Main Building
Susan Barron's Labyrinth of Time is a unique, eleven-volume artist's book completed in 1987. Exhibited here for only the second time in this country, in an installation conceived by the artist, this book is a compilation of works by Barron made in different mediums over a fifteen-year period. Labyrinth of Time is made with meticulous hand craftsmanship in the tradition of the medieval illuminated manuscript. Intricately combined, complex imagery and words in many languages pave a labyrinthine path of the imagination through universal experiences of life and love and through concepts of time and death. Susan Barron was born in 1947 and grew up in Lake Forest, Illinois. After a childhood of musical training, she graduated from the University of Illinois in pre-medicine and completed advanced degrees in clinical diagnostic chemistry. In 1970 she abandoned long-held plans to become a physician and, for the next four pivotal years, lived and photographed in Europe. She has produced many unique and limited-edition books, including Another Song (with John Cage), Book of Sixtys, Between the Lions, Twisting Silence, No One Goes Crazy Alone, and Jamaica Mistake.