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Jo Sandman | ON VIEW NOW

The book selection accompanying Jo Sandman: Skin Deep highlights the rich artistic legacy of Black Mountain College, where Sandman trained alongside an extraordinary roster of artists, writers, and thinkers. Figures such as Josef and Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa, John Cage, Robert Motherwell, and Cy Twombly shaped a culture of radical experimentation that blurred boundaries between disciplines. Sandman’s Serpents photograms reflect this spirit, drawing on her background in painting while embracing photographic techniques learned from Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan.

By including works by artists affiliated with Black Mountain College—such as Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Merce Cunningham, and Robert Rauschenberg—this selection underscores the school's enduring impact on modern art. The influence of poet Charles Olson’s studies in glyphs and pictorial language, as well as Buckminster Fuller’s innovations in design, resonates in Sandman’s approach to composition and materiality. These books invite deeper exploration into the interconnected artistic practices that shaped Sandman’s work and continue to inspire new generations of artists