The Saint Louis Art Museum will present “Buzz Spector: Alterations,” a solo exhibition that spans more than 40 years of the artist’s works on paper. It opens Nov. 20 in Galleries 234 and 235.

Buzz Spector (born 1948) is a conceptual artist who explores the aesthetic possibilities of language, paper and books. A master at tearing paper, he brings a constructive energy to that otherwise destructive act. Sometimes he alters found books by methodically tearing their pages. At other times, he creates his own blocks of printed texts or images that he also transforms by tearing. Through this refashioning of printed materials, he poses questions about authorship, the history of art, and the written word.

Works on view in the exhibition will range from early drawings presaging his torn-paper process to altered books, postcard collages and Spector’s multifaceted exploration of the author and literature.

It will be on view through May 31.