Being Bookish, Retrospectively Speaking: 18 Years of Art Books Cleveland at Pinwheel Gallery

There are tiny stories (an egg, an apartment) and big stories (tyranny, love); there are books to pick up and read and some that are look-at only. Some pages implode in seemingly infinite folds; others explode outward, releasing butterflies that fling themselves over the walls. There are books of threads and narratives shrouding rocks.

Reading takes on at least three dimensions at Retrospectively Speaking: 18 Years of Art Books Cleveland, on view at Pinwheel Gallery in Old Brooklyn through Friday, March 28, 2025. Art books bend questions of narrative and reading, stretching the ideal of a “book” into an object that tells one story in a way that may or may not rely on words—or paper.

When do we realize that books become open? What stories are told and how? Do all stories need words? Does reading implicate how we tell the stories inside? This collection, spanning nearly two decades of art books, was created by members of Art Books Cleveland, a group of artists who explore the container of the book using contemporary and traditional artistic processes. Members include bookbinders, printmakers, collage artists, painters, fiber artists, and those who use combinations of media to explore what, exactly, is a book.

Retrospectively Speaking features work by Judith Angelo, Karen D. Beckwith, Melissa Bloom, Bette Bonder, Diane Britt, Phyllis Brody, Nicole D’Alessandro, Gene Epstein, Amy Fishbach, Nancy Halbrooks, Jeanetta Ho, Yuko Kimura, Janet Luken, Laura Martin, Pamela McKee, Rachel Morris, Kelly Pontoni, Lisa Schonberg, Ellen Strong, Pat Tamburro, and Shari Wolf.

Reading is, by its nature, an intimate activity; reading art books in a gallery suspends that intimacy in a shared, enclosed space. This show is a magnificent collection of narratives that range from the personal to the political (and aren’t they both the same?), using a variety of traditional and unexpected materials.

Pat Tamburro’s pop-up, folded accordion book selects pages from Yale historian Timothy Synder’s book “On Tyranny,” and marches them back and forth with red-white-and-blue authority. Contrast that with the breath of unspoken but exhaled ephemerality of “Spirit Book: Unfurling” by Jeannetta Ho, a frozen spiral of homegrown handmade milkweed paper and waxed linen.

Amy Fishbach’s soft book of knitted pages embellished with delicate cross stich offers “Lady Insults,” pages that announce “High-Steppin” and “Cheeky” bring delicious discord between saucy implication and sedate material; Lisa Schonberg’s “Sea Treasures Lotus Fold Book #1” is a book within a monoprint circle both folded and unfolded, revealing an ongoing tale of coral branches, sea fans, and shadowy anemones. In “If things had been different,” Diane Brett pours out a story, tumbling down statements of what might have been out of a box that hangs on high. And Gene Epstein’s deliberate, measured folding of existing book pages creates new, abstract landscapes.

There are ABCdariums interpretating each letter of the alphabet, books that dance through typography or glorify unused writing systems like stenography, books with intricate leather binding, and books built from paper, fabric, vinyl, and shiny metal grommets. So many of the stories being told here can be picked up and read—please do so with care—which gives the reader that feeling of being in on the best kind of secret.

Gallery owner Sarah Raban encouraged Art Books Cleveland to expand their original show idea into this retrospective. “I’m a maximalist,” says Raban. “I’m sometimes ready for a show to move on, once it’s near its end. But I keep walking through this one and discovering things I didn’t see before.”

Go read for yourself. Pinwheel Gallery is located at 2019 Broadview Road, Cleveland 44109. Open Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, 2 to 6 p.m.