Poet and visual artist Jen Bervin's work brings together text and textile in a practice that encompasses large-scale art works, artist books, poetry, and archival research. Her books include The Desert, Nets, A Non- Breaking Space, The Red Box, and Under What Is Not Under. She has new works forthcoming from Granary Books and Ugly Duckling this fall.

Bervin's work has been shown at The Walker Art Center and is in many special collections including The J. Paul Getty Museum. She has received fellowships in art and writing from The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, The New York Foundation for the Arts, Centrum, The MacDowell Colony, and The Camargo Foundation and is an editor-at-large for jubilat. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

CONTACT

Site: jenbervin.com
By email: jenbervin at mac (.) com
By post: 249 Smith Street, #162, Brooklyn, NY 11231 USA

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2010         "The Perverse Library." Lawrence Sterne's Shandy Hall, North Yorkshire, England
2010         "Speaking Volumes." The Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI
2010         "Elements of Style: Fashion and Form at the Beinecke." Yale University, New Haven, CT
2010         "A Million Random Digits." The Reanimation Library at Gridspace, Brooklyn, NY
2010         "17 Ugly Years" UDP/Artbook @ PS1 Contemporary Art Center/MoMA, NY
2009         "Text Messages." Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
2009         "Threads: Interweaving Textu[r]al Meaning." The Center for Book Arts, New York, NY
2009         "Black Pages." Lawrence Sterne's Shandy Hall, North Yorkshire, England
2009         "On Clouds." Observatory, Brooklyn, NY
2009         "Reading in Installments," The Center for Emerging Visual Artists, Philadelphia, PA
2009         "Jen Bervin: Mississippi." Project 94, Brooklyn, NY (*Solo)
2008         "The History Room: Matt Bakkom and Jen Bervin." The Soap Factory, Minneapolis, MN
2008         "Less is More: The Poetics of Erasure." Simon Fraser University Gallery, BC, Canada
2008         "New Works on Handmade Paper." Dieu Donné Benefit Auction Exhibition, New York, NY
2008         "Mend." Proteus Gowanus, Brooklyn, NY
2007         "Jen Bervin: New Work." Broad Street Gallery, Athens, GA*
2007         "Narrative Thread." Donna Seager Gallery in San Rafael, CA
2007         "MacDowell Views." The Sharon Arts Center, Peterborough, NH
2007         "Library." Proteus Gowanus, Brooklyn, NY
2007         "Iteration." NurtureArt Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2006         "Five Contemporary Visual Poets." The Wright Exhibition Space, Seattle, WA
2006         "The Emily Dickinson Composites." The Camargo Foundation, Cassis, France*
2006         "Many Happy Returns." High Energy Constructs, Los Angeles, CA
2006         "The Way We Live Now." CU Art Museum, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO
2005         "Joshua Beckman and Jen Bervin." Word & Image Gallery, Treadwell, NY
2004         "What's in a Book?" New Langton Arts, San Francisco, CA
2004         "And Could I Further 'No'?" The Nest, Brooklyn, NY*
2001         "Pictures of the Passing Word." Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Boulder, CO
1996         "You Are Here." Gallery 2, Chicago, IL
1996         "Circus Simple." The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL
1995         "Installations at the Soap Factory." The Soap Factory, Minneapolis, MN
1995         "The Book Unbound." The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL
1994         "The Secret of Having a Velvet Lawn." Base Space, SAIC, Chicago, IL
1994         "The Family Plot." The Sculpture Courtyard, SAIC, Chicago, IL
1993         "Underbelly." Katherine E. Nash Gallery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
1992         "International Women's Symposium." Macalester College Art Gallery, St. Paul, MN
1992         "Women, Art, and Politics." University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
University of California at Santa Barbara
Stanford University, Stanford, California
Mandeville Special Collections Library, University of California at San Diego
University of Washington, Seattle
The Polly and Mark Addison Collection, Colorado University Art Museum
University of Utah, Salt Lake
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
University of Iowa, Iowa City
University of Wisconsin, Madison
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
The Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
John Hay Special Collections Library, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Harvard University Library, Boston, Massachusetts
Boston Athenaeum, Boston, Massachusetts
Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts
Lafayette College, Pennsylvania
State University of New York, Buffalo
The New York Public Library
Library of Congress, Washington DC
University of Delaware
Emory University Library, Atlanta, Georgia
University of Georgia, Athens
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada
University of Alberta, Canada
British Library, London, United Kingdom
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, France

FELLOWSHIPS AND HONORS

2009         The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation Residency
2007         New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry
2006         Camargo Foundation Fellowship, Cassis, France
2006         MacDowell Colony Residency Fellowship
2006         Creative Capital Grant in Innovative Writing Finalist
2005         Emily Dickinson Research, Mellon Research Stipend, Pratt Institute
2005         Houghton Library Special Collections, Mellon Travel Grant, Pratt Institute
2004         Centrum Arts Residency, Fort Warden State Park
2003         The Center for Book Arts, Fine Printing and Letterpress Workshop Fellowship
2000         Academy of American Poets, Edward M. Lannan Prize
1999         Colorado Fellowship, University of Denver
1996         Presidential Merit Scholar, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

PUBLICATIONS

Books

The Dickinson Composites. New York: Granary Books, forthcoming Fall 2010.
The Silver Book. Brooklyn: Ugly Duckling Presse chapbook, forthcoming Fall 2010.
The Desert. New York: Granary Books, 2008.
Nets. Brooklyn:Ugly Duckling Presse, 2004. Fifth Printing, 2010.
A Non- Breaking Space. Brooklyn: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2005.
The Red Box. New York: Represented by Granary Books, 2004.
Under What Is Not Under. Potes & Poets Press, 2000.

Selected Anthologies and Catalogues

I’ll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women, Laynie Browne, Caroline Bergvall & Vanessa Place, eds. Los Angeles: Les Figues Press (forthcoming 2011).
An Anthology of Conceptual Writing, Craig Dworkin and Kenneth Goldsmith, eds.
Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press (forthcoming 2010).
La Familia Americana: Antologia de Nueva Poesia de Estados Unidos, Carlos Pardo and Elizabeth Zuba, eds. Madrid, Spain: Antonio Machado Libros. (2010).
Threads: Interweaving Textu[r]al Meaning, New York, NY: Center for Book Arts (2009)
The Reality Street Book of Sonnets, Hilson, Jeff, editor. UK: Reality Street Editions (2008)
Less Is More: The Poetics of Erasure, exhibition catalogue, Simon Fraser University (2008)
Observable Anthology, Aaron, Belz, ed. St.Louis: Observable Books (2008)

Art Writing

Helen Mirra, Sky-Wreck. Art catalogue essays by Jen Bervin and Hamza Walker, fiction by Ben Marcus.
The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, 2002.

Interviews

"A Conversation with Jen Bervin and Nancy Kuhl" (Poetry Foundation, forthcoming)
Suzanne Pettypiece, "Beyond Words: Five Authors Who Practice Other Arts" in Poets & Writers Magazine (Jan/Feb 2010 Inspiration Issue)
Kareem Estefan, Jen Bervin on Ceptuetics archived on PennSound (2008)
Susan Brennan, Jen Bervin on Radio Poetique archived on PennSound (2004)
Ray Bianchi, "Poetic Profile: Jen Bervin," Chicago Postmodern Poetry (2004)
Cole Swensen, "Acts of Retrieval: Jen Bervin's Recombinant Poems" How2 (2000)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A Poet's Craft: The Making and Shaping of Poems, Annie Finch. (poem from Nets) 
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press (forthcoming)
Journal of Artists’ Books 26 "Review of The Desert by Jen Bervin" (Tate Shaw) (2010)
Notes on Conceptualisms, Rob Fitterman, Vanessa Place eds. Brooklyn: Ugly Duckling Presse (2009)
The Blue Notebook 4:1 (2009) "Reading in Installments: Book Art Meets Installation" (Elysa Voshell)
The New York Times (Nov 28, 2008) "Arty Subversives Storm the Museum" (Jorie Finkel)
The Believer 3:9 (November 2005). "The Lost Symphony" (Paul Collins)
American Letters and Commentary 26:2 (Jan/Feb 2005)
"The Sonnets of William Shakespeare" (Jocelyn Emerson)
Indiana Review (Summer 2005). The Collaboration and Collage Issue. (Jennifer Scaife)
Traffic Small Press Traffic Newsletter, 2005. (Jane Sprague)
Double Room 5 (Winter/Spring 2005). ""Roses no such roses":  Jen Bervin's Nets and the Sonnet Tradition from Shakespeare to the Postmoderns" (W. Scott Howard)
Aufgabe 4 (Fall 2004). "Nets by Jen Bervin" (Christine Hume)
Frontlist Books Seminary Coop Bookstore, University of Chicago (Summer 2004)
Rain Taxi 34 9:2 (Summer 2004). (Noah Eli Gordon)
The Village Voice (May 28, 2004). "The Connections" (Ed Park)
Jacket 25 (February 2004). "Phillip Metres reviews Nets by Jen Bervin" (Philip Metres)

EVENTS

Conferences

Juniper Literary Festival (Amherst, MA)
Panel: "Poetry and the Visual Arts." 2010
In(ter)ventions Conference, The Banff Centre (Alberta, Canada)
Panel: "Betwixt & Between – Collaboration & Cross-Disciplinary Literary Creation."
College Art Association Conference (Chicago, IL) 
Panel: "The Artist's Book as a Site for Interdisciplinary Work."
The Hybrid Book Conference, University of the Arts (Philadelphia, PA) 2009  
Panel: "Text and the Hybrid Book."
College Book Art Association: Art, Fact, and Artifact Conference (Iowa City, IA)
Panel: "The Margins of Marginalia"     
Society for Textual Scholarship Conference (New York, NY) 2007
Panel: "Pictured Text: Visual-Verbal Relations in the 19th Century."

Lectures

Visiting Lecturer, "Erasures," Sarah Lawrence College (Bronxville, NY) 2010
Chapman University, English Department (Orange, CA) 2009
Visiting Lecturer, "Dickinson's Manuscripts."
Occidental College, English Department, Fine Arts Department (Los Angeles, CA)
Visiting Lecturer, "Poïesis: all things rare/this huge rondure hems."
Seattle Center for Book Arts (Seattle, WA)
Visiting Lecturer, "Writing for the Artist Book."
Notes on Conceptualisms, The Kitchen (New York, NY) "Draft Notation."
Book Arts Guild, University of Washington (Seattle, WA)
Visiting Lecturer, "A Decade of Poetry/Artist Books."
Machine Project Gallery (Los Angeles, CA) "Pie: Theory and Practice." 2008
"Our Emily Dickinson: A 21st Century Response by Artists and Writers" with Susan Howe,
Jen Bervin, Eliot Weinberger, and Brenda Wineapple. Poet's House (New York, NY) 2007
University of Georgia (Athens, GA ) Printmaking, English Department BFA and MFA Program
Visiting Lecturer, " Working with Archives and Manuscripts."
L'École Polytechnique (Palaiseau, France) 2006
Visiting Lecturer, "Shakespeare's Sonnets: I am /vanishing or vanished/ in these black lines."
Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, NY) Writing Across the Curriculum, Fine Arts Faculty Workshop
Visiting Lecturer, "Interdisciplinary Collaborations."
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago Writing Program (Chicago, IL)
Visiting Lecturer, "The Dickinson Composites," The Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection.
University of Tulsa (Tulsa, OK), The Graduate Program in English and Creative Writing
Visiting Lecturer, "That Bright Becoming of Things."
Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, NY) Writing Across the Curriculum, Fine Arts Faculty Workshop
Visiting Lecturer, "Approaches to Teaching Poetry in Art, Architecture, and Design Classes." 2005
Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, NY) Writing Across the Curriculum, Fine Arts Faculty Workshop
Visiting Lecturer, "Writing in the Studios."
Pratt Institute, English Department, Creative Writing (Brooklyn, NY)
Visiting Lecturer, "Emily Dickinson: "immured in/ Heaven - what/ a Cell -"

Visiting Poet/ Guest Critic

Brown University (Providence, RI) Creative Writing Program,  "Writers on Writing," 2009
New York University (New York) Creative Writing Program, "Writers in New York"
Chapman University (Orange, CA) English Department, Visiting Poet
Occidental College (Los Angeles, CA) English Department, Visiting Poet
New York University (New York) Creative Writing Program, "Writers in New York" 2008
The Packer School (Brooklyn, NY) English Department, Visiting Poet
University of Georgia (Athens, GA) English Department, "Ruin/ Erosion/ Erasure" 2007
The New School (New York), Parsons Design + Technology MFA Thesis Review, Guest Critic
University of Tulsa (Tulsa, OK) English Department, Creative Writing, Visiting Poet, 2006
Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, NY) Painting and Drawing, Fine Arts Department, Guest Critic
Wells College (Aurora, NY) English Department, Visiting Poet, 2005
Wells College (Aurora, NY) Wells College Book Arts Center, Visiting Artist/Poet
Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, NY) Architecture Department, Guest Critic
Queens College, City University of New York, (Queens, NY) English Dept., Visiting Poet, 2004 

Selected Readings

The Museum of Arts and Design (New York), The Cue Art Foundation (New York), The Center for Book Arts (New York), KGB Reading Series (New York), Fusebox Festival (Austin), Segue Foundation Reading Series (New York), Double Change Reading Series (Paris, France), Links Hall Festival (Chicago), The Henry Art Gallery (Seattle), The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church (New York), The Wave Books Poetry Bus Tour (Phoenix; James Turrell's Roden Crater; Las Vegas; The Museum of Natural History and Machine Project in Los Angeles), Women Center Stage Festival (New York), and The Poetry Society of America (New York).