Exploring paper’s evolution as an artistic medium
In the 1960s, the use of paper in art and design – from sketches to paperboard models to recycled – underwent a fundamental transformation.
Nebraska art historian Katie Anania explores how U.S. artists used paper to redefine the relationship between the body and its surroundings in her first book, “Out of Paper: Drawing, Environment, and the Body in 1960s America” (Yale University Press, 2024).
“This book is primarily about the material properties of paper and their significance to artists – basically, the ways we construct meaning around the things that we create ideas on. My research revealed that paper truly is an environmental medium. It’s something that makes us reconsider our relationships to our surroundings writ large,” said Anania, associate professor of art history.
Her book, a 10-year endeavor, developed from interviews with artists as well as research and studies of drawings themselves.
“This act of drawing was starting to be understood as a way to participate in a democracy, a way to involve yourself in public life,” Anania said.
Artists recognized that paper allows you to not just notate your environment but create a physical connection to supply chains and environmental cycles.
Carolee Schneemann, for example, went dumpster diving for shredded paper to use in her performance art. William Anastasi sat on the subway with paper and pencil and, eyes closed, let the train draw. The paper became a way to collaborate with the machinery of everyday life, illustrating how bodies are connected to urban infrastructure and helping Anastasi distill mid-century fears of nuclear destruction.
“Human beings are not these powerful agents acting on passive and inert materials,” Anania said. “[The book] invites almost anyone in any discipline to think about the nature of their materials and their ideas, where they both come from.”
This act of drawing was starting to be understood as a way to participate in a democracy, a way to involve yourself in public life.
Katie Anania
She also hopes the book encourages readers to consider how, as we engage less with paper and other analog material, shifts in media affect what is produced.
Anania’s new book project, “Devour Everything: Feminist Art After Agriculture,” explores the uses of food and land as artistic media, which became popular among African American and Latina/e/x feminists in the 1970s.