On June 7th, Comfort Station will be hosting a special event with agnostic artist Sam Robertson who spent 7 years creating 257 illustrations inspired by the text of the King James Old Testament. He will give a presentation of the resulting 520-page hardcover book The Illustrated Old Testament (published with 11:11 Press.) Mike Oleon, one of the founders of Rough House theatre, will perform with a puppet seance in addition to the evenings line up.
Robertson intends to sell the book door to door, dressed as a Bible salesman from the 1970’s, recording his interactions with people in a performance art piece intended to be made into a podcast. He will present a snippet of that work in progress, show and discuss 25 paintings, and answer audience questions. He will have books and prints for sale and on sale at the event.
The dates and locations of each stop on the book tour are as follows:
Saturday June 4 (5pm) - Minneapolis, MN @ Hell above (27th St. and 27th ave)
Sunday June 5 (5pm) - Madison, WI @ Art Lit Lab (111 S. Livingston St. Suite 100)
Tuesday June 7 (8pm) - Chicago, IL @ Comfort Station (2579 N Milwaukee Ave)
Wednesday June 8 (6pm) - Buchanan MI (near S. Bend) @ Buchanan District Library (128 E. Front St)
Thursday June 9 (6pm) - Hamtramck, MI (near Detroit) @ Book Suey (10345 Joseph Campau Ave)
Friday June 10 (9pm) -Milwaukee, WI @ Company Brewing (735 E Center St.)
Saturday June 11 (6:30pm) - Eau Claire, WI @ Volume One Local Store (205 N Dewey St)
Pamela Espeland from MinnPost wrote: “[Robertson’s illustrations] crackle and buzz with color. At first they make no sense at all, but the more you look at them and read the accompanying text, the more convincing they become. Verily, no one has ever seen the Bible as Robertson does.”
Author Grant Maierhofer wrote: “Through working day jobs, through the birth of two children, Sam has endured what to me is one of the most arduous art projects I’ve ever heard about let alone been able to witness first hand. The end product is as captivating and funny, as brilliant and human as any second I’ve been lucky enough to spend with Sam Robertson. The new high water mark for what art can be, and what genius can be, is Robertson’s Illustrated Old Testament. Like Tehching Hsieh, Yoko Ono, or Chris Burden, what we’re left with is a document of the performance Sam Robertson put himself through daily in search of something new, and i feel lucky to live on the planet earth while his Old Testament exists”
