John Salvest, professor of art at Arkansas State University whose art has earned him a national reputation, is curating and has created an installation piece for “Disappearing Ink,” an exhibition about a subject dear to us here at the Arkansas Times, the vanishing of newspapers.
The exhibition, at the Art Museum of the University of Memphis, “is a look at newspapers and other printed matter as documents of personal and collective memories and history,” a news release says. The release notes that while news content is online, its context — in juxtaposition with other reporting and photographs — is lost in the digital world.
Salvest’s installation is composed of 1,400 front pages of the Jonesboro Sun, presented as a flock of birds rising and filling the top 40,000 cubic feet of the main gallery. The exhibition also includes newspaper ephemera “presented as museum artifacts, framed or in cases with appropriate labels.”
You can hear participating artists talk about their work and participate in the exhibit yourself. The flesh and blood exhibition opens April 4 with a reception from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and runs through June 28. Gallery talks are set for 11:30 a.m. April 5 and April 10.