Concurrent to Some of Tom’s Typewriters, The Church will present an intimate exhibition on the Main Floor entitled Some Odes: Sam Messer with Paul Auster, Eleanor Gaver, Denis Johnson and Sharon Olds. This small-scale exhibition will focus on the confluence of ideas between artists and artistic media as they flow individually and within an artistic community. For more than 20 years, artist Sam Messer has created over 200 paintings of typewriters, which began as a distinct reflection on Paul Auster’s relationship to his machine, and over time has evolved as “a form that innately represents language, communication between peoples, its association with both facts and fiction, the place where stories are recorded and invented,” according to Messer. This ‘power object’ bore great relevance to the many writers with whom Messer has shared close rapport – Paul Auster, Denis Johnson and Sharon Olds among them. In addition to paintings and prints by Messer, the exhibition will include never-before-exhibited typed and handwritten notes by Auster and Johnson, as well as a type-set print by Sharon Olds created in dialogue with Messer. In addition, one large format ‘typewriter’ painting will be shown that features Messer’s wife Eleanor Gaver, a filmmaker with whom he has shared creative dialogue for more than forty years. The show is a further contemplation of the role of the typewriter as a talisman as well as a tool in art.
Image: Sam Messer, New Directions (Tobey Pond), 2015, oil on canvas, 52 x 40 inches. (c)Sam Messer, 2015. Courtesy of the Artist.
