Set just northwest of Atlanta, Kennesaw State University’s Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art opened its 2026 season yesterday with an exhibition that asks a familiar material to carry unfamiliar weight.
“The Art of Paper: Selections of Handmade Paper Works from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation” brings together 66 works charting how handmade paper became central to artistic expression and innovation, starting in the early 1960s. Drawn from one of the world’s most significant collections of handmade paper art, the exhibition positions metro Atlanta as the starting point for a reassessment of the medium.
Its patron, Jordan D. Schnitzer, is one of the world’s foremost collectors of contemporary works on and of paper. His foundation holds more than 20,000 prints, editions, and handmade paper works by more than 1,500 artists. For this exhibition alone, curators selected from more than 1,000 handmade paper works spanning six decades.
That “The Art of Paper” opened at the Zuckerman Museum is closely tied to its curatorial team. Lead curator Brett Littman and co-curators Susan Gosin and Cynthia Nourse Thompson, Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Zuckerman Museum of Art, all share deep professional ties to Dieu Donné, the New York–based studio widely recognized as a pioneer in contemporary hand papermaking. The exhibition also marks Dieu Donné’s 50th anniversary. Thompson previously worked at Dieu Donné; Gosin founded it, and Littman served as its co-director. Together, those relationships ground the exhibition not just historically, but personally.
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The exhibition arrives at the Zuckerman at a moment when the history of handmade paper art remains surprisingly underdocumented. Despite decades of experimentation across disciplines, the show’s curators note that paper art has yet to be fully codified within contemporary art history, making this presentation as much corrective as celebratory.
Here’s what you should look for—and know—as you move through “The Art of Paper.”
Paper, reclaimed as material
The exhibition opens by asking viewers to set aside the idea of paper as a neutral surface. In early works by future art stars, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, paper acts less like a canvas and more as an artistic medium in its own right—thickened, textured, worked by hand. These early experiments establish the exhibition’s central premise: Handmade paper is a material capable of carrying conceptual ideas and formal ambition.
Pulp becomes form
As the galleries progress, paper is poured, pressed, dyed, and built. Works by Helen Frankenthaler, Frank Stella, and Chuck Close collapse distinctions between painting and sculpture. Gravity, saturation, and density become composition tools.
Fiber, thread, and the mark of the hand
In another turn of the show, paper absorbs textile traditions. Stitched, pierced, and layered works by artists such as Louise Bourgeois and Do Ho Suh connect paper’s relationship to labor and time. Thread becomes line; paper becomes skin. The result is work that feels intimate and carries visible traces of its creation.
Imitation with intent
Several works lean into mimesis—paper used to convincingly replicate other materials. Pieces by Ed Ruscha and Analia Saban transform handmade paper into items like rusted signage, fabric tags, and food packaging. The effect is quietly disorienting: disposable objects rendered permanent, their textures preserved in pulp. Paper doesn’t just depict the everyday here. It embodies it.
When paper leaves the wall
The exhibition closes by pushing paper fully into three dimensions. Sculptural works by artists such as Louise Nevelson, Sam Gilliam, and Mel Bochner treat paper as something to be built up, folded, and physically inhabited. Sheets cast shadows. Reliefs occupy space. Flat becomes form.
‘The Art of Paper’ is on view at the Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art at Kennesaw State University through May 9. It will travel next to the Asheville Art Museum, the Chazen Museum of Art, and the Parrish Art Museum through 2028.