AMERICAN PHILISOPHICAL SOCIETY MUSUEM: The Tract House: A Darwin Addition presents an evolutionary twist on classic religious tracts. Artist Lisa Anne Auerbach solicited tracts—manifestos, diatribes, stories, rants, and poems—written by the general public, friends, neighbors, artists, poets, and even a Nobel Prize winner in response to Darwin’s life and ideas. Auerbach and graphic designer Roman Jaster then created printed ephemera based on this writing. The resulting tracts feature the same off-beat illustrations, chaotic type styles and breathless urgency that are the hallmark of religious and 
political tracts without being kitschy or retro. She calls it a “spread-the-word” project. Auerbach worked with the APS Museum on this second iteration of her series The Tract House as part of Philagrafika 2010: Out of Print. It is inspired by our current exhibition, Dialogues with Darwin. The completed tracts will be displayed in a storefront at 231 N. Third Street, five blocks from the Museum. Visitors can peruse all 62 tracts and take what they wish, free of charge. Auberbach hopes that the tracts will “educate, activate, infuriate, explicate, obfuscate, and titillate.” Based in Los Angeles, Lisa Anne Auerbach is a photographer, a knitter, and a conceptual artist. She mixes art and politics in ways that are both highly personal and open to all. MORE
RELATED: The tracts were written by friends, neighbors, acquaintances, website visitors, and friends of friends. While most popular tracts are religious, The Tract House tracts can be nearly anything— manifestos, diatribes, stories, rants, poems, or lyrics. They can be about whatever the writer finds pressing, whether it be something personal, professional, political, domestic, local, or global. Gallery visitors were encouraged to peruse the many tracts and take home what they wish. It is hoped that the tracts will educate, activate, infuriate, obfuscate, titillate, inspire, upset, and irritate. The tracts can be treasured or passed on, crumpled in disgust or venerated, folded up and put through the laundry, or left on a car windshield. MORE