Book Signing: Disguise the Limit, John Yau’s Collaborations

Thursday, June 20 · 6 - 7:30pm

Poet and critic John Yau celebrates his newly published book Disguise the Limit: John Yau’s Collaborations. John and Stuart Horodner, Director University of Kentucky Art Museum, will be in a conversation about the book and the associated UKAM exhibition.

Disguise the Limit: John Yau’s Collaborations
Edited with text by Stuart Horodner.
Text by Barry Schwabsky, Sharon Mesmer, John Yau.
Published by University of Kentucky Art Museum
Hardback, 148 pages, 113 color images

This book features numerous works that the prolific Chinese American poet and critic has created during the past five decades. These include paintings, mixed-media drawings, print portfolios, and artist’s books. The result of friendships and shared sensibilities, these collaborations reveal Yau’s embrace of both representation and abstraction as prompts for language generation. Offering nimble turns of phrase, Zen koans, road sign warnings, and fragmented and complete poems, he has been a curious and generous partner in producing these unique works with both established and emerging artists.

John Yau has authored numerous books of poetry and prose including Corpse and Mirror (1983); Edificio Sayonara (1992); Hawaiian Cowboys (1995); Forbidden Entries (1996); Borrowed Love Poems (2022); Ing Grish (2005); Paradiso Diaspora (2006); Further Adventures in Monochrome (2012); Bijoux in the Dark (2018); Genghis Chan on Drums (2021); and Tell It Slant (2023).

His critical writings and monographs include In the Realm of Appearances; The Art of Andy Warhol (1993); The Passionate Spectator: Essays on Art and Poetry (2006); A Thing Among Things: The Art of Jasper Johns (2008); Catherine Murphy (2016); The Wild Children of William Blake (2017); Thomas Nozkowski (2017); Foreign Sounds or Sounds Foreign (2020); Liu Xiadong (2021); Joe Brainard: The Art of the Personal (2022); and Please Wait by the Coatroom: Reconsidering Race and Identity in American Art (2023).

The exhibition and publication are made possible by a generous grant from the Terra Foundation for American Art, with additional support from the Albisetti Exhibition Fund.