Little Albert.
Grenfell Press, 2023. Item #3526
22 x15 in., 8 pp., sewn in wrappers and housed in a paper envelope. Printed silkscreen and digital; text printed letterpress on blue antique Whatman.
Little Albert by Joyce Carol Oates is a prose poem eulogizing the infant who was the hapless subject of one of the most notorious experiments in the history of American academic psychology, under the auspices of one of the most famous and esteemed pioneers, John Watson. Writing about her poem Little Albert, Joyce Carol Oates says, "It is one of a sequence of prose poems I have written exploring scientific misconduct, or outright criminality in American scientists of the 20th century. The poem seeks to imagine the subjectivity of the infant, in a context of adult irresponsibility. The conditioning of an innocent and defenseless subject is a way of revealing how we are all conditioned to hate and fear by societal forces that wish to manipulate us for their own ends, often political in intent."
Jane Kent compiled a group of disparate visual events for the reader/viewer to consider in concert with the prose-poem-starbursts, letters as sound, a mirror and its frame and a final image that conjures the harsh, stark, scent of a room. When working on the images to accompany the prose poem, the artist asked the question, "What does 'cruel indifference' look like?"
Grenfell Press and Jane Kent have been working together since 1994. Little Albert is their sixth artists' book collaboration.
Joyce Carol Oates is an American writer. She published her first book in 1963 and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and many volumes of short stories, poetry and non-fiction. She has received many awards for her writing including the National Book Award, two 0. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal and the Jerusalem Prize.
Jane Kent is a print artist. Her work is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art; The Metropolitan Museum; New York Public Library; The Library of Congress, among others.
The Office for Vice President for Research Enhancement in the Arts, University of Vermont is gratefully acknowledged for their support of this project. Jane Kent is Professor of Art in the School of the Arts, University of Vermont.
This is from an edition of 25 copies, as new.
Price: $1,800.00