in Joel Moskowitz’s loving assemblages. Using ink, paint, and found objects, he alters and accentuates elements of the original text to uncover messages from his own imagination. The results are a compelling visual display, a feast of clever wordplay, a bit of nostalgia, and an instructive exercise in creative recycling.

The catalog cards have been included in several Boston-area juried exhibits, including at the Danforth Museum, The South Shore Art Center, The Brush Art Gallery, and the Cambridge Art Association; and at the b.j.spoke gallery, in Hudson, New York.

The artist lives in Sudbury, Massachusetts. He studied painting and sculpture at Brandeis University (BFA, 1976).

This exhibit is made possible by the Groton Public Library Endowment Trust.

Ken Hansen,
Curator